Regional Snowfall Index

Regional snowfall index (RSI) categories
Category RSI value Description
1 1–3 Notable
2 3–6 Significant
3 6–10 Major
4 10–18 Crippling
5 18.0+ Extreme

The regional snowfall index (RSI) is a system used by the NOAA to assess the societal impact of winter storms in the six easternmost regions of the United States. The system is a replacement for the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) system which the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) began using in 2005. The NCDC has retroactively assigned RSI values to over 500 historical storms since 1900.

The index makes use of population and regional differences to assess the impact of snowfall. For example, areas which receive very little snowfall on average may be more adversely affected than other regions, and so the index will grant storms in those regions higher severity.

See also

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 2/17/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.