psuhoffman

Bingo... A WAG about next year isn’t worth much. I’m not claiming it is. I’ve been transparent that it’s just a wag based on probabilities and trends. That said the probabilities favor a below avg winter. Of course that’s true EVERY year. But mostly I find it amusing that this bothers Mersky so much.

Maybe if i dig deep enough I’ll emerge out the other side of winter and it will be in the phase 8 you were predicting using the CFS.

Nino winters using January for the year 2003,2005,2007,2010,2015,2016,2019 nina years 2001,2006,2008,2009,2011,2012,2017,2018 neutral years 2002,2004,2013,2014,2020 Let me explain my rationale. This year has been awful. It’s not normal. But it is normal to get a year like this every 8 years or so. This one ended up even worse then some similar comp years with a similar pattern like 1989, 2002, 2008 but only slightly because each of those years lucked into one storm and this year didn’t. But it ended up similar to some other years like 98, 73 or 52 that also ended up pretty snowless. But these type years have been trending worse for a while. 2017 was another example where similar comp pattern years in the past might have produced 8” but recently that’s been trending down so the 3” result wasn’t shocking to me. That this year ended up with almost nothing vs the 3-4” it might have produced in a similar year 30 years ago also doesn’t shock me. That just seems to be the new normal now. But that doesn’t bother me that much because honestly would you feel better if we had eeked our way to 5” from a couple minor slush events? You know not, you complained non stop in years like that also. So who cares if our awful years are 3” instead of 5” or 1” instead of 3” now. The frequency of our “good winters” actually hasn’t changed and is still about 30%. Those are the only years you and most would be happy with the results anyways. The other 70% is some variation of suck that are mostly warm with little snow and most of that snow is flawed minor events that you toss and those years won’t make you happy whether the final total is 2” or 5” or 8”. So im not obsessing over the fact that in our typical run of 4 crap years we get every decade we end up with 27” total instead of the 32” we might have gotten 20 years ago. That seems to be the expected result of the recent trends. Im not saying this is normal. I’m saying there is no normal but that this run doesn’t fall outside of an expected result to balance out the run of luck we had earlier in the decade. I never hear you complaining about how not normal it is when we get a lot of snow.

@Maestrobjwa in all seriousness if the thought of not getting snow a year away affects your mood now that much you probably need to move somewhere that gets a lot more snow. If you need snow to be happy this just isn’t the place for you.

It’s going to do what it does regardless of how much we worry about it now.

Guidance right now is split between neutral to Nina.

That’s probably because somewhere in the back of your mind you still cling to hope. Abandon all hope and accept our fate and it will go much more smoothly.

I'm actually starting to worry about next winter. I wasn’t kidding about my 5-10” prediction. I mean it’s a WAG and totally based on probabilities BUT it’s legit. Currently odds do not favor a nino and other than ninos all other winters following years like this mostly sucked. On top of that our median snowfall since 2000 in all non nino years is 7.5”. So yea next year is probably going to suck. But look on the bright side...maybe they miscalculated and that huge asteroid this week will hit the Earth and then we won’t have to suffer through it.

I just can’t get past how picky people are being with weather. My snow needs to be between this date and that date and must stick to roads and god forbid it’s on a weekend. As if we can afford to toss so many non perfect snows here. Or if you have to put on a jacket in April...my god, the horror. I’ve had soccer games when it was close to 100 and skied when it was -25. One summer practice at PSU it was close to 95 and all they did was give us one extra water break. One late fall game against a SUNY campus in upstate NY it was 30 and snowing and we couldn’t wear layers because it would slow us down. Jesus Nut up people.

In this pattern winter could have been GOT length and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Bitter

Were running out of time What are you talking about, the day 280 super secret model I run out of my basement looks GREAT! ETA: for Maine

What are we doing today hun? I dunno dear, what’s the weather? 58 and Sunny with a light breeze. Well....we could put on a light jacket then go out and enjoy the day OR....stay in and bitch all day that it should be 65 this time of year.

Honey I’m home...

Too much bitter for some

I’m sure there are real problems those people could find to worry about

Well yea if we get a -NAO we could get a below avg April but people are acting like it will be a cold miserable month. Maybe a few days tops. But a 55 degree sunny day in April isn’t my idea of suffering or worth obsessively fearing.

As @C.A.P.E. said there is no "normal" for us. Statistically normal is usually anything within a standard deviation. I don't remember exactly what it came out too but I ran the numbers once and one standard deviation wrt snowfall here is useless. Because our snowfall year to year is so varied it was something like anything between 1 and 40". We have no "normal" snowfall distribution...we don't live somewhere that has a typical expected snowfall each year. We can get 1" and 40" with about equal probabilities...and everything in between. WRT this current 4 year run...look if it makes you feel better to cling to the idea that it isnt normal and is the worst spit in our eye of mother nature fine. I have no idea what that would make you feel any better. But if you keep expecting things to be better than recent history and trends suggest its likely to be year to year...you are just going to keep being frustrated and disappointed most years. I have no idea if this is a more temporary climate cycle (some of it probably is wrt NAO) or a more permanent shift due to warming (some of it likely is) but the bottom line is there has been an observable change. Nino years havent changed much. We still average about 25" in a nino since 2000. That was about the same before that. Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino. But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap. We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year. The other 12 were all some variation of garbage. That didn't used to be the case. Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past. Not so anymore. On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing. When you combine those FACTS it makes what is happening now totally expected and inevitable. I don't know if this trend will continue but until it changes we should expect similar results. Some good years surrounded by long stretches of really really bad is the new normal. It's been that way and trending worse for over 20 years now. For some reason you seem to want to set your expectations based on how things USED TO BE 50 years ago instead of what the evidence suggests is a reasonable expectation in our current climate cycle.

Personally I hope its 65 and sunny 6 days a week for the next month...then on the 7th day we get 8" of heavy wet snow.

What we "want" won't make any difference. Not saying you are saying this...but every year we start to get some posts about now with people who want it to be warm and sunny annoyed at people still rooting for late snow...or people tracking snow annoyed with people who are done and want warmth. Who cares....they can all root for whatever they want because it wont affect what actually happens. If what other people want to happen actually affects your mood...well that is a different problem and I am not going there.

Even our coldest Aprils featured plenty of 60+ days... we just might not get a lot of 75+ days in April which can happen without blocking. It would mean we actually get a spring and don't just jump right into Summer weather like @C.A.P.E. said. "Cold April" fears are almost always overblown imo unless a couple chilly days in the 40's is really going to ruin the entire month for you.

It’s bleeding the wrong way on guidance but it’s still barely within the scope of possible so I guess it’s worth a peek each run.

Won’t matter much. Even with blocking most days in April will be warm. Maybe we get a few days of 40s but most days will be 50+ early April and 60+ after April 15th even in a -NAO. Even when we get snow in April it’s often 50+ the day before and after. Sustained cold is very unlikely.

The inverted trough feature is worth keeping an eye on. Even that is likely a fail but there is a chance it could impact the northeast parts of this forum.

Yea Im personally not bothered and don’t mean to be antagonistic, but at this point I think it’s clearly established that this is probably not happening so more posts saying “bad run” is just redundant. If something unexpected happens then it’s worth bringing up. But that’s just my opinion.