Volcanic Winter

Busting out the Cersei memes, it must’ve been bad. Though I for sure would’ve appreciated the 80’s cold waves. I’m a bit of an arctic… arcto..phile?

2009-2011 was drool worthy for me. My place in Long Branch while going to school at MU got buried in that Dec storm, and then I spent Boxing Day and the rest of that insane winter in North Brunswick in an apartment with my future wife. We moved south shortly after but still had some really awesome winters in the 2010’s and a few extremely memorable events. The past few years have been wholly dispiriting, though of course with some brighter moments like last Jan. The Feb 1 2021 storm I only experienced at work (18 inches), my house got about 5. I too grew up in an era of big snow in Central NJ, so perhaps many of us are just spoiled. Never knew the 80’s doldrums.

Clinging hard to the snow and cold we had in North Iceland in November. Was a great trip.

I’m about ready for a “Classic northeast Day After Tomorrow pattern.”

This is peak depression climo for me. Warm heavy rain in January. Doesn’t get much more dispiriting.

57 on my Tempest (TR / Manchester border), 49 up at work (Hillside) currently. Barf.

Given the active train of waves, I’m still thinking we’ll avoid a complete shutout. It’s the only thing keeping us even slightly in the game right now it looks like. Regardless, seems unavoidable that we’ll be sweating temps unless something really comes together perfectly, but at least there’s stuff to watch. Small victories?

Excellent, thank you!

Not to interrupt a good discussion, I’m just curious what -SN or SN+ means? I’ve seen that a few places aside your username, Easton - especially on the NE boards. My best context guess is whether snow is sticking to all surfaces or not? I’m sure that’s wrong, but I think it refers to a snowfall characteristic. Thanks.

I prefer my snow on January 14th. If it snows any other day, I send it back.

Got me beat Rjay, but 1/29 was pretty fun my ways too:

We’re really putting the tropical in humid subtropical.

Yeah, I mean I agree with you. I said on here a while back I don’t understand how people don’t find this more disturbing, but even here many people “love the warmth.” Totally respect that, but I would think concern over the state of the climate would win out in DJFM from a bunch of weather enthusiasts. It’s just almost a sure thing, especially in Dec as per all of Bluewave’s data, that we have a big fat warm up every year. I’m not saying it will, but if this winter repeats similar positive departures from 19-20 that should have everyone at attention.

I think we just have to hope that this most recent five year period doesn’t characterize a “new normal” for the area. I suppose we’ll gain some insight there when we finally shake up the ENSO into something more favorable and see how we do. Can’t really think of much else to add, just hoping we can snag at least one moderate coastal out of this month.

Honestly average NYC snow is not bad, plenty for most. Probably not hardcore snow lovers, but it’s not like the area is a snow vacuum. The crux of it (right now at least) is getting to average in the first place, and occasionally getting the winters that balance out the bad ones. It is definitely possible as much as I’d like it not to be true that the last twenty or so years were anomalously snowy and not something that’s likely to continue. I tend to think the warmth is going to be more and more of an issue than anything else. I know some disagree, at least in the short term.

Yeah, when I wrote my modestly upbeat comments yesterday I was mainly holding onto the notion that such a potent arctic airmass in Dec along with such powerful blocking wouldn’t be the start of a shutout winter. But that last storm really demolished the playing field and the reset so far hasn’t been close to what we need. That mid month signal looks / looked interesting, but it really needs to dig further south to get us in the game at least on track alone. Quite a few days out still, of course. Maybe it gets interesting, maybe not. I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll always take the cold in place first. I know we don’t “need” an arctic air mass and I know it can even be counterproductive, but I’ll always take having some cold air in place like last Jan.

Yeah the cutoff to that AC storm was brutal, I only caught a few inches in that while not far to my south cleaned up. Had a great Jan overall though and scored nicely wrt NJ in 1/29. As long as the absolute torch is abating, that’s a good enough step one for me. 30 days is a long period of weather, there’s bound to be a surprise or two this Jan (and of course, not all surprises are good).

Yeah, I'm just along for the ride. The other forums are a bit more upbeat (M/A and NE), not saying we'll all see snow that won't be highly location / track dependent but I'm at least staying optimistic. This winter in my unscientific, anecdotal opinion does not have the tenor of a 2019-2020 shutout. With that said, if I personally get little or nothing here to March, so be it. 1/29 was fun.

I averaged 36.5 for the month near Manchester TR border on my Tempest. Interesting. 7.3 min and 64.6 max.

Meanwhile Iceland has had one of their coldest months in a very long time, with temps as cold as -20C in the warmer southwestern region near Reykjavik and Thingvellir (one of the main tourism areas inland from the capital). I was there in November and it was nothing like this, now (I saw about -10C up in the northern part of the country, which is more typical). Capital area was -1 to about 6C while I was there. What a difference.

For the latter issue, I drive a WRX. With a 60 mile commute up the parkway, having a car like this is a dream (not to mention fun, especially in snow). Unfortunately since getting it the only real storm I had to drive in was Feb 1 2021. Years prior I would borrow my father's F150 for larger storms, and in having my current job since 2009, I have some crazy memories of driving the parkway in horrific conditions.

63F now at my house. Up from 27F this morning. I think that qualifies as a torch .

Everybody stuck watching reruns of “Attack Of the Niña” while hoping we finally get to watch “Revenge of the Weenie.” Definitely the better movie IMO. I especially like the battle between Anafrontal Snowwalker and Nosnowbi Juan Niñobi.

I woke up at 27F on the Tempest down by me. Yeah, the difference is pretty staggering. I’m just about the opposite of a UHI being near the pine barrens with my home situated at the edge of a forest, but yeah.

I totally admit it’s extremely upsetting to me. It’s very hard to accept what we’re staring down for a couple weeks .