LibertyBell

Not detecting the record warm pool in the Atlantic in the midrange to long range might be the answer. The models seem to lock in on it only when we're within 7 days.

That makes sense-- we see the same thing in the summer with higher temperature departures the farther north you go. So maybe patterns that would produce 100+ temps in the past for the coast only produce temps in the mid 90s with higher humidity now because it's getting harder to get a downslope wind? I would have expected last summer to have one or more 100+ degree days here because the summer was so dry-- and rule number 1 to get 100 degree heat here is to have very dry soil which heats up much faster. The sea breeze always comes in sooner or later, the key is having very dry soil to make the temperatures rise so quickly that it gets to 100 or higher before the sea breeze gets here (usually around 2 PM)

wow Freeport floods regularly

Wow the 1980s were generally much colder (prior to February anyway lol).....check out Christmas 1980, a covering of snow and below zero Christmas morning in the city! The last time that's happened on Christmas.

What caused the change?

That's a rather huge and alarming change though-- I pictured climate change as causing more nuanced changes. Then again we are also having major tornado outbreaks in Louisiana in December so that's another huge and alarming change. Do you think if this same pattern occurs in JFM it's much better for us snowfallwise?

there's too much that can go wrong and after the fact people blame the 'east based' block or the 'south based' block lol

and December 1977

2015-16 was amazing in that JFK had over 40"...many don't remember these but February was a very good month for snow around here, just not west of Queens. We had very heavy snow that caused a crane to fall and snow the week of the Superbowl too.

So do you think the pattern will get better after next week's storm (whatever form it takes?)

Definitely. The Poconos are the place to be, whether north or south. I honestly don't know why anyone would want to live in Scranton.

Yeah I was the one that said we need a cutter to break the pattern lol Coastal huggers beget more coastal huggers.

Plus there's a chance of an SSW

Interesting thing is that January now has more snowfall than it used to. I remember Januarys used to be mostly cold and dry throughout the 80s except for a couple of exceptions. There was a time when a 20" snowstorm in January was almost nonexistent-- that has changed.

I remember Don posted some stats-- it was for la ninas and less than 3" of snow in December though For el nino it's different as we've had a few bad Decembers which had great backloaded winters (1977-78 being a prime example.) Another one was 2014-15 (I think that was a neutral phase though.)

At least we got that quarter to half inch of snow. It'll be funny if that's all we get this month and then we get a big snowstorm in the first week of January.

December isn't a winter month for us anymore (for the most part) so I think we have to treat January as the new December. We basically have two month winters (January and February) so that's where we need to cash in. Sometimes March does well too-- more often than December does.

It was fine in 2017-18 and many other la nina winters though. It's not so much about that anymore as it is that warm pool.

Yeah 2017-18 being a case in point.

How did we do in December 2017? I remember that as a backloaded winter-- our first snow was actually in January 2018 that season from what I remember.

This may not be the pattern to get that. You may need the pattern to completely break down and rebuild a new and better block. I don't buy the December stuff as anything but coincidence, because the weather doesn't recognize "months" I would rather put my eggs in the two months which are most favored to get big snows and that's January and February. December isn't even a winter month here anymore.

That's a good point too. Not only does the weather not recognize "months"we have to be careful in basing statistical correlations on single spots-- Central Park is just a point-- places not very far from it have seen significant snow.

This never really had the time or the chance to develop into the kind of hysteria you get with "mega storm" possibilities. Could you imagine a March 2001 kind of bust around Christmas? Omg

Thats awesome Cape May gets 16" and Philly and Boston get 10" and NYC gets less than any of them.

or an el nino for that matter. We have to stop thinking of enso having that much governance over our weather. That warm pool in the Atlantic s actually more responsible for it.