CapturedNature

For me at this point I just let the weather be. No reason to rush Spring. If it snows, it snows. If it rains, it rains. If it's sunny and 60, then that's what it is.

I agree that there's no reason not to enjoy a snowfall in March but it's way to early to make a claim like that.

That's true. What if the entire period was used (1880-2019)? Wouldn't the departure be relative to the overall normal for the site? Wouldn't that allow for longer term dry/wet or warm/cool periods to be smoothed out? I'm just thinking if you have a decades long period of anomalous weather, it's a third of your "normal" period and wouldn't it throw off the record when things aren't as anomalous?

I just decided to keep going. I agree that 30 years is too short a period and since it's for my own records, I'll just do it the way that works for me. I like being able to look a month's worth of data and determine just how far off the long term record it really was. I'm only 50 so I'll probably get to a point where my departures will stand out because the record by the time I'm 85 will be almost 70 years.

It all has to do with perception. The cold in the Midwest was all over the news and we did have a couple of 1-2 day cold waves that were colder than normal. I know there were a ton of record low maxes on a few days. I think people think of those days and just think the whole winter has been like that. They forget the breaks in between.

Speaking of normals, do they adjust departures from normal in previous years after they adjust what "normal" is? Or is that only valid for the 10 year period until a new set of normals are released? I started keeping records in 1985 and when I entered the data into Excel in the early 90s I was able to much more easily calculate what my normals were and after 2015 I had a set of 30 years of data. Every year I recalculate them and it automatically adjusts the departures based on that but I don't think that's how the NCDC does it.

Surprised that you bottomed out at 20. I managed to get to to 16°. This is good sugaring weather!

lol...you can still see patches of snow on the upper part of the southern facing slope. Speaking of depths, I was noting this morning that the Staffordville guy was only reporting 3" on the ground. He's got one of those southern exposure yards and it's just unrepresentative of the area. I had 8" this morning so it's at least 2-3x what he's reporting. They'll be snow in the area weeks after he reports it as all being gone.

lol...great. Now I got that song stuck in my head!

Next week looks like good sap weather, at least in SNE. Everything has been pretty much frozen for the past couple of weeks save for a couple of runs. It's good when it doesn't get too warm to quickly!

-2° here this morning. Record was -8 in 2003. Probably my last sub-zero reading till next year but I've had them in mid-late March so we'll have to see if the real cold after next week materializes and delivers.

That's interesting. My wife is from Peoria and it's not uncommon to find a home on a slab there. I also have a brother that lived in Idaho and Oregon and both his homes were on slabs. I about that when we were looking at options for building and they could do it, but I was told that the cost savings was only about $5-15,000 because they still had to dig down for the footings.

It looked like that and better in 2008. I remember the snow piles in peoples front yards were up to their second floor roofs. Many places along the roads were 6-10' banks. That was in April...after several weeks of melting.

I vote snow. Any snow that does fall melts pretty quickly and it's good for us maple sugarers. They'll be plenty of time for things to grow...everything in it's time.

I averaged 10.2". I was honestly expecting a couple inches less so it's nice to have a positive bust and a double digit storm. Congrats to the folks out east!

I was looking through some footage from one of my game cameras and I had a clip from earlier in the week with all the wind that I just had to share. I know we're always posting pictures of fallen over chairs in the wind but check this out: lol

2.1" here. Thankfully all powder...no ice like past systems!

2.1" here. 30.8" season to date.

I need 1.3" to break 30" lol That should do it...

Same here...while others are toting peaks of sun we've started with a nice solid coating with more to come. Better than nothing IMHO

Lots of valley locations were hit pretty hard around here, not just hill tops.

Or east. 1" in Stafford...

Pardon the pun but break it up. It's not all going to come up at once so put down some ice melt today and chop a little this afternoon around the edges or loose parts and put down some more ice melt. Chop some more tomorrow morning and expand on what you loosened today. Put down some more ice melt and repeat on Thursday. It should come up pretty easily.

About the same here. I cleared the lighter stuff yesterday off my driveway and had about 4". After that there was about 1" of sleet and then freezing rain leaving me with about 3" this morning. That stuff should have some staying power!

I agree. Just to add, you'll need a good amount and let it work the next couple of days. Each day go out and chop around the edges and another layer on the remaining ice. I made the mistake once of letting too much ice build up on my driveway and now I put down a preventive layer if we are expecting ice or to get rid of any remaining snow. It makes clean up that much easier because the bottom layer is all melted it makes it harder for the ice to "stick".