LibertyBell

No I just specifically meant the very early season late October-early November storms that the early season Buffalo Blizzard kicked off.

Wow that was the historic event that kicked off this new era.....funny thing is that 2007 was the same year the big dramatic change in Arctic sea ice started!

Yes it was horrendous, and in Mass they had 30" of snow! In October! Did you get anything out your way? in SW Nassau we had 1.5" or so could have gotten more but the precip fizzled out with the temp hovering around 32-33 lol. The 6" line made it to the Bronx which was amazing and NYC was under a Winter Storm Warning in October! That's like being under a Winter Storm Warning in May lol. For us though the event the following year, after Sandy, was bigger, 8.5" of snow in the first week of November- the trees that got weakened by Sandy but didn't go down went down in that one. Funny thing with these early season events the south shore does better than the north shore because we have an offshore wind from the North while the north shore is warmer because the wind comes off the Sound for them.

Yep and in the mountains just north and west of Allentown a lot more, my sister in Albrightsville had 20" with lots of thundersnow during the day and plenty of tree damage!

Late October seems to be a historically favorable time for big snows. There was another one between 2008 and 2011 I think where New Brunswick NJ had measurable snows and we saw a trace, not sure of the year. Also OT but you mentioned something in the Climate Change thread, it was a link from WaPo, did Omjakon in Siberia reach a low of -88 this past winter? And they mentioned that in 2013 they reached a low of -98, are those official? Because that would be the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere!

Wow, I remember all three events now. The 2008 elevation event where they had 6" in the Poconos and there was only a trace in the valleys and the historic 2011 event and the post Sandy storm that got us down on the coast too. Funny thing with the 2008 event, Tobyhanna got 16" but Albrightsville only 6" so it was a latitude event as well as an elevation event!

When you have big events like that I see a lot of our forecasters use ranges like 6-12,12-18,18-24,24-30, etc. I think the largest I've ever seen forecasted was 24-36" in the Jan 2016 Blizzard and also for the Jan 1996 Blizzard. PD2 was right behind that with 24-30" lol

You know thats what I was thinking- that this would have been the outcome in October 2012 had Sandy not been there. We still would have gotten a strong coastal, but not the historic event that occurred. I see that the cold will also linger into the first week of November like it did after Sandy, when we got a major snow (8") in the first week of November. I wonder if that will be possible again in the first week of November after this event and before the flip to milder weather.

Thanks Chris, isn't there something about El Ninos that also shows a correlation between how October goes and the following winter? Even if it flips back to milder in November and December, that the ridge west trough east pattern of October will be the predominant pattern of the majority of the winter?

Right, I like your way a lot better because there isn't an overlap between the ranges.

Will I think we had signs both years from the Arctic that they would be stinkers but those signs were ignored for the most part.

Yes but there was a lack of cold air up north in 2001-02.....in that respect it was very similar to 2011-12. So even with a block in place you were only going to get stale air. Funny thing about 2001-02 was that the Carolinas got a big snowstorm in January, right down to the coast. So when we did have the blocking we had suppression and it went and gave a historic 12+ snowstorm down south.......

I wouldn't say that October in 2011 was all that "great", it was just one storm at the end of the month. If you look at what was going on up in the Arctic that was one of our worst in terms of how fast snowcover/arctic ice build up was occurring.

The main issue is snowfall maps by definition cant be that finely detailed. Think about it this way- the average ratio is 10:1 so trying to separate 4-8" from 6-12" is like trying to separate 0.4"-0.8" from 0.6"-1.2" The margin of error is actually going to be greater than the range of these "zones"!

I like that October is setting up to have a predominant ridge west trough east alignment. Even if it flips back for awhile to a ridge in the east and a trough in the west in November and December, traditionally some of our best winters are like that. I think it was Isotherm who figured out why that is- that the pattern in October often closely aligns with what happens during the winter. LC's forecast for the winter is also like that.

Yes these dynamic storms that feed off the warm water really drag in the cold air from the north (provided there is cold enough air from the north to be dragged down of course.) The also feed on the thermocline, the temperature differences between the land and the water.

What about Irfanview? I find that one pretty easy to use also. GIMP has been having some issues, a renegade developer stole the code and made a separate fork of it that's infested with adware. He called it GIMPshop

Yea, it's pretty obvious.....First Law of Thermodynamics.

Had to correct the last part, Oymjakon reached -88 not -66, and it was -98 back in 2013! No location in the Northern Hemisphere has yet reached -100 from the article \ In this remote outpost in Siberia, the cold is no small affair. Eyelashes freeze, frostbite is a constant danger and cars are usually kept running even when not being used, lest their batteries die in temperatures that average minus-58 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, according to news reports. This is Oymyakon, a settlement of some 500 people in Russia’s Yakutia region, that has earned the reputation as the coldest permanently occupied human settlement in the world. It is not a reputation that has been won easily. Earlier this week, a cold snap sent temperatures plunging toward record lows, with reports as extreme as minus-88 degrees Fahrenheit. The village recorded an all-time low of minus-98 degrees in 2013.

Besides 2011 what were the other ones? In 2012 we had 8" of snow after Sandy in the first week of November.

I'm trying to remember the greatest spread here in a 12 month period (doesn't have to be a calendar year).....the last time it actually got below zero here was the 1993-94 winter when it was -2 in January and it got above 100 a couple of times in the previous July, so it was 102 to -2 so a 104 degree spread. We haven't had anything like that in the new millenium.

Already had 30" in Jan 2016

Sounds a lot like what Larry Cosgrove said....cold until November 7, then mild from there through the end of December and then cold again January through March.... is that what your thinking is too?

Didn't we get into the 20s in mid Oct on the south shore of Nassau County with snow showers also in NYC- I think that was last year?

https://www.nymetroweather.com/2018/10/17/nyc-area-forecast-freeze-watches-issued-coldest-air-season-arrives/