CapturedNature

I don't know about other people my age but I think it helped me growing up with crappy winters. It was pretty much the norm with the exception of a few storms/years and so I've just come to take what I get. I've told the story before of how in the December 1992 blizzard I had 3" but literally a few miles down the road there was over a foot. I think some posters heads would explode if that happened to them today. It's just not mathematically possible to constantly have above normal years. At least we still have a few months left where chances could pop up...

Never said it was.

I blocked the guy and it makes reading a lot better. The only time I see his comments are when someone quotes them and I realize I'm not missing anything.

lol...that can make all the difference to the people in that 5 miles.

I only started keeping records in 1985 but the longest I've gone with rat/BN snowfall years was 4 straight so hopefully we are not two years into a stretch like that. Even then we'd squeak out a decent event/year every once and a while.

You'd have to ask them where they get the data but it must include the snow data because it contains points for it. Perhaps they use a nearby station? Who knows, you'd have to ask them. I just find it a useful comparison tool instead of subjective "this winter was better or worse than this winter" type comments. Then again apparently we are not in winter...lol

It's #3 for me, at least on my record. It would probably be #4 in my life beyond 2012, 2002 and 1980. I never want to repeat 2012 again. I lost so much money that year it took me years to recover. Not good yet many would wish us to go through that again....

Pig or no pig, it's still winter. Mild or not they are still winter months. I don't know how many times I and others can point out how crappy the weather has been been with the absence of long term cold and all the cutters but it's still happening this winter. That's the very reason that many are upset is because we're having all this crappy weather during winter. If this time period is not winter, why would people be upset by the lack of snowy, cold weather? And what else would you call it? This is why I brought up the WSI because it lets you empirically compare one winter to another and one site to another. Your numbers up in NNE are actually within an average percentile and mild down here.

Those are the worst. I have some push shovels that I use for those if it's not too deep but once you get more than a few inches you really need power.

Not sure how you can say that. Met winter is December, January and February regardless of the weather. What else would you call it? Sure it's a crappy winter but it's still winter. Also, despite that map, locations in NNE haven't done half bad snowfall wise either. I've mentioned this before but it's a tool that I really like because it lets you objectively compare one winter/location with another and that's the winter severity index. It takes temperatures, snowfall and snow depth and length of season into account. It starts the first day and ends the last day of measurable snow or a daily max temp of 32 or less. It assigns points for max temps, min temps, snowfall and snow depth. You add them up and get the total number of points for a winter and then you can look at the percentile that the winter lines up and determine empirically if it was a mild, average or extreme winter for that location. What's cool about that is that you can compare one location to another, not on points but on percentile of the total. Take a look at this map and you can see how different locations are lining up. It also explains the data a little more. https://mrcc.illinois.edu/research/awssi/indexAwssi.jsp Bottom line, you can't assess the complete winter until all the data is in and then it's not based on just one data point. Even if it's the mildest winter, it's still a winter. FWIW, I'm currently at 377 points, well within the mild category and #32 out of 35.

We had some bad winters growing up but some reason that 1980 season sticks out to me. I just remember how dry it was and the lack of snow didn't help. I didn't know any better though. I remember stories before the Olympics in Lake Placid how they were trucking snow in but then it started snowing up there just in time. I think BDL wound up with less than 10" of snow that year? Perhaps living through all that is why I'm just a take what you get when you get it kind of guy.

There's a third option and that's just keep moving forward and take whatever weather comes. Sometime in April/May you look back and sum up the winter with empirical data and close the books. Until then winter weather still happens. There isn't a single poster on here (except for perhaps the passive aggressive ones) who is fooling themselves. We're all just looking to see what the weather will be like in the future. If there's nothing to see, there's nothing to see. I get that there is nothing big to track but it's silly to think that you're not going to look at any guidance from now on. If that's true, anyone who says it's a waste of time to look at anything has no right in posting opinions about upcoming weather because they have publicly stated that they are "not wasting any time on looking at guidance". The fact that people continue to post just shows what a lie it is to say that.

