Volcanic Winter

No, but I’m warning you now I am prepared to cancel it by March.

My only real contention here is that people constantly reference “snowfall” as the end all be all, and I definitely understand that in a “results” sense. But there’s more to a winter than purely snowfall, at least from my perspective. While it’s true NYC isn’t the most wintry location in the CONUS by comparison, I also don’t really think using snowfall is the only way to evaluate that. Going back to prior decades shows a much colder DJF average than what we’re seeing today. NYC definitely had a Humid Continental Climate by definition, whereas now it does not. The line between CFa and DFa is thin so disregard that in a vacuum, but the actual DJF averages were substantially colder. Definitely a much more wintry temperature profile. Evaluating an area’s winter climate solely by snowfall averages is only half of it, IMO - and the early 2000’s - 2010’s were definitely a period that leveraged the warming in a productive way regarding snowfall. But as @bluewave has attested with data backing it up, it’s been something of a devil’s bargain as we trade consistency for “all or nothing” seasons. High snowfall or low to no snowfall, with a loss of near average. I definitely weigh consistency a bit more than going a couple years with almost nothing to then have a blockbuster season, but I also know others would take that trade so it’s purely a preferential thing for me (preferring more moderate winters / overall consistency).

I’m definitely no home dehumidifying expert, I just bought a couple medium sized units off Amazon. I have one on my main floor and one that I use in the garage. My basement hasn’t really had humidity issues for one reason or another, I’m sure it’s more common to run one in your basement. But these basic units have done a great job for me and have been reliable.

I mean the growing planetary heat imbalance is starting to cause accelerated warming, Dr. James Hansen put out a paper about this recently and it’s pretty harrowing. I also like to remind people the last time the planet had over 400ppm of CO2, it was around 3C warmer. Temperature follows CO2 change rather nicely when looking back at paleoclimate, so unless physics have changed in the Holocene I’m unsure why that wouldn’t hold true now. Pre-Industrial CO2 was about 280ppm so the change to today is pretty massive. It’s also not CO2 in a vacuum as methane concentrations have been increasing rapidly as well.

I started using dehumidifiers a few years back and it was the best decision I ever made for my home. We had occasional light mold growth on the walls by our staircase and upstairs hallway, away from AC vents. Even with a good/new HVAC unit by itself my home humidity is too high especially in the summer. I also absolutely loathe humidity, so there’s that aspect of it too.

I do greatly miss having something to track and be invested in, whatever the outcome.

Yeah I mean, there’s no point in getting either dejected or overly hyped right now. Smart move is just wait and see how the next week to ten days evolve, and let’s go from there. We’ll know if we smell another rat by the second week of Jan, but anything before that is premature. Of course it’s still possible Jan sucks and Feb doesn’t, but nobody wants to go through all of Jan like this and have to pray for Feb, so that would only work as a pleasant surprise IMO. FWIW I’d be surprised if NYC goes all of Jan without something on the ground. I believe it’ll happen, but that’s not the same as suggesting we’re entering a great stretch or anything. But I think the city will see something rolling through Jan.

Thanks for sharing. Nevermind average snow totals, I would expect that snow would’ve stuck around longer with lower average winter temps especially in the colder semi recent decades. That’s something that I don’t often see discussed, not that we didn’t always have warmups after storms, but I’d be willing to bet snow stuck around longer in NJ in the 60’s, for example.

In the El Niño thread I think they were posting a split lobe look with one lobe definitely over NA. But I suppose that’s just one model and one run, so who knows. We’ll need luck for sure at this point to get something to go right for a change. We don’t need to be in the deep freeze but we for sure need better air than what we’ve been choking down so far every day.

I always thought of Boxing Day as a NYC/NJ event but looking at the snow map it really looked like a great NE storm as well. From this forum I always got the impression it wasn’t fondly remembered in NE. With that said, it definitely had a “temperamental distribution” of snow and there were some screw job areas, so I totally get if you were in one, ain’t looking back too fondly on it.

Yeah, I was too far north for the early Jan major event that plastered them. Had nothing but virga. Did better in the event the following week that was more area wide. And then 1/29 bullseyed here. I live in probably the best position for the southernmost extent of central Nj / suburban metro. As soon as you go a few miles to my south snow falls off a cliff especially as the coast begins to recurve toward the southwest and you lost the longitude advantage for coastal scrapers like 1/29. According to a gov site regarding the pine barrens the northern edge that I reside on is supposed to average about 21-24 inches, which is probably correct but I’ve never kept a tally over the years. To my east it also drops off with more marine influence. But I’ll eventually move northward again, aiming for the Sparta area. Wife and I developed a love for winter hiking and there’s much so much more in NNJ, and it’s a better base to go north into NY and NE.

