ORH_wxman

I'm not going to go down the political rabbit hole of discussing capitalism vs socialism in this forum but the nuclear energy part is spot on. It is hard to take any person or any group seriously that say they believe climate change is a dire emergency and also will not consider nuclear power.

Most politicians aren't really that serious about climate change anyway. Even the ones who claim they are. There are some exceptions of course. But we see something like the Paris accord being touted by politicians as this crucial thing when in reality it is non-binding and even if it wasn't, the commitments through the end of the accord in 2030 would do very little to change the longer term outcome of climate change...especially if one believes that we are closer to the "worst case" scenarios of higher climate sensitivity. The difference is something like a couple tenths of a degree Celsius or even less. If you are generous and make a bunch of assumptions like everyone continues to ramp up their cuts beyond 2030 like I've seen done in some analysis, then you can maybe add several more tenths. But that's a big assumption. It comes across as something for politicians to pat eachother on that back about to make them feel as if they are tackling the problem when they really aren't. This probably isn't the thread for such discussion, but a far more efficient way to attack the issue would be to invest most of the money into R&D for green energy.

I should update this in that the NSIDC minimum extent dropped a bit further to 4.09 million sq km....still outside my range but a bit closer than the 4.23 initial value I posted above. Doesn't change the analysis above in any material way. The area minimum hasn't been matched again and will remain at 2.87....we're now over 300k sq km above the 9/4 area min so that won't be caught again. We'll see if 4.09 million sq km is the final minimum extent....still a chance it could fall back below that from the current 4.17 million sq km value, but it's getting very late now to significant drops.

That's the kicker about that winter. Man, if December and the first 3 weeks of January had been just been run-of-the-mill crappy instead of absolutely putrid, we could probably tack on another 1-2 feet to the totals...and then don't forget March was kind of a dud ending too even though it was cold. The cape and southern MA/RI got a big event but BOS and even Scooter didn't. Obvioisly you can't complain when you go absolutely nuclear for a one month period but it's only natural to wonder what could have been if some of the other months were not as hostile. It goes back to what Tip often says about some mythical epic 6" QPF blizzard parked south of LI at 940mb having probably happened before in the past before records began....at some point in the past 500 or 1000 years (or 2000...whatever the number is) you know there was probably a winter where we had a 2015 stretch that coincided months that were pretty normal or even above normal for snowfall to produce the "Dream winter"...or as we know it, "The DamageInTolland winter"....buried by mid November followed by nonstop carnage with multiple blizzard through New Years...maybe a relaxation of just "normal" snowfall for a month or so before a another several Nor easters in Feb/Mar.

So he probably beat Stowe. Lol. Scooter prob had over 120" that winter with depths over 40". We were joking during winter that Boston became Stowe that year. Because even outside of the huge storms there were a ton of trace snows and smaller measurable events that you often see up there. Between January 24th and February 28th that winter, BOS had 22 days with measurable snowfall. An additional 4 or 5 had traces. I think people forget amidst the absolute snowgasm is how we narrowly missed like 2 or 3 other major events. They ended up scraping us and/or late bloomers that got Eastport and Machias Maine...but we were still getting a couple inches on those near misses. Throw in a few clippers too.

We've said it on here before...but worth repeating: Wait until we get another 1979-1992 stretch. Then the real whining will begin. For the entire existence of these forums in one form or another, we've been in a prolific time for snowfall. Yeah we get the occasional ratter, but it is quickly "rewarded" with a juggernaut within a year or two. The real fun for the masochists will begin when the ratters are followed up by 2 or 3 more....ha.

It definitely is still about expectations though. Someone in NNE who averages 100" of snow per year would be pissed off if they got 75" and had to watch Boston get 70". They would have gotten more snow than Boston but that would still be annoying because they probably are missing some pretty sizeable systems if Boston is getting 70" while they are well below average. Same deal down here vs lesser snowfall areas. I'd be annoyed if I got 55-60" and watched Bridgeport CT get 50". I would feel that we were missing the brunt of the good action....it would probably mean some pretty big storms were hitting to the south of us.

Once the north trend has a couple months to work, it will be a pike-north winter.

I like the distribution in the ENSO belt. Cold in the east and central...warmth near and just west of the dateline and then cold again once near New Guinea and westward. Could help focus convection in the right spots. Hopefully that spacial distribution holds fairly steady.

Time to verify this prediction based on the data at the end of June. Assuming we have reached the minimums for both area and extent on 9/4 (looking more and more likely), then both of these fell outside my range, albeit not by much. The final minimum area was 2.87 million sq km and the final minimum extent was 4.23 million sq km. These are both NSIDC numbers. The predictions were looking excellent through mid-August until we had an unprecedented slowdown in late August that has leaked into early September. So I ended up making predictions that were slightly too low compared to reality. I was correct in identifying the very strong chance of a top 3 finish (and also being skeptical of challenging the top spot), but I really needed to bump my middle numbers in the range up about 100-200k. Overall, I think this was a decent prediction compared to what we see on the Arctic Sea Ice outlook that gets published by NSIDC....but I am still disappointed I could not get it within my range. It might be that 200k error bars are just too small to consistently hit on predictions when it comes to sea ice. Using 400k error bars would have this method hit every year I've done it with the exception of 2016. But I will probably try to continue to use 200k error bars....and maybe see where the method can be improved.

