LibertyBell

True, this is why broadbrushing something as good as bad for snow doesn't really help us figure out what went wrong. December 1989 was a horrible pattern for coastal snow too even though the average monthly temperature was 25.5. It's about so much more than cold and blocking.

Getting a foot or more around January 20th which seems to be normal for us now would fix a lot of these bad memories lol

I would like to see a farther west track with the February event we had in 2013, although some of that could be down to random variations. We had rain for around 50% of that February 2013 storm and then around 10 inches of snow, which is still good but it feels not so good when people to your east get 30 inches. That was what I would consider an average winter. We also had the big storm in November, I would actually say that was my most memorable event that season. My prediction for this season is around 26-28 inches of snow so that would line up quite well with what we received in 12-13 (approximately-- it might have been a couple inches less than that that winter, I don't remember exactly lol)

Yes that's the thing-- and it doesn't look like the Pacific is going to be that good going forward. Besides, even for the brief time it's good it's not helping us lol.

Yeah but 2018 produced after February ended That was awesome though. No word on any SSW occurring anytime soon?

March is good for Eastern Long Island. Not so good for urban areas like NYC and Nassau county.

One of these years it would be nice to see the universe balance itself out with a really bad pattern that is horrible in every respect delivering two historic snowstorms. The universe owes us that ;-)

True Don but there are always reasons why a certain outcome happens and this might be because of that intense warm pool offshore. Going forward people should keep that in mind, that old teleconnections may no longer apply. March 1993 really stood out but even moreso February 1978! What an accomplishment forecasting that correctly was a week in advance especially after the big bust just 3 week prior.

This may be the OV bomb type storm to fix the pattern. Is this a triple phaser?

Same on the south shore-- but that meant about half an inch to three quarters of inch of snow on the ground Just thick enough to slip in lol. There was one storm I clearly remember Nick Gregory had the 2 inch line right to the south shore and I was somewhat excited watching that fall at night (that was the other thing, all those fast moving little clippers fell at night and were gone by morning.)

I know climate change is a big factor but how do we explain months like December 1989 which were very cold (much colder than this month) and also had either rainy or suppressed storms?

Aside from that why is it so hard to predict tracks with a reasonable degree of accuracy? Haven't we launched multibillion dollar GOES satellites to help assist in obtaining data from data sparse regions or do we need to have regular dropsondes in those regions to obtain any kind of reasonable accuracy on storm tracks 5-7 days out? I won't ask for beyond 7 days because that may be nearly impossible-- but 5-7 days sounds reasonable.

So frustrating it almost makes you want to control the weather to create a guaranteed outcome.

Yes, we've seen it all, a favorable pattern is no guarantee of everything. Besides the two busts from the 80s and March 2001 we also had the January 2008 bust. I think that might have been our most recent bust where we didn't receive anything at all when we were forecast to receive heavy snow right up until the day the storm was supposed to happen. Maybe there was something more recent-- but I don't remember it.

I have a bad memory of that storm lol. Got locked out of my house! Both my parents were working and we had moved into a new house and the door was stuck frozen shut. I was out there waiting from 3 PM to 6 PM waiting for them to come home. I didn't know anyone in the area since we had just moved there so I just waited it out in the driveway and on the steps.

Ha at least you didn't do what I did that day which was to stay home and think I was going to watch it snow. I used to walk 30 min to school and then walk home 30 min and I was convinced that there would be 6-8 inches on the ground at the end of the day and I didn't want to walk home in that.

Thanks, so did this block get down to -5 SD....I thought it was hovering in the -4 SD range?

What I remember of that day in December 1989-- according to Craig Allen on WCBS radio who was on that evening-- the secondary formed too close to the coast? I never knew what was going on in other parts of the country back then but found out later that DC had a very snowy December so I guess they did better than us because of suppression and Boston did better too because back then all the storms were either going south or north of us. That Thanksgiving storm was the one bright spot that entire season-- it was a very cold and fluffy snow that started accumulating on the streets right away. The reason why I said it was the mirror image bust of February 1989 was because that "storm" was cloudy, windy and seemed like it was going to snow all day-- but never saw a flake here lol. Found out later it was 19 incher in Atlantic City and eastern Long Island got like 2-5 but nothing west of there. For me those two busts are even worse than March 2001 because in March 2001 at least we got a few inches of snow....4-5 inches here as the storm was pulling away.

It would be absolutely shocking to get to 8 degrees after a high of 62 like that graphic was showing. That gradient would produce 70+ mph winds!

Thanks, I wonder what our largest temperature drops (and rises) are within a few hours.

Yes I remember we were supposed to change to rain on western Long Island with that but it never happened. It was a minor (positive) bust but I imagine that storm wouldn't even have been forecast to occur 10 years earlier. Was January 2000 another bust? I remember that wasn't well forecast either.

Wow very nice. Do you have a swimming pool cover under the snow off in the distance (I see a large flat area between the deck and the trees)?

and the models back in the late 80s sucked right up to the time it was actually supposed to snow haha. They somehow got February 1978 right a week out but pretty much everything else was the toss of a coin.

Yep, meanwhile we have to remember the storm we're all "tracking" is still north of Siberia. I didn't even know that storms from that region could even come here.....

Thanks, I thought winds would peak around 60, hurricane force is MUCH more serious! Any thoughts on a warm up come January 1st? Maybe 89-90 will be the true analog for this winter....is the warm up come January something that will last for a few weeks at least? It's a lot better than cold and dry that's for sure.