Call it the Brooklyn Glaciation. Leave your freezer open, maybe you can be the point source. BTW to be pedantic we are still in an ice age so long as ice remains at the poles. We are however in an interstadial or a recession toward a glacial minimum. This is why the LIA was so fascinating as it was a period of glacial growth within an interstadial. I’ve read some smart individuals (this is speculative, take it as such) state the LIA may have been the beginning of the slide toward the next stadial (or colloquial “ice age”) that was aborted by human factors. It would have been a slow descent as glaciers grow much more slowly than they melt, so the LIA “ending” in 1850 doesn’t necessarily disprove this idea IMO. Still subject to decadal variability. But by the 1900’s, it may have been overridden by the growth of CO2. CO2 levels throughout paleoclimate have correlated to global temperatures. There’s a natural ebb and flow from a multitude of geologic processes, and now we’ve essentially overridden nature and hijacked the controls on a very short timescale. This is why people who argue against AGW by bringing up “natural planetary cycles” are actually half correct. But they’re also (and more importantly) half incorrect, and are missing very necessary contextualizing information.

My favorite snowstorm of my adult life. Yes, I prefer it to Jan 16 for several reasons, some not weather related. Feels truly special in this period of warm, low snow Decembers. Especially given the Dec 09 event we’ve talked about a few times recently, having back to back Dec majors like that 09-2015 was a very special period of winter weather / winter vibes for me. Coincided with a lot of major moments in my early adulthood (getting married, buying a house, etc). My wife and I were probably going to be moving up to NNJ within the next couple years (was looking near Sparta actually, I have friends in Montague & wife Hopatcong). We’ve developed a major passion for winter hiking and NNJ is just much better for that as well as being a better springboard to going north in the winter for hiking trips (went to Danbury last Feb, though it was hardly winter lol). Down the road I want to retire in New England (wife is onboard!), probably either Vermont or NH. I have family in Mass (Boston area) and my wife has family in and around Rochester, but we want to be away from the city life we both grew up in. Too many damn people here.

Got to break in my WRX on the Feb 1st storm. Was fun

My Christmas lights are keeping the vibe despite the uncooperative weather. It honestly helps, though there’s no replacing the real thing:

I echo @North and West’s sentiments: Hope you all have a wonderful holiday with friends and family! 38 here now, let the warmup commence and make way for bigger, better, and snowier things looking toward the new year! Unfortunately I’ve been struggling with some bad circumstantial depression this year, and I just wanted to thank you guys for being such a lovely intellectual distraction. I’ve really grown to love this place that has become such a major part of my daily routine. All the best guys!

This is a point I think about myself often when people bring up low snow stretches from earlier periods. It’s not just snow totals in a vacuum, though snow for all intents and purposes = the results the majority of us are looking for and ultimately care about. That aside, these earlier periods seem to have offered much in the way of significant cold, something that we’re just not seeing the equivalent of today. The cold pushes we do get, like last Xmas, seem to be notably short lived and almost always followed by significant warmups instead of a return to near normal. I would wager that’s a different failure mode than what was seen in earlier “low snow” periods (the presence of preclusive temperatures and loss of marginal events as a result). If anything, it seems we’ve introduced a new failure mode (or at least one that was less common) into whatever decadal cycles may have already influenced northeast snow (temperature issues). Just IMHO / my perspective.

Absolutely clobbered! I was in Long Branch for that storm while going to school at MU, and I remember about 18 inches. It was a beast of a storm and an ATG snow memory. Then to have Boxing Day a year later? What an incredibly improbable back to back hit. I have tons of pics of the 2009 storm somewhere, I’m going to be looking for them and hopefully get them posted.

You’re a piece of work, Forky lol. I just gargled my coffee reading that this morning.

What would 1/29/22 be classified as? That had a phase IIRC right? I feel like had that storm cut NW like 40-50 miles it would be remembered as a top tier event. Was so close to something special, and was an extremely fun (and nail biting) storm to track on here.

I legitimately envision him standing on a stack of pallets on his street corner with a megaphone going, “YO YOU GUYS SEE THE PATTERN COMING UP?? GFS SAYS 6-12”!!!” And it makes me smile, lol.

You’re the hype man.

17/18 I just remember getting plastered by that early Jan storm which was amazing down my ways. 20/21 was better where I work, and then Jan 22 was a solid month though not for all which sucks. Rough otherwise.

You’re a legitimately funny guy, rclab. You make me laugh, have a wonderful holiday you and yours!

Refreshing indeed. Nothing like waking up in the morning to crisp air that’ll make your nipples cut glass.