I'll do it by type of event: Snowstorm: December 1992 with close to 3 feet of high water content snow....it would speak for itself back in the ORH hills regardless of when it occurred....but the fact it was the storm "that broke the snow drought" made it even more memorable. It was the first double digit snow event at ORH since January 1988. The longest stretch on record there. What a way to break the streak. Ice storm: December 2008. About an inch and a half of ice at 31F. Amazing event. Most people posting on here were on the forums for this one so they've seen all the pics and such even if they didn't directly experience it. Can't match January 1998 up in NNE but basically no ice storm can. Severe: The May 31, 1998 macroburst at ORH. Produced a 104mph wind gust at holy cross. Just shy of 100mph at ORH airport. I was legit scared it was a tornado when I heard the winds starting to whistle while under a tornado warning. Made it to basement as we heard a massive crack. 3 foot diameter tree broke next to us. Tropical: Chased Irene on the Cape with Phil and we got sustained around 60mph with gusts near hurricane force. Pretty good all things considered. Slim pickens in New England the past 2-3 decades. Bob in '91 had some pretty good flooding but not great winds back inland. Heat: Probably July 1995 only because of the dewpoints with it. It wasn't as intense as 2011 but it was more uncomfortable. Cold: January 2004 if we're going on combo of longevity and pure misery. Thin snow pack and brutal winds. If we're going on just shear peak magnitude it's Valentines Day 2016....absolutely brutal. Only lasted about 36 hours but it was epically intense. Froze our shower drain for over a day. January 1994 gets a mention of throw some wintry appeal deep snowpack into the equation....and the lowest daytime max of 1F. Recently tied this past January.

CAR going from +1C to -8C in one hour I impressive on the '76 cold front.

The euro seasonal has a warm bias at the surface. So you really want to see H5...i haven't seen the September run but the August run looked pretty good aloft.

The daily area did start falling again....but it was only 18k. Down to 2.981 million sq km....the min so far was 2.877 on August 24th.

That's the 5-day mean, the daily area actually increased 20k to 2.999 million sq km. Not that the area matters much anymore for ranking purposes...this season will rank 3rd lowest for area behind 2012 and 2016.

There's some weak support for it...obviously we know how early it is and how quickly things can change.....but we've got a big warm anomaly in the GOA (positive PDO) and extending down into the adjacent north pacific. That's going to at least feed back on any ridging that tries to develop there (I won't claim it is the cause of such ridging). We've also got the best chances for warm SST anomalies in the ENSO regions out near the dateline. ENSO is weak and likely neutral, but it still probably helps on average to have that "west based" Nino look...heck, it might even be better this way than an actual El Nino because, like you said, maybe less chance for other ENSO-related factors to muck it up. We just get this weaker low-frequency backround humming that tries to force the tropical convection near the dateline....that then promotes ridging in our EPO region...which then feeds back on the big warm SST anomalies sitting there, and boom....you have that mass Siberian express pattern that gets stuck for weeks at a time. Who knows what the Atlantic will do...and obviously all those shorter-period oscillations will have a large say in our snowfall prospects, but the larger scale definitely has some weak support for cold idea.

Models continue to go more neutral on ENSO as we get closer. EuroSIPs and seasonal did too...so I'm getting increasingly more confident that we will be La Nada (neutral) this winter. Still a small chance we go weak Nino, but it's becoming more of a long shot. Subsurface looks weak...still some warmth to the west but the central and eastern areas are getting cooler in the subsurface. That's probably good though...even if we're neutral, we'd want the higher anomalies out west...maybe encourage dateline convection.

Between 1955-56 and 1971-72, ORH basically had zero years below average snowfall...they had one year (I think 64-65) where they had 62.8", so slightly below normal but I consider that normal when it's only like 10% below average. That period was amazing for its consistency. There were only maybe 3 or 4 winters out of that 17 that I would classify as "blockbuster"...it was just consistently solid. Normal or above normal with a lot of cold. Very cold those years. Then the early to mid 1970s flipped the script until we returned to epic cold and snow for a couple winters in '76-'77.

Yes they are. It's why I think people who haven't actually experienced a stretch like that won't truly understand what we're talking about until they do. Pretty much anyone born after 1985 or 1986 probably wouldn't remember...maybe a young weenie born around then would remember the early 1990s before the tide turned...but otherwise, they are used to never going too long without a huge event or blockbuster winter. Its even more spoiled for anyone born post-1994 or so...they wouldn't even remember the relatively dud winters of the late 1990s.

Logan airport went over 10 years without a 12" snowstorm. They had over a foot in the Feb '83 storm and then failed to get it again until the March '93 superstorm. They had some close calls in between but never hit 12". Then ORH went 4 consecutive years without a 10" storm from '88-89 through '91-'92. Only time that ever happened on record.

If I didn't know how close we were to getting so much more, then that winter wouldn't have been too bad. It was close to average snow here. Yeah, rewind to 1988 when you didn't know how much Baltimore was getting each storm and couldn't see computer models and the winter probably gets an average rating for most of SNE...sans maybe NE MA and the central CT valley.

I always get the itch to start them back up again, but then life gets in the way compared to my bachelor pad days . They are time consuming to make, but I do like having them as a reference to how a particular season played out. If I have some free time one day, I may start trying to catch up on the 8 seasons that I am behind. I'm actually really bummed that I lost my most recent map...the 2010-2011 winter. I was hoping someone on here saved it, but so far no luck. In the threads that it was posted in, I had used imagehosting links which are now defunct and I had created that one on a laptop that died years ago and foolishly didn't save it to my PC or newer laptop.

I said he was near average, but if we got very specific, he was probably slightly above average snowfall that season....and yes, mostly on the strength of the Dec '09 storm. But they also got some decent snow in the Feb 9-10 bust...like 6-8".

No, you were pretty close to average snowfall....Ray's current area was well below average.

There is no way the min would be that early.