Volcanic Winter

Looks like Monmouth in a WWA now, still nothing for Ocean. 2-4. If Monmouth gets 2-4 I can’t see northern ocean getting nothing. We’ll see what happens for those of us at the southern extent of the metro. 

Just now, MJO812 said:

Post more and agree. 

I like 3-6 for NYC with the lower amounts in southern sections of the area.

Good luck man, hope this works out decently for the city. 

Just now, Stormlover74 said:

 

Thank you, not rooting for this because it screws literally everyone else. I’d take and be ecstatic with 1-3/2-4 and I’m still not convinced that’s truly in the cards. Would feel better to see that reflected in an official AFD. 

But FWIW this reads “out to lunch” IMO.

1 minute ago, MJO812 said:

Euro south again

Map me good sir, unable to check at the moment.

6 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

Looks like UKIE nudged south again.

Lmao congrats me, nah that’s a sell. 

Looks like they’re being very cautious expanding the WSW / WWA’s southward which suggests low confidence in the models depicting a great CNJ - NYC hit and or just a very conservative approach until right before game time given the shifts. Curious ultimately how hard they bite in the next few hours. 

GFS mauls me. 

Not doing it, not getting roped in. Enjoy the snow!

4 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Think TWC forecast is the best I've seen and they've really gotten much better the past several years (remember, they were the only ones who nailed Jan-2015) with some very good mets and model discussions these days. I think the NWS adustments at 4 am were in the right direction, but not enough, especially towards 276/195 and the coast, where I think TWC is likely to be better. We'll see of course.

The southern edge of that is probably too optimistic. Don’t think I’m seeing 1-3 here (TR / Manchester border). 

3 minutes ago, weatherpruf said:

So....who wants to bet Freehold ends up with the jackpot?

I don’t think so, I think you guys are set. Monmouth / northern Ocean going to be too marginal temp wise, at least from the soundings I was looking at. 

If I see a couple flakes on the grass I’ll consider it a win. Hoping you guys get the goods though, positive changes for sure. 

If only the airmass was a bit less crap this woulda been fun for me too, but oh well. It’s been extremely warm, not unexpected. All the more if most of you see a significant storm out of this it’s a massive win with how things have been going. 

1 minute ago, MJO812 said:

Hrdps

Cut some but still a nice storm

I’d take that all day down here, but I just don’t see it happening (for me, you guys hopefully rock this one). 

Look at me down here with my 7-8 on the season , I can’t believe NYC didn’t do better that week. FWIW I think the bit of latitude NYC has on me will help the rest of the season because I do not see the remaining couple weeks as a suppression risk. In my personal opinion with the block trending weaker and the tendency of so many storms to cut or favor northern areas, I still think it’s less likely I accumulate anything or much else,  but that NYC still has a chance (could be wrong, just my thoughts at a glance as I haven’t been following things too closely right now).

This season probably should’ve been a bit better for all of us regardless of the super / strong Niño but was thwarted by Pac warmth / MJO activity and the overpowering jet. How many systems now would’ve performed for all of us were it simply colder (including VDay coming up)? So frustrating.

Regardless I’m still hoping the city breaks double digits. I’d like my patented work storm / snow commute (I’m the odd lunatic that enjoys driving in snow, and a lot of my favorite storms I experienced at work just west of the city). 

32 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Why is the enthusiasm so low though?

Is everyone taking a wait and see approach?

Looking to see how much multimodel support there is for this.

Can only speak for myself but I’m just worn out, and right now focusing on my little bday trip tomorrow to VT. 

If any of these really end up locking in and we’re staring down a legit MECS, I’ll be over the moon. Until then I’m remaining cautious. 

Everything is still very far out there in time, as has been the case for a while tracking this pattern shift. So my comfort won’t increase until we’re into the middle of next week and staring down similar runs. 

49 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

Still think early next week is for NNE. As of now, I like the President Day Weekend threat. 

I’m going to be in Stowe Friday - Tuesday, of course I timed it perfectly for a massive thermal spike . Consolation prize would be some kind of snow before we head home, should that work out for up there. It does look like the worst of the heat spike avoids as far north as Stowe is, thankfully.

