michsnowfreak

Just curious what were the 16 years?

Definitely liking February potential Hoosier. I always joke with one of my good friends (who only like snow on Christmas). His birthday is February 26th and we almost always have snow on his birthday whereas Christmas is more of a 50/50 shot. Even though any long range map needs to be taken with an extreme grain of salt, another thing to remember is all reds and blues are not created equal. Think back to the model forecasts for early January. The maps were ablaze in reds, burgundies and browns. However it's npt at all torching during the day, it's just that the low temperatures are way above average.

let's make the lower lakes a bowling alley lol

Snowcover is an interesting in the world of weather weenies, some could not care less about it and for others it is a decent part of what makes a Winter. Naturally Im known as one of the ones snowcover lovers & being just southeast of where the snowcover line has been this past week (even though it's very light) has been annoying during such a stagnant zzzz fest. ive seen more than double the snowfall of the Chicago area and many of the snowbelts of West Michigan this season yet I have no white right now. I am sure fun times lie ahead with a Northwest flow pattern in the Great Lakes, but I honestly cannot recall such a boring weather map for the country for such an extended period of time. maybe ma natures loading up and getting ready....

This boring period seems a bit over the top, even though boring stretches occur every winter. Hopefully in the end our reward will be an extended period of active wintry weather. Its nice to know that light is at the end of the tunnel, but the much overused zzzzzz has never been more legit than now.

To be fair showing rankings of least snowy January's 8 days into the month is pretty pointless. That said, 1944 was an absolute train wreck of January. At Detroit there was no measurable snow until January 31st when a sloppy 1.6" fell mixed with some rain. That would have been a fun month

I sort do a mix of looking at ensembles, reading what Mets or other posters have to say, and knowledge of what climo does in certain patterns. I think sun angle is one of the most over used worries on a weather board. Late February is when you really start to notice sunshine have an effect on melting snow in borderline temps, but for the most part its grossly an overreaction. I watched very light sugary snow a week before the Winter solstice not stick on the pavement midday despite overcast skies and temperatures below freezing. Also witnessed late April snow stick midday. My gut feeling or whatever you want to call it is that it does turn colder the 2nd half of January. I mean it's not been a torch, it's just been seasonably mild and stagnant. I think the last 10 days of January will be the coldest and in a northwest flow pattern like that you can count on plenty of lake effect snow in the favored spots and probably several clippers or short waves as well. February may see the Nina gradient pattern of cold North and warm South which we have not yet seen this year. Should that be the case the it could be very stormy in the Lakes. I would say February will likely be our biggest snowstorm of the season but also with that gradient pattern you can reintroduce rain and ice into the mix for spots.

Models often rush changes. "its always 7-10 days away" is the new "torch" for overused weather forum lingo. The magnitude, duration, and extent of the cold is unknown and the sensible weather details will always be up in the air until a few days prior, but i think it's a safe bet to say mid to late January and into February will be the harshest, most active part of winter for our sub.

Another example of a gradient nina Feb was 2008.

Cloudy winters are nothing new in the Great Lakes, but it does seem a little extra cloudy this year so I looked up the sky cover for Detroit and just wow. The last clear day was December 2nd. 35 of the 36 days since then have been cloudy or mostly cloudy in this is now the 28th day in a row.

Welcome. I see you are a new member. What makes me sure of changes? Looking at the long range projected pattern. No details are set in stone but a more active wintry pattern is almost certain. If I had to venture a guess, I would say the 2nd half of January will feature a few clippers/short waves as well as plenty of Lake effect snow and lots of cold weather. Looking towards February as several people have pointed out it may become a more gradient pattern which could produce some very good Winter storms in our region. As anything in the weather, the actual details of who gets what won't be known until the last minute.

I was talking 2020 calendar year. But yes changes are coming.

I'm sure this pattern will be the type where individual shortwave location will be a big time model struggle. Hopefully this extended zzz pattern is forgotten by February.

its crazy to see Detroit and Flint slightly outsnow the west MI belts. I didn't realize it was that bad. 2020 is done luckily.

February has killed it the past 20 years, especially the last 10. Let's do it again!

id still like to give it a few more days of ensemble agreement but its really looking like this pattern will be legit. Below avg temps heading into the dead of winter. hopefully no one in the sub gets the dreaded bitter cold and bare ground combo.

I haven't watched TWC in probably a decade. I don't even know what channel it is lol. Their "data" is a little magic trick that is a warmistas best friend. If you start a graph or chart in the 1970s as a starting point that implies that the coldest winters on record were "average". The article had very little actual data. its a column by a warmistas using snowmobilers as his data source. And lmao on the ski season. So since it runs from Nov to April I guess the old ski season was year round. Detroit average winter temperature 1880s- 27.2 1890s- 26.9 1900s- 25.1 1910s- 25.5 1920s- 26.7 1930s- 28.2 1940s- 27.0 1950s- 28.5 1960s- 26.5 1970s- 24.6 1980s- 26.3 1990s- 28.7 2000s- 27.8 2010s- 28.2

oh wow I didn't realize it was that sunny there. much cloudier in Michigan. During winter, in a real cold pattern you will likely see clear sunny days when its not snowing. The opposite happens in spring, when abnormal cold comes in the form of low overcast and damp cold.

I know you're new to the north, but cloudy skies dominate Nov thru Apr. The worst combination a sun worshipper can have is a mild winter and a cold spring. it will be gray nearly constantly.

id love clippers but what would be interesting to me is if we could get a storm spin up with so much cold around. Talking like 1999 where heavy snow fell all over the place, in what we would normally think of as a warm sector. Snow buried areas well east of where the low tracked.

yes regardless of what our preference is with the weather, its always what have you done for me lately. Last winter actually had a few good snowstorms (Nov 11, Jan 18, Feb 26) but for the ice fishing/ snowcover lover it was a trainwreck. This year there has been localized good banding in some of our events (for me it was Dec 1 and Dec 25 but nothing widespread). I like the cold potential thats coming.

The 384 hr gfs. You're right, this says it all.

Boring stretches tend to happen in most winters. They can be frustrating as heck but You know they aren't going to last forever. The Winters that you point out from 2007 to 2015 were incredible and not the norm. Think of how long a Winter season is from start to finish and how many ebbs and flows it has, that's why it kills me when people having a slow start act like it's not gonna snow at their location. Just not how the weather works. You commented earlier that you've been sledding, im jealous. My brother lives on the lakeshore in Chicago and he says he has less than an inch, but obviously you guys in the suburbs have a few inches at least. We had several snow systems in the eastern part of the sub when the weather pattern was active and you guys missed out, now you guys got some Winter gold ahead of a boring and stagnant. There is no snow on the ground in Detroit (14.5"), Cleveland (24.3") or Pittsburgh (28.3"). But the ground haw been white for a week in Chicago (5.2") in Milwaukee (8.2").

Excellent thoughts. It's nice to have an explanation as opposed to just looking at a surface map of model qpf which will change 100 times. As mentioned earlier, an east coast pattern still usually gives some love to eastern Michigan, most of Ohio, and points eastward, reaching as far north as Toronto. But those often leave the western/central sub zzzz. So an east pattern that gives plenty of love to the Midwest, sign me up

Those are neat pics. We rarely get hoarfrost. The only times I can remember astounding scenes like those pictured here were February 2, 2005 and February 12, 2014. Pics from 2-12-14