LibertyBell

wow look at the huge difference between JFK and Oceanside, you don't often see that.

that was a very snowy winter though, at least the first half of it

what really stands out is how many we got in the 00s decade-- although that one in Jan 2002 didn't do much here, there was a big snowstorm in the Carolinas

It's more likely to be a one big storm winter, but in general this is correct.

I like elegant better, but yes it means the same thing. The more variables you have, the more that can go wrong. Occam's Razor is backed up by Murphy's Law "What can go wrong will go wrong."

also we can use ensembles when there's so many unknown variables, because ensembles can forecast trends, so rather than looking at it one dimensionally you can tweak the same model in different ways to see what outcomes are more likely than others.

The question then becomes, should these tools actually be available to the general public?

no more bowling bowl type systems or super clippers -- they all go north of us we get the super weak 1-2 inch ones (at best), no more moderate snowfalls of 3-5 or 4-6 inches and even 6-8 inch snowfalls are rare (just like moderate snowfall winters are), it's either a small 1-2 inch snowfall or 10"+ lol The last system of the type I'm thinking of was in late February 2008 when we got a surprise 6-8" in a very mild pattern.

Is this why it snows so much more in Japan at the same latitude? They are also on the western fringe of an ocean but they don't have to deal with the eastern Pacific. North America is unfortunately a puny continent compared to Eurasia, I wonder how much more snow we would have if there was no Pacific Ocean influence to mess things up (in other words if North America was the size of Eurasia.)

wow this should be a Disney movie Don ;-)

the earth is flat at the poles thats why it's an oblate spheroid

That's it then-- YOU MUST MOVE BACK!

It makes one wonder if we could actually get more snow and a colder winter next winter when it's a la nina after an el nino which tend to produce really well.

Was Westhampton the coldest on the island? Sometimes East Hampton KHTO is colder.

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.