Supposed to be hiking / snowshoeing, and definitely hitting The Alchemist brewery (which works regardless of the weather, a nice bday present!). 

Best thing about 1/29/22 was the temperatures! I was at 22f at the time of peak snowfall; pure powder. I spent hours outside in it getting up early, and I took my sweet time shoveling. No rush to be had.

4 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

What was your lowest temperature so far this season?

13.6 on 1/22.

My home is on the extreme northern edge of the pine barrens down here, and am about 10 miles inland from the ocean. 

Past couple nights I actually radiated down to near average lows, feels like a tremendous feat! 22 right now, average low is 21. Same as the night before. 

It’s really wild how much of a struggle it is for us to hit our average low temperatures anymore. It seems like it’s far easier for daytime highs to be NN/BN than low temperatures. 

This has something to do with excess moisture in the air / humidity blocking the ability to properly radiate heat at night? Just the sheer persistence of AN nightly lows is interesting to me. 

2 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

 

What sort of temp departures are you anticipating for this period? I haven’t combed over model output but my Accuweather app is showing a range of about -2 to +2, of course I’m taking that with an entire salt shaker. 

What are your thoughts solely WRT temperature during the peak of the block?

22 minutes ago, WX-PA said:

They were saying the same things in the 80s and the 90s.

My only point of contention is, respectfully, were winters as warm then on average, consecutively? That seems difficult to ignore, especially next to the stat that shows our snowiest winters as being colder on average.  Just IMO. 

Also asking because I don’t know the stats off the top of my head, but I don’t believe they were. 

17 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Absent some type of super volcanic eruption, NYC is going to have a hard time getting another 50”+ snowfall season with how warm the winters have become since 15-16. NYC has needed a winter average temperature closer to freezing or lower to pull off this feat.   Our average winter temperatures over the last 9 years have been too close to 40° to get the job done. The current average winter temperature in NYC last 9 years has been a record 38.5° average. 
 

Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY - Oct through Sep
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Rank	Season	Total Snowfall	Average Temperature DJF
1	1995-1996	75.6	32.2°
2	1947-1948	63.9	30.0°
3	2010-2011	61.9	32.8°
4	1922-1923	60.4	29.9°
5	1872-1873	60.2	27.7°
6	2013-2014	57.4	32.9°
7	1874-1875	56.4	27.7°
8	1898-1899	55.9	31.5°
9	1960-1961	54.7	31.7°
10	1993-1994	53.4	31.1°
11	1906-1907	53.2	31.6°
12	1933-1934	52.0	29.1°
13	1966-1967	51.5	34.1°
14	2009-2010	51.4	33.8°
15	1977-1978	50.7	30.3°
-	1916-1917	50.7	31.7°
-	1915-1916	50.7	32.4°
16	2014-2015	50.3	31.4°

 

Monthly Mean Avg Temperature for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

Year	Dec	Jan	Feb	Season
Mean	41.0	35.7	38.9	38.5
2023-2024	44.6	37.0		40.8
2022-2023	38.5	43.5	41.1	41.0
2021-2022	43.8	30.3	37.3	37.1
2020-2021	39.2	34.8	34.2	36.1
2019-2020	38.3	39.1	40.1	39.2
2018-2019	40.1	32.5	36.2	36.3
2017-2018	35.0	31.7	42.0	36.1
2016-2017	38.3	38.0	41.6	39.3
2015-2016	50.8	34.5	37.7	41.0

Yeah, undeniably concerning. 

A true supervolcanic eruption won’t be in the cards for many millennia, but we could pull a VEI 6-7 at any time. Would probably help cool the oceans as has happened in the past, though that works best with an Aleutians high latitude eruption. Need Edgecumbe, Davidof, or some other wildcard to wake up and stir the pot for us. Novarupta was an eccentric event that isn’t famously known for its climate impact despite the size, but the years following were cold regardless IIRC. Iceland doesn’t normally do eruptions of this size and type, though there are exceptions (big blasts from Hekla, Katla, and Öræfajökull are capable of it). 

