Volcanic Winter

Whatever happens from this point on, I’m grateful for the week of actual winter we had. Cool to cold, two separate mild snowfall events within a few days, and I’ve actually retained much of what fell going back to Tuesday. In a warm winter, this is pretty great. 

I agree with Justin that if you’re a turbo weenie and need more, take a trip north. My wife and I are going to Vermont or NH for my birthday in mid Feb. We’re going on a hiking / snow shoeing trip (and no matter where we go we’re definitely stopping by The Alchemist brewery, that’s been on my bucket list for ages!) and just want to get up into the mountains and into some deep snow. Really looking forward to it!

We’ve just been so damn unlucky the past two years it’s hard to be surprised by the fact that we’re staring down yet another warm and highly unfavorable period. All we can do is hope for some chances, a bit of luck, and that we’ll catch at least one more favorable period before winter’s end. 

At the very least the winter hasn’t been a complete shutout in the vein of last season. We’ll see where things go from here. 

I made it to 15. Surprisingly not my coldest season to date, which is 14. 

I hadn’t paid much attention to forecasted temps but I assumed I’d break that with the snowcover everywhere. 

Absolutely beautiful out this morning:

About 4 here. 27/25 right now. 

5 minutes ago, mikeysed said:

Yet Upton lowered amounts

 

That’s in feet. 

Lightened up considerably here now, very light snow essentially a flurry. 

However I’m thrilled to see that heavier band pushing north to you guys. Get it! I can share!

Moderate snow with noticeably fatter flakes than Tuesday. Probably will end up in a great spot here for this, 30/28 currently. 

Good luck up north, I really hope this does better than it looks to be and gets you guys a couple inches+.
 

It’s coming…

5 minutes ago, wdrag said:

A possible statistical 3AM reality check.  Chance of snow exceeding 1". Brown starts  80%.  I think where its brown, is also a very good chance of 2+.  The rest is yours to debate. It should snow an inch into Fairfield Litchfield counties. maybe spotty 2"?

Thank you Walt. Do you have any thoughts on where the NWS is getting their aggressive forecast from? Are they banking on high ratios or expect over performance? They must see something to issue the numbers they did. 

Just checked again and northeast NJ in the teal section of your map is still showing a forecast of 2-3 inches, as one example.

Mainly just curious if you have a read on this. Thanks for your time as always!

3 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

You will do really well with this today. 3-4 

Thanks man! Hope so, I’m well west of the Parkway so hopefully avoiding the mix at the immediate coast. We’ll see. Was hoping all of CNJ cashes in to make up for the first N only event. 

29/23 here now. 

Good luck dude!

45 minutes ago, dseagull said:

First flakes are falling here on Barnegat Bay.   31.7

While 4-6 is being called for, I'd be surprised if we don't mix for a period of time between 11 and 2 on the water.  

Everything else looks good for our biggest snowfall in the past two years.  Very interested in watching the live breakdown of where the IVT sets up and if any actual banding sets up for a brief bit. 

I saw earlier they expected mixing east of the parkway up to approximately Monmouth / Ocean line. Not sure if that’s still the case as things have shifted around prior to Go time, but I do think you’ll definitely see decent accumulation. Good luck!

No flakes here yet to your north, about ten miles inland on the TR / Manchester border. 

2 hours ago, SRRTA22 said:

No matter what we get, this week was AWESOME. Cold and snowy. 

Who cares how much we get...enjoy it 

Yep, I loved this week. I enjoy the cold and need more than just snow followed by immediate warmth. So regardless of relatively tame snow totals, this was such a refreshing week of actual winter for me and it’ll get me through if the remaining season is terrible and warm. 

4 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Where are they getting these forecasts from. Models don't show more than 3" across the entire area. 

I would go with 1-3" area wide with local spots further south at 2-4"

Yeah that’s had me scratching my head. 4-6 inch WSW for me, but nothing is showing that. Must be betting on high ratio snowfall? Idk. 

Definite snow-sky vibe. Enjoy guys

Home sick with a touch of a stomach bug, so I don’t have anything to do but enjoy the snow tomorrow .

26 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

I don't want to sound dismissive of tropical forcing, it's got a role to play and a crucial piece of forecasting in the extended range.  But the correlations are often overvalued by forecasts at the mid and high lats, especially in recent times.

 

In my opinion the guys who use it as the foundational/principal basis for the majority of their forecasts tend to overvalue it's usefulness.  More pieces to the puzzle.  It's not the answer to all weather and it gets that reputation sometimes.

This isn’t to challenge you in any way, I’m just very curious and trying to learn.

If it’s not just in MJO activity, what caused / contributed to all the record warmth and consistent back to back warm winters since 2016? What do you think is driving that outside the obvious?

Anomalous MJO activity at least sort of gives a partial explanation, you know? But I’m curious if you have any other thoughts. 

I have snowpack and will be getting more snow, huge win. IDGAF how much. 

Good luck guys, this sure beats omega level cutters with 4 QPF rain to Montreal. 

I’ll tell ya, I haven’t even pushed past 22 degrees so far today. Got out of work early and the ride down the parkway was beautiful with white all the way down to me. 

Looking at the sat image @MANDAposted I’m very fortunate because the snowcover just made it to me, any further south looks like whatever fell was wiped out (or not much fell in the first place, I don’t know the stats for what fell south of me). 

3 inches down to about 1 and change, but what’s left is an absolute glacier right now. Very nice, actually. 

Hoping Friday pans out with a couple to a few more inches, but the brief checks on the models today wasn’t yielding much confidence there. I’ll settle for the cold…

My surviving “snowpack”, which I’ll take mind you:

8 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

14 chilly start to the day 

Feels so refreshing! Nothing wakes you up better than a cool winter morning, I live for it. 

Meanwhile on humid summer mornings I want to promptly about face and divebomb into my ice tray…

15.3 and still dropping, dew below 10 now. 

Whipped out my heavy down parka for the first time since last Xmas. 

The beast:

Down to 16, prior season low was 17. Be curious to see if I go any lower before sunrise. 

Temp plot looks to still be slowly dropping. The snow remaining on my grass has a beautiful crystalline sheen from the cold temps, I love it. 

I managed to scrape by the protracted rain fest after my three inches fell with at least one remaining inch on the grass. I’ll take it. 

38 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

If we’re getting any flip back to snow, this batch in E NJ should clip most of the island and hopefully a wintry ending. 

Same here, I’m back to 30F. 

8 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Basically it was too late a developing surface low so you can effectively torch the mid levels with the WAA before the system deepens...we've seen more of these sort of setups the last 10 years, they were fairly rare prior to that...usually if a surface low developed in what was not a true Miller B situation off NC it would effectively be a case where cold air stayed locked in at all levels but we've seen more of these benchmark tracks or CLOSE to benchmark tracks with warm air at 925 lately

Thanks for taking the time to answer me, appreciate it!

And that’s a shame, was a rather significant slug of precipitation after the changeover. Would’ve been a great all snow event. 

Thankful though at least for the three inches I managed, with the state of things the past two years I will absolutely take it. 

From my nephew in Cockeysville:

His first snow there while attending grad school at Towson!

So what happened meteorologically with this that it’s basically raining with temps in the 20’s for many. I’m assuming that means the upper levels are too warm? How did that happen when the storm started off so cold and with lots of cold air in place?

Curious and don’t know enough to explain.