Snowfall Variability and Change in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, 1910-2017
Eck MA and Perry LB. 2017. Snowfall Variability and Change in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, 1910-2017. Pages 12 pages. In 74th Eastern Snow Conference. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT: Climate variability, trends, and associated relationships with global and hemispheric teleconnection patterns in mountainous regions remain poorly understood. Previously identified as an anomalous region with respect to climate change, the southern Appalachian Mountains provide a unique opportunity for analyzing long-term trends and variability in the winter season alongside known large-scale patterns. This paper investigates trends in climatological winter snowfall and analyzes relationships with global and hemispheric teleconnection patterns between 1910 and 2017. Results reveal that the southern Appalachian Mountains have experienced high intraregional variability of trends in snowfall. Statistically significant (α < 0.05) relationships were found with snowfall relative to phases of the AO, ENSO, NAO, and PDO. The negative phases of the AO and NAO, the warm phase of the PDO, and El Niño patterns favor positive snowfall anomalies throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains. However, the strength of the relationships between each of these global/hemispheric patterns is spatially diverse with variability of snowfall in the western reaches and high elevations being highly dependent on the phase of the AO and NAO. However, eastward facing slopes and foothill locations see ENSO as a dominant force for snowfall. The analysis of these large-scale patterns reveals favorable scenarios for anomalous snowfall to occur in the region.
- Type
- Conference Proceeding Paper
- Authors
- Eck, Montana; Perry, L
- Units
- BLRI , GRSM
- Keywords
- APHN, Appalachian Highlands Network, BLRI, Blue Ridge Parkway, Climate Variability, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, GRSM, meteorology, North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, precipitation, SER, Snowfall, Southeast Region, Southern Appalachian Mountains, weather