MN Transplant

Quite the whiff on short range precip modeling today. Ended up with a T.

Record highs at all three airports today

The NFL is really in a pickle here. They could play the rest of the game tomorrow, but it just doesn’t seem right without better word about Hamlin. They could also just call off the game and go by win % for seeding, but that pretty much hands KC the 1 seed and gives Cincy the division. So, interesting question for Ravens fans, are you ok with the NFL cancelling the game and giving Cincy the division title?

Oh, NAM. 63.5 here

50s in the mountains and some 20s in the favored cool spots. DCA 33, IAD 28, and I’m 38 at 450’.

Yeah, 45 here. Upper 20s out by Culpeper. Wild temperature distribution.

That certainly could be an explanation at first glance, but that wouldn't explain the overnight lows (image below). It is like the land surface scheme has a foot of snow over us instead of, well, nothing. And the HRRR is having none of it, with highs in the mid-upper 50s on Friday.

I'm not sure exactly what the NAM Nest is doing on Friday. Every other model has us in the 50s, but the NAM is throwing out this ridiculous inversion along 95.

I keep thinking back to this old Family Guy episode. Just switch the movie for this winter. Even the map reference is right on. [Brian, working as a Seeing Eye dog, sits beside his blind guy in a movie theater] Brian: Okay, they're-they're in the woods...the camera keeps on moving...Uh, I think they're, they're looking for some witch or something, I-I don't know, I wasn't listening...nothing's happening, nothing's happening, something about a map, nothing's happening, it's over, a lot of people in the audience on AMWX look pissed.

Here's a really boring stat comparing the 1980s to 2010s. Total snowfall of every day in the 1980s: 183.0" Total snowfall of every day in the 2010s: 155.7"

That's a bit of a disingenuous statement because we simply don't have full DC-area data for the entire 1880s. What I can say is that using the daily data, the average for the five-year period from 1885-1889 was 18.3". That is higher than any 5-year period in present day going back until 1988. The latest 5-year average is 8.4".

This chart might get to what WesternFringe is trying to say. If you take a centered 9 year running mean, the "worst" periods over that kind of timescale aren't getting worse. We are still pulling off enough of the 2003s, 2010s, 2014s and 2016s to balance it out.

I'm confused. The 1960s were excellent for snowfall. Remember that these are calendar years, not winter. 1960 33.0 1961 34.1 1962 28.7 1963 11.6 1964 27.9 1965 16.6 1966 44.3 1967 34.2 1968 8.2 1969 15.9 2013 4.4 2014 30.5 2015 18.3 2016 22.2 2017 5.3 2018 7.3 2019 15.9 2020 0.2 2021 5.4 2022 13.2

About that Calendar Year Single digit snowfall years 1884-1918 4 1919-1953 7 1954-1988 9 1989-2022 16

I'll take the challenge. My choices would make a stats professor cringe, but they crudely get the point across. Using daily data from DCA (downloaded from the Utah St. site), I calculated calendar year snowfall totals. I know the monthly and winter totals are available at LWX's site, but the use of daily snowfall lets us look a little more in depth. We actually have 139 years of data, which divides nicely into 4 quartiles of 35, 35, 35, 34. Across the board, the stats have fallen off. Calendar Year Average Median Years w/4" days Years with 6" days 1884-1918 22.8 23.4 29 14 1919-1953 16.3 14.9 27 16 1954-1988 18.5 14.7 25 14 1989-2022 13.3 10.5 17 12 And if you take a 5-yr running mean, and apply a basic trendline to that, woof. The trend is less steep if you remove the pre-airport location data (~1950), but it is still there.

NAM’d

5.4. Less than 3 degrees away from the coldest temp in the dozen years at my location.

DCA official 55/12. 43 degrees. Very impressive.

12/23/2022 joins the list. 55/15 so far.

55 is the climo high for DCA. We are going to be 40+ high to low for certain.

This is what winter looks like in my home area

I tried to take the top off the CoCoRaHS rain gauge and it was frozen solid. Ground is starting to get crunchy. Not yet on paved surfaces. 23.5. Max gust 37

Fully agree, and it is a very common occurrence around here. That said, there was so much rain that the ground is still “leaking”. I think at least the sidewalks will get real dicey once we get to 4-5pm.

It is the timing that is more rare. If this was happening in late January, it would be compelling, but not a massive story. Also, I posted stats last night that showed that the daily drop in DC will probably be top-5 in the last 30-40 years. We will also be setting low max records on Christmas Eve. That is very noteworthy.