LibertyBell

Well it looks like the NE may be getting some snow Sunday-Monday.

Isn't it true that the strongest hurricanes in the Atlantic are now occurring in October, which is later than the strongest hurricanes of the past, which were in late August and early September? The extremely warm Atlantic, much warmer than it used to be, would be a reason for that.

Only problem is most people will just go with what the models show on Wednesday and make their plans for the holiday weekend based on that. Until these models get better in the 5-7 day range and even beyond that, meteorologists will keep the reputation they have with the public.

I suspect this will be a brief period of snow at the tail end of the storm.

Long Live Feb 1920! I wonder what the pattern was that gave us a 4"+ LE all frozen event and when we might see that again? The only all snow 3"+ LE event around here that I remember was Jan 2016, my all time greatest with over 30"+ snow!

That's a decent prediction but would be a first for this decade. My average seasonal snowfall is 22". So far every season has either been less than 20 inches or more than 30 inches lol.

Whats up with Sunday and Monday? Looks like snow has entered into the forecast now.

You have to assume that the models use AI to learn from past mistakes and they have what happened last year in their data banks and have corrected themselves to account for a pattern like last year's.

But last year we got colder sooner, as I remember turning my heat on October 15, and this year I waited until November to do so. And that 95 degree day on October 2 really stands out! There was a period of all-time record setting October heat this year that was unprecedented in the annals of history that was widespread across the south all the way up to our region.

it's crazy that there's heavy snow south of us

very 05-06 like

There have been some winters where we had a cold and snowy start to December and the winter in general went that way- a la 03-04 and going back further in time 60-61. But in general it's better when the last third of December is snowy rather than the first third.

The MJO also got stuck last winter in a very unfavorable phase and we dont want that happening again.

What a crazy storm that was, especially when you see that the highest snowfall totals were on Nantucket (over 30") you'd think it was a coastal scraper, but it wasn't!

Remember March (1) 2009, Chris? Thats the closest we came to an area-wide double digit snowfall in March since 1993.

I think we have this discussion every year lol. In March, you need those extreme snowfall rates to get heavy accumulations. It's harder for us or the city to get it because storms generally focus their heaviest rates either west (inland) or further east (eastern Long Island.) To get those kind of rates here in March is like a thread the needle kind of scenario. I'm not sure a January 1996 or February 1983 or January 2016 kind of storm is possible in March anymore with our heavy urbanization, where we all do extremely well (apologies to the northern crew who got cut off.)

Yes but here on the western south shore (and also in urbanized areas like the city) it's hard to get accumulation in March. The truly big storms happen in December over March around here (although it hasn't happened since 2010, but where I live we haven't had a double digit March storm since 1993, and that changed to rain.) In either case, the shorter days and lower sun angle give December a much more wintry feel, when those storms do happen. This seems to be a cyclic pattern in terms of when December/March trade places for snowfall; in the 1950s we had this pattern too. Then we switched in the 1960s. It seems to go decade by decade, as it was snowier in December in the 40s, snowier in March in the 50s (March was the snowiest month overall that decade), and back to being snowier again in December during the 60s.

Yes but I remember the latter part of December in 2005 was much milder and that led to a mild January also. Here on Long Island we didn't get anywhere near 6 inches that December. It was a one big storm winter, which we were on the eastern edge of, in February. The early April snow burst was by far the most exciting event that season, it got NYC to 40" and dumped 2" here in the middle of the day.

December is more wintry than March; snowfall is about the same, but the days are much shorter and snow pack retention is much better. Full averages (over the entirety of the climate record) are between 5-6 inches each for both months.

Dec 2005 (one of the analogs) comes to mind.

Haven't seen one of those "bowling ball" systems in awhile! A little early to get a snowstorm from one of those around here though.

This could be one of the more traveler-unfriendly Thanksgiving weekends then. I was planning on coming back on Monday anyway to avoid the holiday traffic.

Looks like a cold four day weekend then but not as cold as when we had our Arctic outbreaks earlier in the month? I saw there's a second storm coming behind the pre-Thanksgiving one (the one that is going to hit California hard), does that look to be mainly rain too (and is that on Sunday)?

How cold are we looking at for Thursday and for the entire weekend? 40s?

Do milder Decembers lead to milder/less snowy winters overall? That would be a reason my cold November less snowy winter correlation exists.