LibertyBell

it feels like we've been reliving the 80s the last few years

no, that pattern has come back in the last few years. fyi Delmarva/DC/etc also cashed in quite a few times in the 80s

It seems as though stronger el ninos are becoming more common but so are longer duration la ninas.

I would agree about the luck aspect of it except that 2015-16 followed the 1982-83 script to a tee, it just happened a few weeks earlier. In el ninos that strong a one hit wonder megablizzard might be all one should expect. Also note that in all high end strong to super el ninos, the highest snowfall amounts in those snowstorms are usually around the south shore of Long Island into JFK, thus was the case in 1982-83, 2003 (PD2), and 2015-16. And we had some near misses and 2 moderate hits in February too, if you'll remember, there was a snowstorm in February that caused a crane to fall in NYC and we had another moderate hit around the superbowl, something like 4-6 inches I think for each of those storms? JFK ended up with over 40 inches of snow and parts of Long Island were at around 50 inches of snow. Basically the eastern parts of the city were the western extent of the 4-6 inches in those February storms.

What's the difference between that and say, 1982-83 or 2015-16? The latter was even warmer than this one, the main difference being the warmest anomalies this time around are in MN.

Do you think this gets to the level of 2015-16 or 1982-83?

Maybe it'll match late November, that's what I'm looking to see. It hit 27 back then.

and this warm wet cold dry is an extremely stable and persistent and very familiar pattern from the 80s. I do think the change will be delayed, but not denied to something at least resembling winter, and that will happen on or after January 20th which is when it historically happens when winters start out mild.

There seems to be a built in inertia in our weather patterns the last few years. Sure, there will be a change to a colder regime but I wouldn't expect anything resembling what we want winter to be until on or after January 20th here. There is plenty of historic precedence for a turnaround around that date when winters start out mild.

second hand smoke may be even more deadly, and then we have NO2 pollution that happens as a result of vehicle exhaust. Diesel exhaust and fossil fuel exhaust from factories is particularly bad. Are you familiar with Cancer Alley in Louisiana where cancer rates are 86X higher -- activists have recently successfully prevented yet another deadly factory from being built there.

We should also look at the Alps, they've had very little snow for many years now, I've seen pictures that look like it's bare rock up there now and that also has major implications for their fresh water supply.

But for example, aren't places in southern Canada and the border near northern MN having their warmest December on record? The temps are in the 50s to around 60 there.

see my reasoning in my above post, this is not arctic air, it is merely the influence of cloud cover and rainfall. It's why I don't like talk of "average temperatures" without further context as to the source regions of where this air is actually coming from-- and it's not the arctic thats for sure lol

I'm not sure how much relevance warmer or cooler than average has when it's actually because of cloud cover, not arctic air. It can be cooler than average but still not cold enough to snow and especially so if the cool air is because of cloud cover and rain not because there is real arctic air present (which there isn't any-- just look to your source regions, they are burning hot!)

Didn't we have this in the 2006-07 winter too? I am using that as an example where while it didn't snow a lot (and it was during an el nino too) we did have that aforementioned 6-8 week period of cold, did that one occur later than this one is projected to? I remember December and January were both mild and the cold didn't make it here until just before the VD 2007 storm and stuck around long enough for the St Paddys Day 2007 storm, but I remember it was cold well into April too and we had the Tax Day 2007 noreaster in mid April. The first three weeks of April were colder than the first three weeks of January! It hit 70 in January but did not in April until the last week! Our total snowfall was just shy of a foot, but we got a ton of sleet. What was the lag period in 2006-07 between the SSW and the cold weather arriving? And that cold period lasted for 60 days?

Air Pollution shortens life by 2 years on average, more than tobacco smoking does. The one benefit of the pandemic was that the air and water became cleaner. In urban areas air pollution shortens life by up to 10 years, causes genetic mutations and asthma.

No it's better to stop using methane too (I refuse to use the inaccurate term "natural gas")-- it's dirty methane, pure and simple. In Oklahoma you all have earthquakes because of fracking, it's a major reason why we banned fracking here. Get to solar and wind and even nuclear and regardless of whatever side effects you have from dumping all fossil fuels, it needs to be done. It's the long term solution worth short term pain. Methane is a far more potent GHG than CO2 is-- regardless of how long it stays in the atmosphere

The corporate media is definitely a huge part of the problem. They never give it the coverage it deserves, but instead give negative coverage to protests.

The fear though comes from people not wanting change. We had a big fight here recently in which the pro windfarm people won and construction has begun on an offshore windfarm-- we are decades behind Europe on this and need to catch up The antiwindfarm people were making ridiculous arguments that windfarms kill whales and dolphins. But on social media, specifically X/Twitter, we are seeing the rise of a strong antiscience sentiment. There are even lists being made of past and current scientists whom these people think are masonic cultists. They say to not believe anything that Newton, Copernicus, Kepler or Einstein said and even that the earth is flat and we never went to the moon. I always thought this was a fringe movement, but it seems to be growing. A fascinating sociological study could be made of the degeneracy of current society.

It's like delaying chemotherapy until the absolute last moment because you're afraid of side effects. But not thinking about how much worse a quickly spreading cancer is.

this is why the whole idea of "averages" is unscientific, with both temperatures and precip (including snowfall), the climate is always changing so there is no such thing as average or normal.

trust me that was a lot better than both before and after when we didn't even get any 6" snow events lol

Look at the 80s when the winters were actually colder but we had less snow lol and we all know the 70s were colder, and yet still less snow.

the 92-93 through 95-96 period was great, it was before and after that were bad.

this is a tremendous point, and as Bluewave posted earlier, in Australia this is behaving more like a la nina, with the high rainfall totals in Queensland. We want something more akin to 2015-16.