George001

The guys I was thinking of were Joe Bastardi, Judah Cohen, and DT. They aren’t all from NE but they do forecast for the entire east coast, so I counted all of them. DT in particular went big, there was all this hype about how the Nina would weaken and we would get buried during the second half of the winter. Cohen wasn’t as bad, but his bias is still very much obvious. The Nina did weaken like DT said, but that didn’t really help. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a warm forecast from any of the guys I mentioned (which is a problem). The hype was off the charts in December. Regardless, ultimately it’s on me for buying in. One thing that you do that I wish more seasonal forecasters would do is you post the snowfall departure bias with every winter, and have statistics for a bunch of different cities since you started. I’d bet DT and JB would have something like a 75-100% positive bias for snowfall and are something like 5-6 degrees too cold. It would be nice to know this so people who are looking for a realistic forecast rather than hype know to avoid them, but that’s exactly why they don’t do that.

That makes sense, I remember in 2014-2015 the warm blob was pressed against the west coast, not way west like the Canadian has. As an New England snow weenie, Im not falling for the east coast big winter hype again until I see that western blob move east. It’s odd how quite a few New England based winter forecasters are allergic to forecasting warmth and rain in the east. Just telling snow lovers what we want to hear isn’t forecasting, it’s fantasy and that gets old after a while.

Btw Ray what’s your early thoughts on the strength of this nino based on the latest data? My gut instinct is it gets very strong, but not quite super nino. Something like +1.8 ONI, but it’s based off a surface level comparison of this year and similar years in the past.

Yeah, the Nina moving west killed us. I remember seeing your analog composite for modoki Ninas and they were really warm, correct me if I’m wrong but arent moderate-strong modoki Nina’s just as unfavorable as super ninos? If anything this winter was worse than 2015-2016, we had less snow for sure and I’m pretty sure this winter was warmer too. Locally it was a lot like 2011-2012. I know we don’t always see eye to eye but I’m with you on being excited about this upcoming El Niño event. Just gotta avoid the super nino and we have a shot at a decent winter. After the disaster that was the 2022-2023 “winter”, im just looking for winter to feel like winter, doesn’t need to be anything special.

That’s possible, but a lot of that warmth is already starting to surface. It could be wrong yeah but you don’t often see the models projecting a near +3 super nino. It may not be THAT strong, but i do think this is different than the 2012 head fake. The combination of model projections, us coming off a 3 year Nina, the MJO wave earlier in March, and the amount of warmth building in the enso 1.2 and 3 regions makes me think this El Niño is for real.

Yep nice and toasty, would be good for bass fishing.

Yeah that’s a big reason why Joe Bastardis winter forecasts have been getting worse and worse. He uses old analogs from when the base state was significantly cooler. As the base state continues to warm, those analogs become more and more cold biased.

Anyways back to the current weather, the eps does look interesting, it’s a lot stronger and more NW with the low location than the OP. I don’t really buy it (pattern looks progressive on the models, not sure if it has room to amplify that much) but it’s worth keeping an eye on for now.

Well, to me the fact that the region as a whole has regressed is more relevant. We are supposed to get storms, getting enough to get us to slightly BN rather than well BN like the rest of the region isn’t “having a run” in my eyes. You are correct that I missed the point you and Ray were making though. I didn’t realize you guys were talking about our climate relative to the rest of SNE, I thought you were saying we have been getting more snow than normal the past 7 years. We are just concerned about different things, which is fine.

Climate change debate aside (I’ll take that over to banter), I don’t disagree with this conclusion. I just think it will mean other areas are somewhat BN and mine will be well BN rather than other areas going on a 2007-2015 type bender while we have a repeat or slightly worse version of 2016-2023 the next 7 years.

It’s possible to acknowledge climate change is real and still be in denial about it’s role in our bad post 2015 stretch. I don’t think people want to admit that it’s already screwing us because that means it’s only going to get worse from here. It’s not “a long ways away” from screwing us, it’s already happening and this past 7 year stretch is only the beginning.

So despite getting boned less than the rest of SNE, we are still running BN climo the past 7 year. If everyone else in SNE has done even worse it just means everyone has been getting unlucky, not that we are getting lucky.

I completely agree that my area will experience further snowfall regression in the future. You do bring up a good point about how when you zoom out, the past 30 years has been more favorable than normal. I’m pretty sure you’ve mentioned this before, but as our temps warmed we’ve been getting more huge storms, and less moderate ones. It’s been a good run, but a eventually a point will be reached where it becomes too warm and those huge blizzards become rainstorms. There are some good posts on the mid Atlantic board about how that “tipping point” has been reached down there, leading to a rapid decline in snowfall. I have no aversion to the idea that we will see less snowfall in the future, I’d go as far as saying that climate change will fuck my area over quicker than it fucks over yours, since my average temps are higher to begin with. We have experienced snowfall regression over the past 7 years, Is there an element of plain old bad luck? Yeah, but it’s fair to ask if some of those borderline storms (mainly the firehose part of March storm and the mid December one roughly a week before the big cutter) would have been much snowier a decade ago. I’m not really sure to be honest, my gut instinct is that the March one is plain old bad luck, but the December one would have been a lot better a decade ago. This is speculation though, could easily be wrong about both. Yes, we got lucky last year, but over the past 7 years we have been below climo. The claim that I have an aversion to the idea that SE Mass will experience further snowfall regression is wrong. If anything, as someone who is of the opinion that this period is the beginning of a “tipping point”, I’m of the opinion that the next 7 years will be even worse than the 2016-2023 period. No reason why that can’t happen, with the rapidly warming climate those years like last year where we got lucky in a meh overall pattern could easily become ratters.