HTHH was an odd wildcard and is not well represented statistically in recurrence intervals for events of that size. Maybe we get one in the not too distant future to stir things up a bit for us, though I think the next may come from the Andes which is a bit trickier. Regardless, grain of salt because this is all tea leaves until something truly wakes up, and there’s only one that comes to mind atm (in the Andes).

(Know you were being tongue in cheek a bit, but figured I’d give my thoughts since they obviously can be a wildcard shakeup)

Short of that, it’s undeniable how our snowiest years tend to be colder and within or near DFa Humid Continental climate classification. 

Yikes. 

FWIW I’m coming around to being in agreement that background warming will worsen bad years with unfavorable decadal variability while still probably enhancing years with the reverse. I think we’ll see some big winters yet in the near future, but also an increase of years like the past two - with very little to show for it. I think this effect will continue to magnify until a breaking point where snowfall climo will begin degrading period even factoring the above (meaning even “good” years are less productive instead of amplified), but when that point precisely is would be impossible to speculate.

Perhaps the -PDO and PAC / MJO forcing is what nudged this year into the ‘bad’ column despite having other things going for it. Seems like we’ll increasingly need ‘everything going right’ to have those big years, but they’ll occasionally still happen.

And I still think we’ll get those months like Jan 22 where sub-regionally an area will excel even in an otherwise poor winter. Me having 16 inches at 22F in that 1/29 storm signifies it’s still possible, but everything has to go right. I do feel we want and need ‘the cold,’ with winter averages being what they are and the overall willingness to go wildly AN, we need sharp cold shots with some legs to ensure events are all frozen. Think of the early Jan storm this year for NYC if it was just a touch colder, still not the best track but they would’ve netted something at least IMO. Dry will always be a risk, but I’ll take the cold every time.

In full agreement this is a ‘boom or bust’ period, probably with more ‘bust’ than in the past overall.

Just IMHO. 

15 minutes ago, NEG NAO said:

when should we begin to see models catching on to this idea ?

 

IMO a larger event in that window with this much model agreement should start to appear within about a week. Seems like this would be the time a larger threat is identified early and relatively locked in, were one to happen. But still about a week before we cross into that threshold. 

My interest will perk up next weekend, assuming all else holds. 

I’m supposed to be heading to VT on Fri with my wife for a snowshoeing/hiking trip for a few days for my bday, been planning for months. Of course I select the exact dates of a massive thermal spike after VT has been subfreezing for over a week lol. A little dejected, was excited to get into some dry powder and not slosh around in melty muddy crap. It’s not even just going to be AN, it’s looking crazy warm up there. 

This was my relative fail safe if the rest of winter doesn’t pan out here, and of course I know there’s always the risk of uncooperative weather I’m just extra miffed because the conditions have been good leading in. 

12 hours ago, Cygnus X-1 said:

Yeah, and I live on a GIANT glacial moraine in NY called Long Island.

Was it Mammoth farts that melted the Laurentide Ice Sheet?

Hot dogs!!!

Changes in the Milankovitch cycle, a degree of ocean warming leading to Heinrich events, and other subtle feedback processes drove the disintegration of the ice sheet. About 8000 years ago solar insolation was higher than today, which helped polish off the remnants of the ice sheet. 

I’d be curious about the ‘mammoth fart hypothesis,’ though. They were pretty big and I’m sure their farts were rather vile .

https://www.futurity.org/laurentide-ice-age-sea-level-rise-1366092/

https://serc.carleton.edu/vignettes/collection/58451.html#:~:text=After 20%2C000 years ago%2C Earth,the modern Greenland Ice Sheet.

12 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Around a foot.

Sorry man, I knew it was somewhat spotty but I didn’t realize to that extent. I’m glad you scored so nicely in that early Jan event at least, for this year. 

Hoping things pick up as scheduled, and fingers crossed SNE to the coast joins in and gets some needed wintry love. 

Ray, what did you get in 1/29/22? I think you mentioned aside from this Jan, your best recent storm was back in March 2018. Didn’t 1/29 jackpot parts of E NE? I forget who really cashed in but I thought some areas had over 20.

That was great down here for me in coastal NJ, my biggest snowfall at 16 inches since Jan 18. 
 

@40/70 Benchmark