40/70 Benchmark

Maybe strong, but I don't see a "super" event.

I really don't see the relevance of the modoki index 9 months before winter...again, last season was east based heading into December...you just saw raindance post that these currents operate on conveyor belts at 3 months lead. Thus your information, while factual, is largely irrelevant within the context of winter '23-'24 dialogue. Maybe it will end up being east based, but it won't be because its east based now.

In what year was the previous record, 1969?

Yep...his auto excuse of la nina is gone, so he will scrambling in the off season to cut off all avenues of hope lol

Put the early over/under on an inch of slush for Methuen...

Yea, I think we're done...but I'm taking some time off from weather. El nino composites can wait until the summer.

I was wrong about that myself. What had you favoring a modiki event?

I would have thought it would have been reversed, ie colder later, since modoki el nino is a colder configuration for the east. Intersting.

I'm not worried about it right now. Hell, this year's la nina was east based until like December...how did that work out-

Even I was a shade above normal for snowfall in January.

This is what have started to incorporate this past fall.

Yep. I think its also stronger if October is cool and November flips.

I think I am guilty of the first, but not the second.

I think I apply that in seasonal forecasting.....its about assessing current conditions, ad nauseum...but I know what you mean haha

BTW, this was @raindancewxIMO....go back read his. Nailed it.

Totally get it. Wasn't meant as a criticism at all.

TBH, I think January being +8 is what sunk my forecast...you replace that with even pedestrian warmth, and most of region hits my forecast seasonal amounts.

100% this. Nice job with pattern recognition this year.

Well, I don't think the fact that winter was very mild was just bad luck....but do think the fable about November warmth holding up was luck.

He certainly seemed to be correctly on the mild train, but its difficult to really assess when there was never a formal outlook published.

It was clear to me this month wasn't going to be as cold as March 2018 because the PV is on the other side of the globe again, but I did think that we'd do better with respect to snow than we have. Just couldn't catch a break.

Yea, 40.5".

I feel like the part of the year that I really fell on my face was January. The very active storm track worked out, but it was just sooooo mild that the big snows only worked out for NNE. I had it near normal temps. I have some idea as to why. I will do the assessment in May, but I feel like that is the one month that I really missed.

Decent Forecast for Very Difficult & Protracted Major Winter Storm Here is the Eastern Mass Weather Final Call forecast map for the major, long duration winter storm that concluded early yesterday morning. Here is what actually verified in terms of snowfall across the southern New England Region. While the forecast did in exemplary job identifying the areas where 30" or more of snow would fall, the gradient was too broad on the southern and eastern portions of the heavy snowfall area, over south central and eastern Mass. Obviously this is not ideal because this is the most densely populated area of the region. There are two reasons for this forecasting error: 1) The forecast failed to convey the extent to which the warm protrusion at roughly the 925mb level, caused by the dying primary surface low over Connecticut, would limit snowfall at lower elevations over southern Worcester county. This resulted in an obscene snowfall gradient over the city of Worcester to the degree that lower elevations on the southern side of the city say just a few inches, while just a 3-4 miles to the north and a few hundred feet higher up accumulated over 2 feet of snow. Where as the gradient of forecast ranges employed in this area was from 6-12" to 15-25". This at least partially explained by the second reason for the forecasting error. 2) The reason that snowfall was significant less than anticipated across the eastern portions of the area is not due to thermal fields, as this was well predicted. In fact, precipitation actually transitioned to snowfall slightly earlier than forecast on Tuesday AM. The reason that the forecast called for several more inches of snow than actually fell across the densely populated eastern areas, which includes the Boston area, is because there simply wasn't as much precipitation pivoting around the backside of the circulation of the developing coastal storm as forecast just one day prior, which is when the final call was made. Here is the QPF forecast from the 00z Monday European guidance for the early afternoon on Tuesday into Tuesday evening , at which point precipitation had already transitioned to snowfall across most of eastern Mass. 00z Monday European 6hr QPF valid 00z Wednesday Note that it implies up to an inch of additional precipitation, which would have resulted in at least several inches of snowfall. However, here is the forecast from Tuesday afternoon from that very same model. Now you see a great deal of QPF... 12z Tuesday European 6hr QPF valid 00z Wednesday Now you don't. All of a sudden over the span of the 24 hours after the forecast was issued, .3" of QPF is expected to fall as snow on Tuesday afternoon over eastern areas, as opposed to an inch. This is essentially why the southern half of the 12-20" forecast range verified as 5-10", and why the several inches of snowfall forecast for the Boston area and southeastern Mass verified as more like 1-3" Thus the contingent of meteorologists and hobbyists alike that are claiming validation for the belief that it wasn't cold enough for significant snowfall in these regions are either incorrect and/or disingenuous. The fact of that matter is that it was marginally cold enough, but the precipitation was more banded and less organized because the primary mid level system was slower to transfer energy to the coast than forecast just one day earlier. FINAL GRADE: B-

Yea...I think its over for most of us.