World record? 100 inches of snow may have clobbered Italy in 18 hours, review pending

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World record? 100 inches of snow may have clobbered Italy in 18 hours, review pending

The Italian weather Website MeteoWeb reports that Capracotta, Italy saw 100.8 inches of snow in just 18 hours on Thursday, March 5 — a total that, if verified, would set a new world record for snowfall in a 24-hour period.

However, the reports from Capracotta as this time are not official.

An investigation of the measurement by the World Meteorological Organization would need to be conducted in order for this to go down in the “official” record books, but the WMO does not currently track snowfall for any location. According to Randall Cerveny, WMO’s chief rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, this is because accurate snowfall measurements are fairly limited, and have been “markedly difficult” to verify.

But there is hope for an investigation of the Italy total. “The WMO is currently evaluating the addition of world snowfall extremes as a new category for the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes,” said Cerveny. “We will likely be adding it to the Archive in the near future. When we do so, we certainly will be investigating this interesting report from Italy as a possible record snowfall extreme.”

Snowfall records are notoriously difficult to pin down. Official snowfall measurements in the U.S. involve the use of a “snowboard” — typically just a 16 by 16 inch piece of plywood painted white — which is cleared at the time of each measurement. But even if you use the correct tools, you can still mess up a snow total. “Even making snowfall measurements too often can affect the total snowfall value as snow compression is a critical factor in snowfall measurement,” says Cerveny…..more here

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