psuhoffman

2021 is in my analogs. Wasn’t one of the higher ones but it showed up.

32/31 2.4” on the deck even getting some driveway cave now

She is right in the middle of town, like 6 blocks east of the main intersection. Mini heat island thing going on there plus a little lower elevation then the south side. I drive back and forth with the kids all the time... she lives in a local snow anus.

I do think this means something...it's hinting that this is likely to be the colder variety (northward displaced ridge) version of a "cold enso" season. And with that in mind I might revise my final snowfall forecast this week upwards, a smidge. Because I might pull out some of the warmer complete ratter analogs that were still within my set previously, I really don't think that is how this winter is going now. But I don't think it necessarily means a 2014 repeat either, and I don't plan to include that year in my calculations since as I've stated its an outlier even among other similar seasons with a similar pattern. It just went to an extreme we don't often see. So this is definitely "good" and sure it opens the door to the slim possibility that some crazy extreme outcome like 2014 could happen, but the most realistic take imo is that this winter is likely a "colder" variety of nina, more in line with seasons like 2009, 2018, 2022 where there are legit periods of cold and snow chances, than a 2012 or 2023 type total dud. But its important to keep in mind that even the colder nina or cold neutral types while definitely preferable to the warmer flat pac ridge ones...can be frustrating wrt to snowfall also since they usually still feature a fast NS that often disrupts the ability for southern waves to amplify and get to our latitude and those NS waves stay to our north.

It’s not as crazy as that time in Dec 2020 when I had almost 3” and there was just a slushy coating down there but this is another storm where it’s a noticeable difference. Ex reports there is nothing in Hanover to our north.

32/30 Its official 1.2” on the deck

I just need another half inch. …you know what to do

31/29 still steady light moderate snow

Even my extreme pessimistic self doesn’t expect a complete ratter this year. Definitely expect below avg snow but I think we will have a colder variety of Nina with periods where snow will be around. But in typical Nina fashion getting anything significant will probably be frustrating. But I expect we see flakes more often than perhaps has been common lately even if it doesn’t necessary add up to a whole not more. but my god it’s sad we’ve gotten to this…I was thinking the same. I used to not care what happened with early season snows confident there would be many more opportunities. Ehh not so much now.

The reverse jinx works again. It immediately started to pick up. Nothing even remotely heavy by any means but enough that it’s legit starting to stick now. Fluffy flakes. It’s actually high ratio type stuff but limited by the surface temps of course.

Light snow the last hour. 32/30 light dusting on grass and deck Even up here the possibility of 1-2” is precarious now because guidance has backed off some this morning with precip rates. With marginal temps the difference between .2 and .35 qpf isn’t 2” v 3” its sticking or not sticking at all since there is a critical rate needed to stick at all. Will have to see if rates can pick up enough before the warm air mixes in later.

It’s a little over 2 hours in good weather. It’s not bad now that 48 is done. Obviously it’s dicey in the snow but that’s true of any roads

It’s possible. At this time in 2013 I didn’t expect what was about to happen. I was expecting another 2008-9 type year then also. It definitely happens sometimes. But it’s not something I bet on. A lot of forecasting is just playing probability

Seriously that could be describing like 10 years in the last 20 and most were cold neutral or Nina years. But I know 2009 there was a sharp gradient near 40 where snow went from way below to near and slightly above normal. It wasn’t amazing to our north. Philly had 23” which is slightly above avg. NYC had 27” also a little above avg. There were no major storms but several minor to moderate events went just to our north during several cold periods in Dec-Feb. We got all our snow from one storm early March.

That’s almost every “cold” Nina.

I’d argue last year was better. A good week of winter. 2009 almost all the snow fell in one March storm and melted the next day.

It’s gonna be a long year

Even the kuchera maps on the NAMs are becoming more interesting. I’d like to see some of the more reliable guidance come in colder 18z but if the NAM can ever get one thing right it can sometimes do better with temps.

Probably overdone. It’s the NAM. But euro was indicating 1-2” in favored areas also. That’s probably more realistic.

I see the reason for the hype, there are some similarities to 2013/14 and the pattern looks fairly good coming up. The problem is that the same can be said of most of the other analogs that didn’t lead to much snow. Look at the patter late November in 2008. Perfect march also. This type of pattern has only ever really worked in a cold enso or neutral season once. Since we don’t have reliable records far ending back I can’t say if it was a 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 type fluke but I can say it was an outlier result and not one I’d want to bet on repeating in any one given similar season. The more likely outcome is the less exciting one unfortunately. But y’all know I’m rooting for it. I didn’t see 2014 coming either.

Kickera isn’t bad for our area as long as expectations are reasonable.

I think if people don’t get dreams of 2014 results in their heads there is some good news here and that is I do see signs that some of the absolute worst analog years like 2002 and 2023 might not be how this winter is evolving. I see more similarities so years like 2008/9 and 2012/13 and while they weren’t good there was more snow around the area those years. They were just bad not god awful. Until recently not god awful might have been considers a win. But recently I’ve seen some hype based on one season where this type of pattern worked. But it takes things going to a crazy extreme to get an epo driven pattern to be snowy here in a cold enso season. It does snow some. And it’s cold for stretches. But most often it’s also frustrating as we’re stuck in the dead zone between storm tracks most of the winter.

Precip shadow due to downsloping off the catoctins. The precip hole is on every run. The 3kNAM sometimes over does this feature some, but its a real thing with this wind trajectory. NW Carroll gets less snow than surrounding areas due to the shadow effect with ridges to either side of them.