michsnowfreak

The November one was truly probably once in a lifetime type of storm. Not just because 8-12" fell, but because it was powder and followed by record smashing cold never before seen so early in the season. And then wouldn't you know it ended up a mild Winter. You probably got between 6 and 7" on January 18th but it was an overnight thump so you probably slept through it, then it turned to rain as the storm tracked while West, we lost a few inches of depth, then it froze up. https://www.weather.gov/dtx/200118winterstorm

I forgot you missed all of the snow this year. There were 2 6+ events last year, November 11th & January 18th, though obviously November 11th was far more impressive for the date. Is that the one you missed? Only 1 6+ event this year, tho it was generally a good 9-11", and the mid snowpack in February was much more impressive than anything seen last winter. Also the Feb 4 thunp was the best non-les rates you'll ever see here.. All the said,, I HIGHLY doubt we can pull off a 6+ event in late April but accumulating snow is certainly looking more likely.

That is no worse than when a warm spell is attributed to global warming. The weather is the weather and the general public will never "get it".

Hey now! I post year round. Just less frequently the boring half of the year

Thanks! it was sweet. A heavy band set up, DTW went down to like 1/16 mile or something like that. Very surreal being out in it on April 17. Full pic below.

I didn't realize Madison hasn't seen any snow in April. Records began in 1884, and only 6 times did April see 0.0 snow. Ironically 4 of the 6 saw a T in May. So the only 2 times that 0.0 snow was seen after March was 1901 and 1981. The earliest last flakes for MSN were Mar 10, 1901. Chicago has also seen 0.0 snow in April, they have had 10 April's on record with 0.0 snow, and also several of them saw a T in May. The earliest last flakes for Chicago are Mar 9, 1946. Here in Detroit, we saw 0.1" on Apr 1 and a T on Apr 15, but fwiw our earliest last flakes are Mar 11, 1946.

Last year southern WI just missed a few snows to their south and east in later April. These are pics I took last April/May.

Bring it on. For Detroit, the records for the days in question: April 20: Record snow: 1.2" (1947) - Record low: 20° (1897) - Record low max: 36° (1953) April 21: Record snow: 0.3" (1978) - Record low: 21° (1875) - Record low max: 39° (1875) April 22: Record snow: 1.0" (1911) - Record low: 20° (1875) - Record low max: 38° (2020) 24 of 140 years on record have seen measurable snow on or after April 20, however only 11 times on record have seen a snowfall of 0.5"+ on or after April 20th. May 10, 2020: 0.5" Apr 23/24, 2005: 4.3" Apr 23/24, 1967: 1.7" Apr 20, 1947: 1.2" Apr 20, 1943: 0.5" May 9, 1923: 6.0" May 13, 1912: 1.5" Apr 22, 1911: 1.0" Apr 29, 1909: 3.0" May 10, 1902: 0.5" May 21/22, 1883: 5.0"

Measurable snow on or after April 20th this century at Detroit: May 10, 2020: 0.5" Apr 20, 2013: 0.1" May 3, 2005: 0.1" Apr 24, 2005: 3.1" Apr 23, 2005: 1.3"

Wet snow falling this morning but no accumulation. Last year we saw nearly 5" of snow from Apr 15-17

I wonder how they can tell that? Unless they are going by a specific tree or something. It just seems very hard to figure out something like that since everything does not always bloom at the same pace as everything else. Some trees are more susceptible to the weather when they bloom than others are.

When it comes to severe weather I'm weird. I love a good wicked looking sky. And deep down I always wanted to see a funnel cloud. But I don't want so much as a twig to be snapped of any of my trees, let alone lose power. So I guess in the end...im fine with it lacking. That said, severe weather has been far far FAR more lacking here than winter weather and it's not even a contest. Through about 2004, we seemed to always get several instances of severe weather yearly. As snowfall increased the number of strong or severe storms just tanked. I am not sure about regionally, I'm just talking locally. And unlike granddad who for centuries has been falsely claiming winters of his youth were tougher, I have the written proof (and pictures). I've been keeping daily records since 1995.

