During January 1998, a week-long ice storm affected a large portion of northern New York and New England and portions of southern Quebec. In this paper we will assess this storm’s impacts particularly as they relate to electric utilities and agriculture in New York State. At the height of the storm more than 300,000 electric customers were without power. This loss of power impacted the state’s dairy industry, where losses to cattle and milk production were widespread. The accumulation of ice also directly affected New York’s maple syrup industry, where damage to trees and sap lines resulted in a significant reduction in syrup production.
In addition to discussing the impacts, the severity of this storm will be compared with other Northeast ice storms using a variety of climatological measures. Using historical hourly observations, the storm will be characterized by total hours during which freezing rain was reported, total precipitation during hours reporting freezing rain, and maximum wind speed during freezing rain. These measures will allow the storm to be compared to other post-1948 icing events in the region. Since these measures limit the climatology to first-order weather stations, a measure of ice storm severity using Cooperative Network data will also be developed. Such a measure based on the 1998 storm, will include maximum and minimum temperatures between -1 and 0 C, the occurrence of precipitation, and either no snowfall or relatively high snow density (i.e. > 0.1)