TheClimateChanger

I'm with you guys. This way of ranking makes zero sense to me. I saw Paul/Chesco do the same thing with his 20-day snow cover streak. Turning what was really tied for 36th place with 4 other years into the #22 longest streak, so it went from being something that would occur once every three years [probably even more frequent when accounting for missing data - not sure he actually has 132 years of full data] to much more significant. This gets even more ridiculous the further down the line you go as there are more and more tied values. So it's actually 64th longest sub-40 streak (of 157 years), which is barely above the median - meaning it should occur, on average, nearly every other year, maybe more like 2 out of every 5. Ignoring all the tied values catapults it into some sort of significant cold spell. 18th makes it sound like it's nearly 90th percentile (maybe 1 every 9 years or so). One could imagine a scenario where there are three record cold months tied at 18.9F, and the month ends at 19.2F. Why should it be considered second coldest just because the three colder months happened to end tied at the same value? There's no difference than if the three colder months had instead been 18.7, 18.9, and 19.0F.

Thanks for the update, Paul. I think the surprising thing is how common this really is over there in Western ChesCo. The creative ranking makes it seem more impressive, but really 39 years had as long or longer stretches (of what 132, 133 winters - maybe less if there's incomplete data?). So about 30% of the time assuming full data, perhaps higher. Not too bad - looks like you guys were due for a harsh one with just one such stretch since 2015 prior to the current one! I suppose there's some time to climb on the list still as well this go around. Curious - do you always count ties as only one rank? 22nd longest really makes it sound so much more impressive than tied with 4 other years for 36th longest, which is how it actually ranks unless I'm misunderstanding your data above?

It’s the 10-year sum of total snowfall. Not an acronym. I just wanted to differentiate from an average albeit I could average it by dividing by 10 years.

Snowbirdbob confirms:

UAH TLT data was released this morning. Globally, the anomaly came in at 0.35C, up 0.05C from December. For the CONUS, January 2026 averaged 0.30C above the 1991-2020 mean. The CONUS winter season to date (December & January) is currently the warmest on record (since 1978-79) in the satellite-based dataset, and by a very significant margin over No. 2. The two month average is +1.20C for the CONUS, while the prior record for December & January was set in 2021-22 at +0.91C. Very likely that this will be the warmest winter on record in the CONUS in the UAH TLT data.

I wonder if everyone's thermometers are being impacted by reflected sunlight from the snow? The commercially available ones are generally shielded from above, so reflected light from below could raise them?

Interesting. Looking at everybody's temperature reports, it seems the airport temperatures are usually cooler. But one would think it would be the other way around with all the asphalt?

Very impressive. Do you think this will be the coldest outbreak of the 21st century in Florida?

You can really see how that California tule fog or whatever they were calling it screwed us out of an even warmer December & January.

An impressive 43.2F diurnal range there so far. Can definitely see the effects of that higher sun angle, even with the snow cover. From -14.8F -> 28.4F.

@donsutherland1, what do you think of this projection? When I see a week-long, ensemble average showing an areal anomaly of +3.66F over that big of an area - keep in mind, it's not averaging just the CONUS, but that entire map inset - that looks significant to me. Like possible record-breaking warmth in places.

Some light at the end of the tunnel, especially for our western friends.

Wow! Those were legitimate cold months. Surprised 2015 isn't on that short list as well!

PRISM has the winter to date around +2.16F. But I know from Ben Noll that this was the 5th warmest since 1981 on PRISM, so it must have 2015-2016 a little cooler than NOAA. We'll have to wait another week or so for the official numbers.

Looks like January came in around +0.82F on PRISM's dataset. That will snap our streak of 4 consecutive Top 10 warm months for the CONUS - last 2 being Top 5.

Quite a wide variance in temperature on the car thermometer this morning. Saw as low as -8F at one point. Zelienople Airport had a low of about -15F. National Weather Service

Looks like Louisville is leading the charge, with the most snow to date since 1994 - which is the only winter with more since 1978.

What an incredible winter so far. It may be a LONG time before we see another winter off to such a fast start. I was looking at some numbers... Columbus and Dayton, Ohio have both registered more snow through today's date than every other winter since 1996, except for 2014. And at Dayton, only two winters since 1978 have seen more snowfall through today's date (1996 & 2014)! Not as impressive, but still noteworthy, Cleveland and Detroit have recorded more snowfall through today's date than every winter since 2006, with the exception of 2009 & 2014.

With this most recent storm, Columbus has now recorded more snow through today's date than every winter since 1996, except for 2014! We literally may never see another winter like this in our lifetime. Note rankings below are for the airport site only.