That's awesome! I love events like that. It's such a boost to the psyche when you get bonus snow!!

Really? I'm surprised. Well, he did say that it won't snow again so I guess it's true for him. It's also March there because he uses a different calendar. It's still February in Stafford.

Even in the NE Hills the ground was whitened. Not as much, but as I passed over the 1000' level in Stafford it was solid white. Big difference between 800' and 900' I barely had a trace my elevation but saw the difference with elevation. I wish I had time to go over to 1200' in Union.

It's still winter whether it snows or not till 3/1. Temp wise it's not like it's going to be 70 every day. Looks seasonable to me:

How can winter be done when met winter doesn't end until 3/1? Is it suddenly 3/1?

Deep winter up there...so close and yet so far for us. Having snow pack helps the maple season and this cold is helping producers down here.

I don't understand the concept of tossing a storm/pattern at the 384hr yet we're supposed to take it verbatim in that time frame when it looks like crap? I agree with waiting till it's inside a more reasonable range. What that is this winter is anyone's guess. I'll take a wager that we're not done with snow. I do think that later this month and March can produce. Met winter ends on 3/1 and then it's on to Spring. It still snows in Spring but until 3/1 winter is not over over.

Yep...I know I'm going against time.

Yeah and I should have tapped a couple of weeks ago. Most large producers start tapping in January because they have so many to tap and modern technology allows the tap hole to last longer than it ever did so it's not like you have to tap at a certain time. I wish I was ready earlier and could have but as it is I'm tapping now. Hopefully things hold out.

I've taken various trips to the North Maine Woods. One of them in the 90s I naively thought we could just cross into Canada and that it wasn't just for commercial traffic on those remote logging roads. After a week of camping we crossed at St Pamphile I believe and following the signs we stopped on the U.S. side and found out that we were not supposed to cross. We had hotel reservations in Quebec and it was the afternoon so after some back and forth the lady said something like she couldn't stop us. We took that as a hint and went to Canadian customs to see what they would say and after getting the third degree and our car FULLY searched they let us through. It's amazing driving out of the forest and into the farmland as you say. I imagine that most of New England looked that 150 years ago. In September we went to Escourt Station (via Canada) and it was neat to visit the northern tip of New England like that.

We went up there in September and it's an awesome place. The higher elevations south of Sanguenay are the southern reaches of the Taiga forest. North of that it's the treeline. It's amazing seeing miles and miles of conifer trees. That corridor sees so much snow too. I always look at the NOHRSC map and it has some of the deepest snow in the east. Throw in a couple of Canadian National Parks and it's a unique place to visit not too far from many of us. If it weren't for my maple business, I'd go up there some spring when they are have 80-100" of snow on the ground (not this year!). I've also drove north to Labrador in the 90s and it was amazing. You could tell the trees were stunted versions of themselves. There's also a road that goes to James Bay (the southern part of Hudson Bay) and the Trans Taiga Road which at the end is the remotest place you can drive to in North America. I think it's the furthest you can get from a town in North America. Remote is just a relative term...

That's a pretty bold claim considering the age of the planet. How about "on record"? There's an index called the Winter Severity Index which factors in temperatures, snowfall, snow depth etc. What's nice about it is that you can compare one stations "severity" vs. another and previous years. This year for me is already ahead of 2002's 250 points with 353 points and it's only the end of January. 1991 is next at 363 points. I only need 521 points to break out of the top 10. You can see how stations are doing here: https://mrcc.illinois.edu/research/awssi/indexAwssi.jsp

I was born in late '68 so I really didn't know any other kind of winter. Half the reason I wanted to go to Lyndon was to experience a "real" winter..lol. We live in a "cancel" culture these days and it's funny how people just want to say that word as if these months don't exist or acknowledge that it's just a different type of winter. I'm just seeing what will come for the rest of the season and hope that I can eek out a decent maple season. As it is I should have probably tapped by now...