East coast winter storms, also known as nor’easters, have a major impact on coastal communities in New York and actually cause more damage than hurricanes due to their frequency and duration. NYSG’s Coastal Processes Specialist Jay Tanski and Dr. Arthur DeGaetano, Director of NOAA’s Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) and professor at Cornell University, recently held a workshop introducing a new ECWS Web site for coastal emergency management personnel and managers.

The East Coast Winter Storm Climatological and Forecasting Data Web site, http://nywinterstorm.org,  housed at Cornell’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, provides seasonal forecasts, climatological data and real time data on winter storms that can be used by managers and other coastal audiences to better prepare for and respond to these events.

The Web site also allows users to compare a current storm with the most similar historic storm chosen from a database of 700 storms and provides the storm surges associated with that historic storm. NRCC forecasts indicate that ECWS activity this winter will be higher than normal in both number and strength of storms.