The average in the past 7 years (41.56 inches) is less than the average since 1890 (43.3 inches). Boston is running below climo over the past 7 years.

Take a look at Jerry’s post. Past 7 years, an average of 41.56 inches in Boston, mean of 43.3 inches. It’s not a big decline, but as our warming continues to accelerate that number sure as hell isn’t going to go up. Yes, we’ve gotten more huge snowstorms the past 20 years which is why we didn’t see a decline in snowfall until recently. Eventually though the warmth wins out. You know this is true, call me a dumb fuck all you want but that won’t change anything.

I’m curious to when we can expect New England winters to become snowless due to climate change. There’s growing evidence that the warmth is starting to win out in the mid Atlantic and that’s going to happen farther north as well as climate change continues to accelerate. Its only a matter of time before areas as far north as Boston become nearly snowless at some point during most of our lifetimes. That almost seems like a certainty, the real question is how fast will this happen.

Anyways, we shouldn’t ignore the temps. The snow has been below average, but the temps have been historically warm. SNE has warmed nearly 4 degrees ma Fahrenheit over the past century, and that warmth isn’t showing any signs of stopping. The global SSTs are warmer now than they were during the super nino in 2016. It hasn’t completely killed off our snow climo yet, but in the long run we know there’s going to be a point where the warmth wins out, and seasonal snow averages start declining quickly. It’s already happening in the mid Atlantic. There’s some good posts on that subforum about how while the past several winters should have been below average, they shouldn’t have been THIS bad based on analogs. We probably have another good run or two left, but we probably will see Boston’s climo decline to below 30 inches of snow per year in our lifetimes. Many of us on these boards love the snow, which is why I think there is such a strong pushback against anything that even suggests that snow climo could be deteriorating because of climate change.

In the past 7 years SE Mass has been below SE Mass climo for snow too, it’s not just temps. Historically bad? No, I was wrong when I said that, but we sure as hell haven’t gotten “lucky” with snow the past 7 years. If you have data that proves SE Mass has been running above SE Mass climo post 2015, go ahead and prove me wrong. If you are seriously saying since we got boned less than other areas we are getting lucky, that’s bullshit. Any area that ran below their climo snow wise in the past 7 year got unlucky, and any area that ran above got lucky. The post 2015 period was great……. for Qqomega, Snowman19, and Torch Tiger.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/boston-weather-records-show-warm-wet-years-heading-into-winter-usually-followed-by-below-average-snowfall/ this is where I got the 49.2 from, though this article was from 2021 so it’s missing the past 2 winters.

The data says it’s been below average snow and above average temp in SE Mass post 2015. Also, I can fucking see it and feel it. It’s been warm, and bare grass in the heart of winter has been commonplace. There has been less snow and less cold than is typical of climo here, and thats about as debatable as AGW being real. So it’s really not debatable at all.

SE MA has been below climo snow and well above normal temp since 2014-2015. Sorry you don’t like the data, but you aren’t the only one getting boned. If you don’t believe me and think I pulled those numbers out of my ass, you can analyze the data yourself like you do for your blogs. You say SE Mass has been “Getting lucky”, but I’d like to see some data supporting that.

I mean there was a signal, but things changed. The storm got a lot weaker on the models today. Even the good runs didn’t exactly bury NYC with snow, this was always an interior threat. It’s still possible to track knowing you are on the outside looking in, there’s really nothing wrong with doing that. It’s just important to keep your expectations in check, and I didn’t see anyone hyping a possible spring snowstorm for the coast. Those of us who tracked and live on the coast knew going in that it was always going to be an extreme long shot that we would even get flakes, never mind significant accumulations.

That makes sense, if the nino gets strong enough at some point it’s going to engulf the entire enso region, not just stay to the west. There’s a big difference between +2.6 ONI (2015-2016) and his analogs. 2002-2013 peaked at +1.3, 2009-2010 peaked at +1.6, and 1957-1958 peaked at +1.8. Super nino is the most unfavorable enso state you can get for snow in the east, the drop off between moderate-strong and super is huge.

It’s a good sign that the long range models aren’t going ballistic with the nino despite the rapid warming in the enso region (especially 1.2 and 3). The nino will probably be quite powerful, but like you said in earlier posts that doesn’t mean winters over. Just gotta get the nino to move west, 2002-2003 was borderline strong and it was still a great winter for SNE.

Ok, I looked at the actual data from the NWS for BOS from the winter of 2007-2008 to the winter of 2014-2015, as well as the timeframe starting with the winter of 2015-2016 to the present. Since 1890, Boston has averaged 49.2 inches of snow per year, so over an average 7 year period Boston would get 344.2 inches of snow. 2008-2015: 476 inches, for an average of 68 inches of snow per year 2016-2023: 291.8 inches, for an average of 41.69 inches of snow per year Ok, the data didn’t exactly prove me right, but it also suggests that you are wrong in your claim that we have been lucky since 2016. During the 2016-2023, Boston averaged 41.69 inches, or 84.74% of climo snowfall. That’s a bad stretch, but anywhere near extreme like I implied in my earlier posts. So yeah, I was wrong about my claim that the recent 7 year period was “historically bad” snow wise. However, it was also wrong to say we have been “lucky” since 2016. Now the 2008-2015 timeframe? Boston averaged 68 inches, or 138.2% of climo so we hit the fucking jackpot during those years. In terms of snow totals, If you say we’ve been lucky the past 15-20 years? Yep we have been. If you say we’ve been lucky the past 7 years? While it hasn’t been as snowless as I implied, we’ve been getting boned too.