My mom last night "Dave rexroth (local TV met) said we might have snowflakes Thursday!?" me "yes. that's April 15. the same day we had 1.5" last year. then 3.5" April 17. Then 0.7" May 10. And many flakes in between" mom "I remember but I thought this spring would be different" me *snickers*

Today was a perfect example of how Spring can be pretty but it still overall annoying as hell with its allergies. I want to say the flowering trees are 2 weeks ahead of normal but I don't even know what normal is anymore. They haven't been flowering till early May in recent years but I know thats late. Last year around this time we started diving right into a Winter pattern which pretty much halted any Spring production.

It is my understanding that the cold season is November 1st to March 31st.

"cold season" stats are often overlooked but I became interested in them years ago. They can often look different than just the DJF rankings. Most notable here was 2013-14. 8th coldest winter on record but 3rd coldest cold season.

Didn't thermometers have a Max/min weight on them though?

Years ago when I visited the national weather service I looked at some of the old climate books from the 1800s. It was absolutely fascinating to see how detailed they were in their old quill pen writing down the weather data for Detroit. Even wrote summaries of the day, noting things like depth of snow drifts or in the summertime they may note on a hot day that a thermometer in the sun read 120ﾟ or something like that. If anything they took more care of their weather data back then than they do now. The problem is you had your big cities and that was it. I am sure there were weather watchers but not a lot of documented data. Nowadays we have data documented everywhere so you see all the ins and outs of what goes on between the climate sites.

We have been going quite off topic so to bring it back to April discussion, whenever a billowy overcast with multiple shades of dark gray like today I think of November.

*local post* I use that timeframe as a shift locally as well, but not necessarily for temps. That is around the time that severe weather started to go down and snowfall started to ramp up. There actually was less notable summer heat in the 2000s over the 1990s before getting much hotter in the 2010s. Snowfall in the 2000s went way up over the 1990s, then in the 2010s went up yet again. It also got wetter. The period that seems to be warming the most is late spring to early summer, with winter temps basically remaining steady, though with more extremes (a watered down version of the 1880s). Despite all the pomp and circumstance over every tenth of a degree, the extremes of both hottest and coldest temps have remained pretty steady here. In fact, there are far more cold temperatures and less hot temperatures than there were in the 1950s. Heatwaves were worse & winters were less wintry in the 1930s-50s than they are today, but springs/falls were cooler.

I cannot think of anyone who enjoys old weather data as much as me lol, the last thing I would do is a disservice to observers of the past. My only issue with that is there was a lot and I mean a lot less weather observations back then than there are now. So many gaps to fill in so to speak. im not at all surprised that the warmest winters show up in the late 1870s to the mid 1880 's I referenced earlier, but i am a little surprised at the hotter summers of the 19th century. Then again, what data goes into the graphs? i know the upper Midwest has warmed more than the lower Great Lakes.

It will be interesting to see if the areas do get any meaningful snowfall down the road, these are usually the type of patterns that can definitely produce systems that "make their own cold" . I look at it 2 ways. On the one hand, it's been quite a few years in a row now that we've seen some crazy late accumulating snows in this region. Seems to be the new thing. On the other hand, you can look at that as we are due for a year to not have any meaningful Spring snows.

I agree, my point was to show that it's not necessarily a sudden warming when you look at the last 90 years. Some of the early days data can certainly be suspect in ways but I still think it's a great clue as to what was going on. The 1880s featured some of the most outrageous extremes we've ever seen, particularly in Winter. We seemed to have a seesaw effect of an extremely brutal Winter followed by an extremely warm Winter for about 6 years running. In fact the warmest Winter on record 1881-82 is a record that I honestly think may never be broken. I am fortunate to own David Ludlum's books which discuss winters since the 1600s. They are fascinating and While there were some very harsh winters back then there were also some very "open" winters back then.

That sort of thing happened last fall. It was an extraordinarily long color season because the color started much earlier than normal but then caught up and stayed on the trees to normal time. After many late Spring green ups the past decade this appears to be the earliest since 2012. It's funny, I would consider 2012 record early, 2017 and 2021 very early, and most other years since very late lol. Have not really had much in between that I can recall.

I've said over and over that are winters have not really gotten any warmer they've only gotten wetter and snowier, and the most notable increase was in summer temperatures. Even then, all we are seeing is temperatures on par with what they were in the hot summers of the 1930s-50s, nothing unprecedented yet. And to be honest itll be interesting what the 2020 's feature overall. Will it be another decade of many extremes of all types?