Every year I always think about what a “good” winter means to me. Being from central NC and having spent my full life either here or the upstate of South Carolina, I know the difficulties in getting sustained cold or any winter weather. With that being said, to me a “good” winter features:
1 winter storm warning that actually verifies
2 WWA events
At least two Arctic shots per month (3-4 days of really cold air in a row from December through February).
Usually winters like these also have 4-5 events that we track for days that just don’t pan out once we get inside 72 hours, but they are fun to track regardless.
The last few winters (going back to the December 2018 snow) have been lacking those nuisance events or even close calls. Last year had more model snow “chances” but very few had any shot outside maybe 24 hours of model runs. That’s really what separates this current stretch from years past is the lack of nuisance events or borderline tracking systems. Growing up it seemed every couple of weeks we had a WWA for snow or FRZ that would change to rain. We haven’t even had that. We haven’t had any big coastal storms where Raleigh was borderline and the triad got smoked. That seemed to happen at least once a year. I guess the moral of my story is I know we statistically see little snow or cold air, but even that being said, the complete lack or borderline or even minimal events for all of central NC, not just my yard, has been noticeable for several years. Here’s to hoping 2021-2 is the year that breaks that trend!