NorthHillsWx

I’d take 0.10” of freezing rain and call it a season at this point

This forum has become ungovernable

Oh how the taste of defeat stings. Yes, the pattern did flip and yes, the cold did come, but unfortunately we lost the blocking and the SER and PNA wrecked us. What looked like a cold second half of January turned into a cold 1/16-1/17 and 1/20-1/22 followed by a huge warmup late month. Coupled with the STJ just shutting off once the cold arrived, this period (though well forecast by models as being the period to watch) did not produce and was not as cold or as long duration as what it had looked like just a week ago. I know those in the Tennessee valley got it good, but east of the Apps, this entire period was severely disappointing

While I do agree with this, for snow almost always, with the tools we now have, you can at least nail down a time period a couple weeks in advance where players will be on the field for an event. It doesn’t mean we can tell if it will snow or predict the sensible weather on a specific day that far, but you can tell that, if everything works in our favor there will be a chance as we get closer. The flip side to that: we can also tell very far in advance now when the players needed for snow will not be present. Years ago this wasn’t possible to the extent we have now. However, I can look at models and indices and say with 95% confidence and accuracy whether or not there is a potential in the next 2 weeks. Sadly, there is absolutely nothing that shows 1) cold source 2) pattern change during that period. That’s why this board gets so negative is we know snow is hard to come by as is, and when we’re halfway through our snow season and looking down the barrel of certainty that all of January and the start of February we will be blanked, we are now only relying on hope that something will change in the long range (with nothing but analogs really pointing towards anything good).

For what it’s worth, the GEFS looks worse than awful the entire run. Op in perfect alignment, lol

RDU is funny. I’m sitting at 22.6 while they are reading 27

Looks like our high topped out at 37. Wasn’t sure we’d get much past freezing but the full sun did its trick. Down to 36.5

Kinda feels like we’ve got one shot left. We burn that first week in February we are definitely running out of time

Only up to 30 as we approach noon under full sun without snow. Impressive cold

I’m between 4 and 5

Pretty impressive lows considering there’s no snow cover

The next two weeks would suck a lot less if we’d at least managed a coating or anything from Dec-Jan. I hate burning January.

Currently running below most nearby sites, 17.1 out. Picked up 0.20” of rain yesterday. High of only 40.1 EDIT: 16.7 was our morning low

Thank you! So, if we end this season without measurable snow, it would be an exceptionally rare occurrence that we had two snowless seasons in a row

This isn’t scientific, but illustrates the struggle for snow lovers: 2018-19: 1 event (December, ~7” changed to rain in afternoon) 2019-20: 1 event (February, ~1.5”. Didn’t stick to roads) 2020-21: 1 event (January, ~2”. Didn’t stick to roads) 2021-22: 1 event (good storm. 3-5” from triangle-east) 2022-3: blanked 2023-4: blanked (so far) RDU averages 5.9” of snow per season. Our total cumulative snowfall over the past 5 seasons just barely hits that mark. Totals aside, unless I’ve forgotten another minor event in there, there have been just 4 events over the last 6 years in my neck of the woods and none of them featured a season with multiple events. It’s the first time (I believe) in my life (born in 89) that we have had a snow drought this substantial for that duration

The Appalachians are a powerful force… Temp is dropping quickly here now. Down from 39.6 an hour ago to 37.4 now

@GaWx since I have no idea where you get your data, how many times has RDU had two snowless winters in a row?

You can go ahead and say no measurable snow in 10 of 32 now

Fixed it for you No one expects wall to wall cold, that’s not the problem. It’s purely that we simply haven’t had many cold shots and have had well fewer than normal opportunities to track since December 2018. We just spent 2 months discussing a pattern change that led to this week which clearly wasn’t the cold outbreak we expected. With 70’s showing up next week and the next chance at wintry weather looking like February at the earliest, it’s pretty safe to say that 2/3 of our best wintry months will have been wasted. And before anyone tells me it can snow in march, I DO NOT CARE. Banking snow in march is like playing the lottery here. Heck, in our new climate, past Valentine’s Day seems almost impossible. If this was year 2 or 3 of the snow drought, yea I’d be gaslighting. But year 6 and this is feeling like less of a drought and more like the new norm. It sucks but that’s where we are at

We (anyone outside of mountains and south of Virginia) are cooked. Looking at burning 2 more weeks of prime climo with nothing showing besides historical analogs and LR pattern analysis. Seriously, there has been so much time spent over the last month analyzing what will turn out to be 4 below normal days with a warmup for next week.

My “less than a .10” of rain” forecast for today has already been passed. Every single rainfall since the start of November has over performed the forecast

3 days and only 2 days in the 30’s, allegedly. Interesting trend to watch for this evening in central NC is some models (led by GFS) have trended towards a later exit for rain today. Combined with an actual arctic surge, if these trends continue, there is a non-zero chance of frozen/freezing precip before the precip moves out. While best case scenario, amounts would be light, but with temps forecast to literally crash into the mid teens, even if it stays rain we will have black ice issues tonight and tomorrow morning. The later the precip moves out the greater the chance of road issues (even for triangle and points east)

Greetings from the snowless south. Happy yall are finally cashing in! I’ve been following your discussion through this period and, as others have said, there are some fantastic posters in the MA. Glad y’all have a decent storm and hope everyone enjoys it!

Mix of everything in rich square

70’s showing up on GFS to end the month. Maybe we will be watching trees bloom in February again