All Activity

Yeh guys keep talking about cold…I really see a lot of up and down

The most obvious ones are the most recent: 2016-17 and 2022-23. In case you forgot, here's what happened the last time a dissipating la nina led into an el nino:

14.9 Northwest Cecil County

There is a desire, for us winter folks, to have this time of year be like winter. I don't rule anything out (I am just in awe of what you guys know and share) because half the time I'm using AI to decipher your posts. However, I'll just say it. A white Christmas is always nice.

As unlikely as it is, if the Ravens win out, would they win the tiebreaker over the Steelers?

Yeah, that was a crazy period. Chicago was 69F on 12/28/1984, then a few weeks later it hit -27F on 1/20/1985 during one of the greatest arctic outbreaks in modern history.

During that AH period in 1984, we were cold a few days after it formed, had a light snow event, highs in the 20s and single digit lows. Then the rest of December except for a couple of days, was very warm. We were in the 70s a week after the single digits and back in the 70s a few days after Christmas, with plenty of 60s in between. That continued into early January and the AH finally started breaking down and it flipped cold, then it flipped exceptionally cold.

pretty large urban/rural splits now with no wind. 27F here and rising.

Well, as of Dec 13th, the MJO still hasn’t returned to phase 8! It was in 8 only Dec 3rd-7th. Dec 8th-13th have all been in very weak (essentially neutral) phases 5-7. I still think it has a good chance to get back into 8 very soon, but we’ll see:

that's true - there were easily 4 or 5 games last season that could've gone the other way. But the blow outs this year, just total lack of defense. All the mistakes. Hopefully they can sort it out, because outside of the Caps and the Spirit, DC sports is struggling right now.

I didn't start keeping records until 1979, but 12/89 was awesome here. -10.8 and 17.1 inches of snow with 25 days of snow OTG!

Unfortunately they are notoriously hard to discharge. On average, they persist for 33 days in winter, but can go longer. About 60 percent of the time they lead to a split or displacement of the Polar Vortex, and over 95 percent of the time an early AH saw the PV disturbed later in the season. A paper I read about them noted that there could be a connection to extreme weather after they break down. They used December '84 as an example. One formed on December 3rd, the PV was disturbed on December 30th, and the AH dissolved on January 4th 1985.

Ha, need fewer injuries, new plays teams don’t have on video to study Daniels, a slightly easier schedule, better defense, healthy star qb. Last year was a bit fluke-ish with a lot of luck for some of those wins.

I've been trying to think about what is "going wrong" with such a prolific -WPO to be talking about record warmth down my way. Do you know if a -WPO is typically good for the southern Plains? Is it perhaps atypical to have a -WPO paired with a -PNA or is that typical? I know when I look at the current pattern it seems reasonable to have a west coast trough downstream of that high but maybe sometimes ridging extends further southeast? Mostly just trying to build my understanding for this index.

13 IMBY picked up a dusting earlier from passing snow showers.

I’ve cleared so after being steady at 25.5 for hours I’m down to 24

Actually not the -QBO years with anykind of early strat warming. JAN is the coldest in that analog package. Will not be this year but just saying.

I know, but the result of that catastrophe is tattooed inside my eyelids.

High was only 35 today. Already down to 21. Looks like another possible night in the teens. Amazing for mid December.

16.2/11.7 at 10:30, still a slow drop.

The local mountains keep picking up a few inches of powder each day, so my older son and I headed up to Bolton Valley for a tour yesterday. We headed up to Bryant Cabin and did a slightly longer tour than the one I did on Saturday with my colleague who was visiting for work. There’s not much to add with respect to describing the fantastic conditions, since Mother Nature keeps the snow refills coming, that just about cancels out the settling of the powder, and the powder skiing stays great. Indeed, powder depths continue to top out around 30 inches in the 2,000-2,700’ range, and the main problem certainly isn’t in finding deep, dry, untracked powder, the bigger issue is often finding steep enough pitches to support the depth of all that snow.

The 12/13/25 WPO of -3.48 is the most negative WPO on any day in December since 12/25/1996! The only Decembers since 1948 with at least one day lower than -3.48 are: 1996, 1989, 1983, 1977, 1966, 1955

All good, and I definitely hear you. Speaking for myself (and possibly many others on the board), I don’t think people are saying that winter is over. People are just sad that winter is taking a break. For those who love winter like myself, we want it to look and feel like winter throughout DJF. Most people like warm weather, and I don’t mind it either…and that’s fine during the other 9 months of the year. I just want DJF to be sacred, especially December due to the short days and holidays…and mild temps during these months (even for a day or two) are annoying to me. I always say it’s more about the look and feel and tenor of the season, as opposed to just chasing a big storm. In some ways, it’s analogous to being a sports fan. You want your team to win every game, even though it’s not realistic. When you love something, emotion is more meaningful than logic. And I definitely get the logic piece, since I have a met degree. My career ended up going in a different direction, but it’s still one of my favorite hobbies, mainly driven by the beauty of winter.

It wants to snow. Another little wave moving through this evening. Persistent -SN.

That 2020 scenario was born out of a completely different synopsis.