LibertyBell

Wouldn't it be hilarious if the reason they flipped warmer is the same reason they flipped on the snowstorm? Maybe IF the snowstorm had happened we would have THEN had the sustained cold pattern, but WITHOUT the snowstorm we will get a New Years torch instead!

wow that actually could have been an analog for this season since it was a third year la nina too. We still have time before the end of the month to make it happen ;-)

Wow I wish I could have experienced that! Are there any local snowfall totals from the area? Even if the totals aren't spectacular, it sounds like a very exciting event with all sorts of heavy precip culminating in a short duration heavy snowstorm/blizzard! It kind of seems like to me like a better version of March 2005-- remember that-- started as rain, temperatures crashed and it changed over to heavy snow. Another one which was like that (actually two) were the latter events in February 2010. Both started out as rain and changed to heavy snow, one changed right in the middle of the day and the other one later in the afternoon. Both gave us a foot of snow after we had had an inch of rain.

We spend billions putting up GOES satellites, why can't we spend some money on 4D Var?

Too bad we cant use that season as an analog since it was a weak el nino-- February 1969 was a fun month by all accounts!

wow 3.87 is a huge amount of precip....around here I don't believe we even got 2.00 total LE lol. That's even more than my GOAT storm which was January 2016 which was 3.00 LE here (all snow of course.)

For me it's the strong feeling that we've experienced the most extreme weather we are ever likely to experience in our lifetimes already, so anything we get from now on is just icing on the cake. Back in the 80s I would throw a fit if a storm busted, but after all we've seen in the past 20 years, it's all fine by me lol. No snow season will top 95-96 and no snowstorm will top January 2016 and we (hopefully) won't get anything like Hurricane Sandy ever again and the raging extreme heat we had in 2010 and 2011 will likely never again be experienced by us in our lifetimes either.

Looks like we're all been suffering from that southwesterly flow, which means the area between Erie and Buffalo does well but no one else. Same reason temperature departures are so high (both in the summer and the winter) even for areas far north of here (and SST too).

We had a raging blizzard on southerly winds in that storm lol

I like that our most historic storms are the ones we anticipate well in advance. I made a small list of the truly great ones (of any type) and wanted to research how far in advance they were predicted with reasonable accuracy. Here's my list in chronological order: 1 February 1978 2. April 1982 3. February 1983 4. Hurricane Gloria September 1985 5. Hurricane Bob August 1991 6. March 1993 7. January 1996 8. PD2 February 2003 9. December 2003 (including this for how early in the season it was for a foot plus blizzard) 10. February 2006 (only including this because of the huge totals in the city) 11. February 2010 (20 inches at NYC) 12. Boxing Day December 2010 13. January 2011 (19 inches at NYC) 14. Hurricane Sandy 15. January 2016 That's what I have so far in my list.

I see so the causes are also effects and the effects lead to the causes too, so it's like a symbiotic relationship.

I remember! There was this one time in 2011 I think it was where it was snowing in Oceanside and Valley Stream and raining in Long Beach. Couldn't figure out how that happened lol. Long Beach does its best in strong el ninos when it will probably do better than Huntington. Imagine February 1983, PD2 or January 2016.

Those global temperature gradients would then also include the extreme SST we see in the NW Atlantic.

Yeah those two winters are the ones when I finally started to measure snowfall lol.

What's the longest timeframe that you feel that a specific storm can be forecasted. 2-3 days out? Maybe up to 5 days if there's a really strong signal?

Did Suffolk County do so well because they have more of an SNE kind of climate? That storm and the middle storm in January 2011 would be proof of that.

No not indices. I mean that events in one part of the world impact what happens in other parts of the world. On a wholistic level, not reducing everything to indices.

So glad you weren't around for December 1989 you would have hated it. Imagine historic cold with a very small amount of snow lol.

Yep it's almost like a chain reaction once things get rolling they (literally!) snowball lol. I'll always have good memories of 20-21 because of how awesome that February was. December wasn't bad either, I don't remember us getting so much rain that the snow melted away-- I think we just got a little light rain right at the end.

Well during the event it matters but I meant the smoothed out average temps for the entire month.

I mean you have to agree that there is a cause and effect connection between different global events and conditions that influences the final outcome.

Having been through some truly hellish winter months with endless cold and no snow lol.

I don't think anyone cares about temperatures-- sensibly, it's about snowfall. I've always said that temperatures don't really matter when it comes to snowfall.

wow is that 90 mph winds on the CMC Friday afternoon across eastern LI?

I wonder if the comparison to December 1989 is being followed a little too closely lol