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I continue to poo-poo the value of a -NAO in the first half of Dec; it's useless without antecedent cold to block in. Well maybe not useless, but certainly much less useful. That said, I think Chuck's point that it would be nice to see the +NAO base state change is exactly right, and so far, no evidence of seeing that happen.

Bummer - in Fort Collins area looks like we will get nothing out of this 'storm' . Still waiting for first flakes (or just something besides wind - get plenty of that). The record for latest first snow here is Dec. 13. The way things are going will probably break that. Might as well - we've broken just about every other record for heat/dryness in the last decade.

CON has historically been a hole, but they trounce DTW in avg depth.

March 2018 has 8.4 inches at the park, 9.6 inches at LGA and 8.7 inches at JFK in a single event. I'm sure there are a couple other events that came close? 10 inch cutoff is arbitrary, nothing special about it. The cutoff could have easily been 8 inches or even 12.

it's wild that in 55 years, Detroit has never had a pack 10" or greater after 3/14. I know that area sucks for snow but wowzers

The RMM charts are only providing part of the picture. They are following the convection to the east of the Dateline. But we still have convection lingering near the Maritime Continent into early December. So it’s more of a split forcing pattern rather than a canonical MJO driven pattern.

Excellent. I will be at the Pats/Giants game that night. Traffic should be smooth around the stadium.

I went back to 1970 and calculated the amount of years Detroit had a 10”+ pack on each calendar day. They don’t frequently see a 10”+ pack, but it did warm my heart to see a spike the week before Christmas.

We are traveling to Rutgers that day for our annual Penn State road trip, so this is the rare occasion where I’m rooting against it. But also, deep down, there’s a part of me that still wants to see it happen and the hell with our travel plans haha.

Great post @donsutherland1. I, for one, am looking forward to shoveling inches and inches of pattern. Back to lurking for me...

Nearly a guidance is going more amped through 7 & then moving into 8 now. Canadian output is the lone exception

While the temps may be trending warmer, the winters have also been trending snowier and stormier for you all who are along/north of I-80. IMO, that's a good trade off.

Yep. It was a frustrating Month. Overall cold but precip almost all fell in the warmups. High of Zero on Christmas for coldest on Record. Not a flake of Snow !

Same here in Garwood NJ, Central Union County

If pattern changes are almost built in rushed in guidance then why not develop a system that does not do that? Over last couple winters we’ve seen gigantic failure anywhere from 36 hours to 15 days out. Very few if any positive such surprises .

Alaska November seen the sun like one day

Yes. Since 2020, Pittsburgh has had 7 such days while New York City has had 6. Temperatures have not warmed so sharply and abruptly that such storms are precluded. I suspect that this winter will see at least one such day in both cities.

I'm not sure it's possible to get hard data on it, but I know @michsnowfreak has expressed the same feeling on multiple occasions.

it feels like that but i'd like to see some data and i'm too lazy/not interested enough to look myself

Today is tracking to be maybe my coldest daytime high of the season so far, sitting at 47.3

Hmmm. Timely article I just read adds another data point...... https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/19/weather/polar-vortex-cold-snowy-december-stratosphere

I am an outstanding forecaster as the same areas continue to get drowned by heavy rain and Austin remains drier than a proverbial popcorn fart. That Curl Pattern always leaves Austin out to dry. At this time I expect approximately one sixteenth of an inch as the front goes by eventually. Farther west torrential rain continues, provoking more flooding.

It would be really nice to avoid the default holiday screamer this season, we can hope.

Sometimes it’s hard to resist the temptation and You can’t help yourself .. from falling….

I think you threw one of those lyrics out there last week too and I waited for one of the locals to respond but I believed it was crickets on that so I went all in this time...I like living on the edge...