TheClimateChanger

This is insane. Neither Shippensburg, nor Harrisburg, has had even a single winter with snowfall in excess of their 1960s decadal mean since 2003, when 70.9" was observed at Shippensburg and 52.5" at MDT.

Wow, who would have guessed there was that much snow in south central PA over a decade? This is for Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, southwest of Harrisburg. The average shown (57.4") is inflated by the exclusion of 1963-64 due to "missing" data for June. But summing up the monthly averages gives 53.9 inches. And even assuming the missing data for December 1968 & January 1969 was actually zero, gives an average of 51.5 inches. That assumption might seem plausible given the meager totals at CXY, but it's not accurate - as that data truly is missing from xMACIS for the Shippensburg Co-op.

Mild and wet. Low temperatures, in particular, were very elevated, but admittedly nothing record-breaking. 8th wettest at Pittsburgh. However, as I previously indicated, it has been the 6th warmest winter to date in the threaded record, and warmest overall since 1949-50. A couple of sites in the CWA with shorter PORs are both in 1st place [DUJ and PHD], with all of the climate sites in the top 10. Of course, the older records were observed in varying locations with differing instruments and site exposure. Snowfall has been fairly anemic but not record-breaking yet. Currently 28th least accumulated snowfall through February 1, according to xMACIS (although I did note a few errors in their snowfall dataset). It is, however, the least snowfall observed through today's date since the winter of 1994-1995. Last winter was in 44th place for least snowfall as of February 1, but a near shut out for the remainder of the winter moved it to 8th least for the season as a whole.

Much higher than expected. Forecast this morning was for 43F:

International Falls reached 53F, breaking the January monthly record by 4F.

Geez, just checked the climo report and it actually made it all the way to 53F, beating the monthly record by 4F.

Wow, that’s pretty crazy. I checked this morning and the forecast for INL was 44 or 45. Looks it got several degrees warmer than expected. MSP missed its monthly record by 1F, although it did shatter the daily record by 9F.

Unfortunately, we'll never know how much fell at Toledo and Cleveland since there were no snowfall observations. Toledo Cleveland

Interesting. At least in January & February 1878, it looks like it was a pretty solid winter for Detroit. Nearly 15" of snow on today's date in 1878, with a two-day total of 15.7 inches.

Detroit has been a snow magnet this winter. Somehow you guys have only had 2" less than Erie (which averages 104.3" annually) on the season-to-date, on the downwind side of Lake Erie.

Still a far cry from needing to mow the lawn. I see dandelions after every warm spell in recent winters in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Here’s one from December:

Sunshine.

Looks like summers have been pretty hot too. 7 of the top 15 (since 1879) have occurred on or after 2002, and 10 have occurred on or after 1991. All of them within a degree of the mythical dust bowl summer of 1936. Further, of the years with the most maximum temperatures at or above 80, 5 of the top 10 have occurred since 2007, and 7 of 10 since 1991.

Nonsense, probably already high grass. This December was 3.4F warmer than January 1932 in Detroit - were you mowing the lawn on Christmas?

In any event, I have a fair idea of the magnitude of warming since the city office continued to report weather conditions through 1979. It averaged 2.6F warmer over those nearly three decades, and even more so on good radiational cooling nights. There were likely many 5F nights that would have gotten to zero or below at the airport.

I guess you missed where I also noted 400-500 feet in elevation gain. That would be like using NWS White Lake [at nearly 1000'] for Detroit records. A good chunk of the so-called urban heat island effect is simply because cities tended to develop in river valleys or on lake/coastal Plains and the surrounding suburbs and rural sites are in more elevated upland locations.

Ouch, ugly.

Saw this on the Tennessee Valley forum. Pretty bleak to be honest around these parts. Looks like 8 or 9" over the next 46 days. Would be sitting around 20" on the season on March 15. The mean wasn't much better - around 10.5 to 11.5 inches. Far cry from the graphic Mark Margavage shared the other day on X.

What a mild winter it has been in Clearfield County! Crazy stuff! Enjoy the weather, it's the only weather you got.

Cope, brother. I'll be enjoying my bonus spring for at least the first half of February.

February has been bonus spring in 3 of the last 7 years (2017, 40.6; 2018, 38.8; and 2023, 39.7). Might as well make it 4 of 8. For reference, the March mean from 1961-1990 was 39.4F.

Huh? @michsnowfreakis always complaining about the heat island at DTW. What have I been reading on here for decades?

Somebody needs to audit the DTW thermometer as well. I was just looking at winter to date figures, and noticed Detroit is only running 0.1F warmer than Flint. Detroit has almost always been 1.5 to 2.0F warmer than Flint. Suddenly, in the year of our lord 2024, that immutable reality has broken down and now they are about the same temperature. Exact opposite of what you would predict with the urban heat island effect and latitude difference. Weird.