All Activity

I'm not one to argue that climate change isn't having an impact. On the contrary, I believe the regional climate has warmed so significantly that its effects have clearly bled into observable weather statistics. But just to play devil's advocate regarding Saranac Lake this year... anecdotally it has been a windy, cloudy November up there. The coldest airmasses have not been accompanied by calm, dry conditions. I suspect that somewhat unfavorable conditions for radiational cooling in the Adirondacks thus far this fall are superimposed on a relatively warm background.

My climo is 4 inches between now and mid Dec so expectations are really low. Give me a solid cover and cold

If you look closely..the crows turn into pigeons as they fly up and away…Hilarious.

Lol. LFG

Hey Anthony, What’s wrong from my perspective? prevailing SE ridge/-PNA. The MJO is then forecasted by GEFS to be strong near phase 6/7 border, which is typically mild in the E US. Strong phase 7s have usually been mild in the E US. A big key will be whether or not it eventually makes it to phase 8 like the extended EPS has been showing. There’s been only ONE 3+ day Dec MJO period the last 15 Decembers!

No disagreement there. My number one overall concern is just regarding the flow...it just remains overly strong and as long as that continues we're just going to have to really rely on threading the needle alot more and end up dealing with more "near misses" than not.

At least we can make AI maps this winter that show heavy snow inside of day 7.

When I isolated all our December snowfalls and looked at what factors seemed to be most common by far the PNA and EPO had to be favorable. With the caveat that the AO is still the most common indicator. But that is universal across every possible pattern and time of year. If the AO is positive it's just hard for the jet stream to be suppressed enough to get a system to stay under us. But in terms of the pacific (EPO/PNA) v atlantic (NAO) the pacific was definitely more important. Not necessarily both but it was almost unheard of to get a snowfall early in the season if both the EPO and PNA were unfavorable. Having the NAO also certainly helps...but the NAO alone without any help from the PNA/EPO doesn't do us much good in December.

Steve is dangerous now. I wish we could go back to the days when he had shitty phone pics

Winds still at 38-40 mph Edit: a gust to 49 just now. It’s just as windy as yesterday

Can somebody build a giant wall a thousand feet tall?

That is so good lol

We don't need minus 25 850s . Climo says the upper Midwest gets bitterly cold. All we need is BN, some moisture and the right path. Watch as each run gets colder as we get closer to the end of the month. Movie seen.

What was the approximate snowfall totals downtown/on the lakeshore? I know it had to be more than ORD.

lolol

December is looking good. The cold did not go poof, it just delayed a bit. As for the cutter going poof. I have a outdoor event Friday so im happy, I did not want rain. But I hope it's not a sign of things to come for winter.

grok_video_2025-11-17-09-39-36.mp4

It was surprisingly good for so far out, although the snow band in southern MI needed to be more south/east and into NW OH.

Another way we scored some snow (and let me emphasize "SOME", we're talking 1-3 or 2-4 type events here usually) during that pattern was with a follow up wave timed up right behind a cold front. The cold to our NW can press east behind a lakes cutter but it's not going to last...but if you get a strung out boundary with multiple waves we can get clipped with one.

BTW w/regards to the US and renewable - we have in fact been trending strongly on that recently. This year about 3/4 of our new generation capacity was solar. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-installed-nearly-26-gw-of-new-generating-capacity-from-january-to-august/804848/ As it has for most of the past two years, solar continued to dominate new generation resources, accounting for 2.7 GW out of 4 GW brought online in August alone, and 19 GW — about three-quarters — of generation capacity additions this year. (Not sure if that capacity is peak or average; average on solar is of course a fraction of peak) There's a new field being done near me (at Dulles airport). Unfortunately these things take tons of space - this will be about 100 MW peak on 835 acres. By comparison there's a 774 MW natural gas plant down the road on 100 acres. So it takes about 200x the land area per unit of energy. If we can find the space great - just please don't use areas that otherwise could be forests. (not sure about this area since it's airport property)

I always thought the bias of the models mishandling of EPO at times had a greater impact regarding the dump of cold air just east of the Rockies. A -EPO is great in the sense that it delivers the Arctic air into the lower 48's but we also need a few other things align to get that to propagate east (without moderating). The overall structure of things seem like any colder shots here would be brief (though we probably still end up a bit below average).

You asked you receive

Great day on Saturday up in Pisgah ! Great weather . This was off pilot Mountain at about 8:45 am. .

Did you break any clubs? Or better yet throw them so they sound like a helicopter?

Oh man Steve found the AI. Maybe he can make a vid of a snowstorm in Weymouth again. Although it may get confused and give Scoot 5 legs.