Volcanic Winter

Small world! I live at the TR / Manchester border and work up in Union Co. Grew up in Middlesex / Monmouth.

I grew up in NJ in the 2000’s and all I know is snow, it was something we saw almost every winter and never felt rare. Of course we’re talking one of the best eras ever for big snow, and my first real snow memory was 1996. Then as a young adult living in my first apartment with my then girlfriend / now wife, we had Boxing Day and got destroyed, through all the great early / mid 2010 years to 2016. Since then I’ve only seen a handful of good events, maybe a little more than some of you guys but by no means has it been good. My perspective is very skewed by the era I grew up in, which sucks for me now. But that doesn’t change how decadal warming is going to begin eroding snow climo for the whole area, if it hasn’t to an extent already (IMHO it has). Good patterns and deep cold will be needed to secure results and more marginal setups will be more likely to fail, this has been the case even in coastal SNE. With that said, I do think we’ll see some big years yet when everything goes right. It didn’t just completely switch off after 2016, we just have decadal warming on top of unfavorable decadal natural variation. Of course I want snow IMBY but I’ll be very excited if the DC metro gets crushed. I’m pulling for it, it’s needed.

Press the cold, get more people in the game, and that’s a big win IMO. Don’t care how much or how little. Getting some flakes would be nice.

We had that epic Dec block last year not work out for us. We can’t repeat the sins of the past this year. This one has to produce. Looking at everything, we definitely have a chance. Looks like (of course, as per usual anymore) quite a complicated setup though with many moving parts. The Euro has a phase right which is why the result looked good?

What are your thoughts on Feb? Originally IIRC you thought Feb had a chance at being pretty decent, any other thoughts on that?

Agree. It’s a holistic, exhaustive way of evaluating everything into a workable forecast. Idc if @40/70 Benchmarkis “wrong” or “right” in terms of verification, he puts a ton of work into it and follows a clearly identifiable overcurrent of logic. Works for me, I appreciate it. If nothing else it works as an outstanding overview of the parameters leading into the winter season. And for someone like me who lacks the depth of meteorological knowledge that many of you have, it’s a great learning tool (which is what I’m here for…).

23 for a low, currently 40. Let the rain begin .

The Feb 1 storm? I had 5 inches at home and 18 at work. Doesn’t matter, had snow, would do again.

At least there’s a wave or two to track right now that aren’t guaranteed Lakes cutters. At this point, I’ll take it.

Edit: Pretend I made a Q instead of an O. Thx

I would be seeing you in the summer complaining about how much I hate the blinding sun and heat, and how much I crave the winter cold and darkness. Be honest, how many meds would I be leaving your office with?

I feel bad if anything for the lower MA crew. They really haven’t had a significant snowfall since 2016? That’s what I was hearing, but I’m not very familiar with their snowfall stats. Certainly hasn’t been great the past few years but Jan 2018, Feb 2021, and Jan 2022 were all good enough to keep me from the ledge. I’d probably be over it if I hadn’t snowed appreciably since 2016. The NE crew are a whacky bunch of strong personalities mixing, I genuinely think they’re hilarious. I don’t like when anything devolves into petty insults and fighting, but in general their bickering makes me laugh. Hey most of us are here for the same thing with various levels of actual meteorological interest. Those that contribute to prognostication should always be able to state their opinions and perspectives without being mocked for it. I’ve seen a lot of that this year and I think it’s uncalled for, though less on this forum than others thankfully. Disagreement and debate is a key part of scientific discussion.

Isn’t that what happened in 2015-16? Didn’t the wave stall in one of the right side phases at high amplitude? I don’t really have a good grasp on MJO tendencies between Niña/Niño, just seems like a continuation of the MJO wanting to hang out and amplify in phases that can be counterproductive for us.

If only 1/29 were a little more NW. I could’ve had what LI had (think some spots were over 20 inches, I had 16), and the immediate metro would’ve done a lot better. What I remember most fondly of that storm was the cold, 22F at the peak. Cold powder. Real winter stuff. Strong storm, it’s just a shame it only scraped the area.

We’re definitely due a region wide all snow event. I don’t mean a HECS, but just something with cold air in place and favorable storm dynamics. Was even thinking something like that Jan 8-9 event from 2022 that pretty much gave the entire metro 5+ with no mixing that I recall (even here was powder all the way). And then hey, let’s go from there. HECS are amazing but I’m the guy that likes multiple events with a recurring winter vibe instead of one and done + torch. Hopefully today’s event was the building block.

Yeah, I like the constant wave activity. Eventually we’ll connect on a broader hit. Happy the northern crew is doing well! I held the rain down here as long as I could .

How have the various ensembles been performing with respect to the broader patterns so far? What’s been the most accurate?

Happy you saw some flakes man, it’s been a torrent of rain down here. My wife is on the phone with her parents in Milltown and they have a decent amount considering. Wasn’t expecting anything really for them or we could’ve gone up for dinner!

23 here right now. Would be a perfect winter evening just prior to a solid snowstorm. One day. Keep the faith gentlemen, we have a ways to go. And congrats and good luck to the northern crew that’s going to get something from this. Enjoy it!

I do agree we need more time to evaluate, and I do think we sometimes draw conclusions prematurely without enough data to be more definitive. It’s difficult to separate changing climatology / warming (in a year to year sense I mean) from natural variance anyway, though I believe strongly this post 2016 period is offering clues. I do want to add that the majority of what Bluewave does is retrospective analysis without much long range forecasting. He’s not predicting so much as evaluating recent recurrent failure modes and recognizing similar warning signs in the short range.

With respect Easton, there’s more to the area’s winter climatology than snowfall in a vacuum. Compare the temperature trends vs earlier snowless periods, we were likely colder and drier with less frequent, less amplified, and less juiced storms dropping less snow in general. It seems like the equation is different now with temperature becoming an increasingly large inhibitor to the area’s snowfall since 2016. Add back in any decadal variance such as pac cycles and IMHO that gives this the potential to be more severe than past droughts. Doesn’t mean there weren’t warm and wet low snow years back then either, of course those always existed. It’s more about frequency and intensity IMO. All IMHO.

Easier to see shifts in the storm when you’re tracking the rain snow line over several dozen miles. Think about it, though I definitely understand the sentiment lol.

Also hit 22 this AM, tied for my coldest of the season. This is basically my average low right now, and because we get so normalized to the increasing minimums it feels almost like anomalous cold.

GFS output gets 4'' down to even me, that's a discard for now. I guess optimistically it's nice to still see some favorable wobbles, but yeah.

I mean, don't forget how insanely crowded NJ -> NYC / HV / LI -> SW CT is. Any plowable snowstorm is a big deal which requires the activation of a lot of resources to keep the area functioning. Of course we're used to snow up here unlike the south or something, but this region is still enormously overcrowded which makes any snowfall a bigger deal than it would be in a less populated area. The broader DC to BOS corridor is just stupidly dense with people. So I agree that sometimes the media really overhypes or bites too early on potential snow events, but they also genuinely are a very big deal in this area (especially once we're talking significant snowfall, 6+ inches, which was at least semi-plausible going back a couple days).