LibertyBell

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.

Wow I see 58 in the Poconos dropping to 0 and 65 around here dropping to 14! Are those high temps with the cutter, so they'll happen while it's raining?

It would be interesting to see what kind of block we had in February 2016 during the below zero outbreak then (and the block we had for the Jan 2016 historic blizzard!)

Welp we didn't get much snow out of the -7.1 in Jan 1977 either lol December 1989 should also be mentioned for being historically cold but very dry, that even had a monumental "game time" bust of 6-8 inches being forecast and us getting nothing but rain and thunderstorms! Warmed up right as the secondary developed and that was bust was just as big as the February 1989 bust where 6-8 inches were expected here and it was all virga lol. That one dropped 19 inches in ACY, so we had both types of big busts in the same calendar year- a virga suppression cold bust and a rainy thundery mild bust!

That was 2021 right? February was a pretty good month for snow for us-- I think we had three nice snow events that month?

I guarantee there would be a lot less whining if pizza was present! Snow what's that? Some kind of new pizza topping?!

Wow thanks I am saving this. This is one of my very first weather memories. I have very dim memories of the late 70s and early 80s.....like a dim memory of the Feb 1978 blizzard from when I was 4 what I remember is giant icicles hanging outside the window, from the Christmas 1980 arctic outbreak, very windy conditions and brutal cold, and then it's the January 1982 snowstorm with the plane going down in the Potomac and then the epic April 1982 blizzard and another snow event a week later. My next big memory after that is the February 1983 blizzard and then more regular memories after that (next one after that is Hurricane Gloria but I was already in 7th grade in September 1985 so the memories are more continuous by then.) So -9 was the low there on Christmas and 1" of new snow! I wonder if this is the lowest temperature at which 1.0" or more of snow has fallen in our region (although I'm sure it was snowing when it was warmer than that-- just after the arctic front moved in?)

Thanks Walt-- I look forward to the final snowfall update from the last storm too-- I saw amounts around 10" posted for the Poconos as well as in Sullivan county!

Is there no mixing with water farther south? How do they stay so warm when it's somewhat cooler farther to the south? Do you think that region will be seeing SST in the 70s during the summer? That might result in stronger TC landfalls there (they are far enough east to get more of them than we do anyway).

Thanks, this is the same reason the Maine lobster season is dying out correct? The lobsters are migrating farther north. This also affects our local SST-- they're still in the mid 40s? Although Ch 12 still lists them as between 52-58 lol

It was posted yesterday in this thread so a few pages back. Will have to go looking for it lol.