TimB

It amazes me how many of “that kid” there are. I had no idea. I didn’t know any other weather nerds growing up, but I also spent a lot of time making hypothetical forecasts, following actual stats, watching hours of the Weather Channel and tuning into all three local news broadcasts at 6:15-6:20 every evening, tracking storms and being thrilled when they panned out and devastated when they didn’t. Back then I probably thought it was kind of exciting when Pittsburgh got to 100 that day in the summer of ‘95 (I was too young to understand the magnitude of 1988), but I have no use for heat records now and even less use for warm winters. Even so, things haven’t changed enough to ruin this hobby for me yet, outside of maybe that 18 month period in 2016-2017 when every single month had above normal temperatures here.

It’s hard. On the one hand, we’re just short of normal snowfall to date (-0.8” through yesterday). On the other hand, we’ve had snow on the ground for three weeks straight, but those are the only days this winter that more than 2” has been on the ground. I tend to agree with the C+/B- assessment to date. It hasn’t been horrible, but it hasn’t been incredible. I would give December an F- and January/the first few days of February an A.

Sadly, for the younger folks around here (including myself), it’s my fear that this may also apply to weather someday (well, it’s not technically beyond “our” control as a human race, but it’s beyond my control as an individual).

Yep. Week ahead looks boring with some below normal and some slightly above normal days sprinkled in. If I had to bet, we’ll be running a slight negative departure at the halfway point of February.

18z GFS has a storm in that D9 timeframe. It’s not where we want it or as big, but it’s on the map.

Kuchera on that would be through the roof, most of that falls with temps in the low 20s falling through the teens. CMC supports the idea of a storm in that range but it never really comes together for us. GFS is bone dry for almost the entirety of its run. Safe to say there’s some model spread once we get to the end of next week?

The other thing I’ll add regarding that stat is we also had a 20+ day streak of continuous 3” snowpack last year, and it looks like the only other time this has happened in consecutive years was 1977-1979, which of course are pretty much the gold standard for pack retention in our area. Also, even more mood flakes today after the sunny start. Regardless of what happens from here on out, this will not be a winterless winter by any measure.

Their official snow depth this morning was 5”, not their official total from this storm. At least that’s my interpretation of their post. Still, 19 days (20 including today) with 3” snow pack is indeed impressive.

Official total at PIT was 3” yesterday plus 0.3” before midnight Thursday night. Not bad. Might need days like yesterday to pad the stats, Euro torches us into the 50s with next weekend’s system.

Still getting good snow and big flakes. A great winter day.

Fact of the matter is it almost feels like December when a pattern change that took forever to come was teased for weeks. We’re now in the cold phase of that same scenario.

Oh yeah, there have been operational GFS runs with ridiculous totals over the time period and most of them exceed climo and get to double digits. I’m not expecting we get 2 feet of snow over the next 2 weeks but it’s definitely not a shutout pattern unless we have rotten luck.

I like the thought, and I absolutely think we’ll get our chances, but to be fair, climo for this time period is 6.7”, so I would hope there’s a near certainty that we get at least 3”, especially considering that a 12z map would include what was modeled for this morning after daybreak.

I’ll move this discussion here, but let’s just say prior to the MLK storm he had used the word “bust” in 8 posts spanning 8 years. Since the MLK storm, he’s used the word in 24 posts spanning less than 3 weeks.

Would you be enjoying it more if you lived in Youngstown?

Probably belongs in the complaint thread but maybe he was just making a suggestion because he cares about your happiness.

That one wasn’t you, I was the one who watched the hole in the radar advance on us then promptly fill in.

The MLK storm may have been a bust but this wasn’t.

And three weeks of snowpack, which I’d like to see the east coast try to do.

True. We had to overcome a similar departure through Jan 3 before getting to -5.2 for the month.

That would only take a -3.8 departure to beat last year, which is to date the only February since 2015 not to be at least +2. Being +6.7 for the first three days of a short month might make that extremely difficult, however.

That’s largely what I’m seeing. CMCE and GEFS have us in the blue for most of their runs late next week and beyond. And the bitter, extreme cold some of the models showed may have moderated, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I got my highs in the teens and lows below zero this year so I’m happy.

Snow has resumed here. Radar looks good for a quick minor accumulation.

I suppose low 40s isn’t exactly a torch in almost mid-February, it’s pretty seasonable with the rapidly rising normals.

12/19/22, here we come. Barring a consolation 1.5” in late April. I’m kidding. Ensembles are still showing a cold-ish February and operational models still show threats here and there.