Volcanic Winter

https://glenallenweather.com/alink/18snow/snowmaps2/Great Atlantic coastal snowstorms.pdf Was just reading through this today getting myself depressed, some of these winters had to have been absolute blockbusters. I’m sure 30 year averages throughout this period at times were higher than today, though climatologically of course the LIA was very different to now. It does suggest IMHO that temperature will become a bigger and bigger issue as time goes on. For all we know the less snowy periods of the 80’s etc that are often mentioned were the actual anomalies, when going off a paltry number of years of data. I just always see people argue the less snowy periods are inherently more normal than the snowy periods, and I don’t necessarily know if we can say that for sure. Just my thoughts on it.

I think this year in particular is just a bad year caused by pattern failures. I do agree we’re going to eventually face a problem where warmth is a primary issue, but look at last January as an example. Plenty cold. ACY had a huge snowstorm (unfortunately it was south of me, I received nothing but virga). The event after that hit the entire area including me for nearly half a foot because it was cold enough. And 1/29 blasted me, near the coast, for 16 glorious inches at 22f during time of snowfall. That’s what you get when there’s cold available and in the mix. Wasn’t a particularly active or great winter, but there was available cold that made a couple events work. Once that stops happening we have a problem for sure.

Is the SE ridge becoming a more permanent fixture of our winter weather? Or is it more due to the recurring La Niñas we’ve been having? I have no way of analyzing that outside of finding it concerning how it’s a recurring problem almost regardless of the pattern, and how it seemed to pop up intrusively less often in the past. Again this is beyond the scope of my knowledge but if it’s conclusively tied to SST’s in the Atlantic that seems like it’ll continue to be a big problem. I’m sure there’s more to it than that (I hope so). Just wondering aloud.

Yeah the UHI seems especially brutal lately. I’m not well versed in the mechanics of that outside the obvious. Does it get accentuated by a warmer pattern? I check NYC temps often and the lows in particular are really jarring.

The problem I have with this, is that it all but guarantees we get nothing and have no chances. Have to have some cold around to get snow. Even average temps will still work. If we completely go roasty toasty then it well and truly is over. I get what you’re saying, “if it’s not going to snow it may as well be warm.” Reasonable, except we can’t know precisely how many snow chances we’ll have and how many would be closer with a better air mass. Better off taking whatever seasonal cold we can get and hoping we get lucky. IMHO. Of course it doesn’t matter anyway since our thoughts / emotions / wants and needs don’t dictate the weather (if they did, NJ would be Siberia - sorry guys ).

On my Tempest near border of Toms River and Manchester, for the month of Jan I’ve averaged 41.9. High max of 68.4 on 1/4 and minimum low of 25.3 on 1/8. My average low right now is 22 and haven’t hit it once this month. Dec I averaged 36.5 with a low min of 7. Dec averaged significantly colder than Jan to this point. That’s probably not especially common, eh? Ugly winter so far. As someone who likes seasonal chill and cold presses I’m happy at least Dec offered that to some extent. Better than whatever this is right now…

Wow I hit 32 overnight, deep winter has set in.

I do think we’ll see Niña shenanigans for most of Feb. I also think and hope between now and Feb 10th is probably our window to luck into something until maybe March again. Dispiriting, but hoping we can find some way to make it happen the next couple weeks. My bday is in early Feb, so it’d be nice to get something for the damn near blood sacrifice the area has made this winter so far. Honestly I’m good with a couple inches, would just like my house to look like winter once and then we’ll go from there.

White rain due west of NYC. Somewhat looks like it’s trying to turn to sleet but too warm here (38ish). Fun.

Know any movies where the killer murders the SE ridge?

Joking aside, I'm actually curious though. Of course I'm not talking about a fantasy storm on long range guidance.

How do meteorologists do it? Best guess is looking at QPF and temps at different levels combined with educated guesses at likely ratios? Seems like it gets complicated quickly by stuff like fronto / deformation bands, etc.

Yeah there’s a huge variability across the northeast and mid Atlantic that this forum targets. I haven’t had a great stretch lately where I am at home close to the coast (but inland from it) in central NJ, but last January in particular was fantastic given the past few years. I don’t think guys here did quite as well (but didn’t the Delmarva score too?) IDK how many of you read the New England forum as well but the SNE guys there are equally as miserable. Many, even pretty far north have only a couple inches on the season. This isn’t just a M/A skunkjob. Everyone’s hurting, but of course the places that should do best have been doing best this year. The coastal plain is simply striking out down into the western part of this sub forum. It really just seems like bad patterns mixed with terrible luck mixed with Niña base state exerting itself at the worst times. Not saying that’s all of it, but seems to be a big part of it this year.

Literally you in my mind.

I’m fully willing to sacrifice you to the SPV so it gets disrupted and we have an actual winter.

I do actually, PM me your email I can send you a few things.

I had to go way back through thousands of camera roll pics and screenshot them to get them to the top to easily find in my Imgur app, so forgive the goofy way I had to post them. When I have time I’ll try to go back through them and email to myself and them upload and post the images properly, I also should have a few more I didn’t post for you. So you can have the actual proper images. Just need some time and I can do that for you. I’ll tag you with a reply when I do it.

Almost no cars were out on the Parkway at this time, held my phone up to the side to take a few images after slowing to a crawl with no cars ahead or behind me. It was just freaky. I don’t remember if there was a state of emergency or an order to stay off the roads, but I’ll never forget how deserted both commutes were. Very few times I can recall the parkway looked like this (with respect to a complete lack of car density).

Yup!! Was a fun one. You can see in the pic my old 6 speed BMW 128i; didn’t have my WRX yet and there was no way in hell that car was making it 60 miles up the parkway in that kind of storm. At that time I would borrow my dad’s F150 and damn, what a harrowing commute that was. Worst parkway conditions I’ve personally driven on in quite a few years. It was an engaging ride to say the least lol.

Thinking of better times. With the exception of 1/29/22 which gave me 16 inches here at the Toms River / Manchester border, 1/4/18 was the last storm that really bulls-eyed me relative to the rest of the subforum, though Long Island also got clobbered. This was a fantastic storm that I constantly think back to. And up at my office west of EWR. That was an extremely challenging (but fun, I’m a psycho) commute up the parkway.

Officially on the board with a “trace!” Protecting my 7 & 1/2 flakes like they’re white gold…

You may be absolutely correct and you’re undoubtedly extremely knowledgeable. I actually really enjoy your posts despite your reputation for being a downer. With that said, I do find it kind of odd that on a science forum we have posters telling the professionals here that they’re wrong (or in SnoSki’s case actually calling one “naive?”). It is also, undoubtedly, much easier to keep calling for essentially a continuation of “warm and shitty” during a warm and shitty winter. I think what becomes irksome (at least IMHO) is how you guys have a tendency to imply what you’re saying is verbatim fact and not just an interpretation or opinion. Even if you end up right, I’m still going to lend more weight to what the professional meteorologists that post here have to offer on the subject. Of course it doesn’t mean they’re infallible or that you (and others) are wrong, certainly. But the point is we don’t know for certain how things are going to play out. It’s been a very complicated winter to forecast for the multitude of reasons we all know 50x over by now.

Pulling for you SEMA guys, really hoping that ends up verifying. Be happy to see someone coastal finally scoring. Keeping positive we end up seeing those improvements late month into Feb. Better than staring down a shutout with certainty at least.