michsnowfreak

I finished 2020 with 42.64" of precip and 45.9" snow. Detroit finished 2020 with 51.9F temp 38.73" precip 44.6" snow

Detroit finished December with 9.6" of snow, exactly normal. Season to date 13.1". I received 10.4" of snow, 13.8" on season. It was milder than average (32.9) but nowhere near the top 20, and it was also drier than average (1.36"). All in all a forgettable month though with a perfect White Christmas.

euro weeklies look good mid January on. until then, hopefully we can continue to get snows even if they melt. This coincides with the talk of pattern change we have had for a while.. with little doubt the 2nd half of January will be wintrier than the 1st half.

euro weeklies look good. Winter returns.

Great analysis!

The Canadian was the only model that showed snow backing into Southeast Michigan on Christmas, and the far east side of the state ended up getting 3 to 6". And per this thread the Canadian was also the winner of this event in Illinois and Wisconsin. Something to keep in mind.

You can definitely see the ebbs and flows of 1"+ snowcover days coinciding with milder or colder winters at Detroit. the 2010s had an unusual excess of snowfall which helped erode the milder winters (of course huge exception being record cold 2013-15). 1910s- 58 1920s- 52 1930s- 42 1940s- 49 1950s- 47 1960s- 56 1970s- 57 1980s- 47 1990s- 37 2000s- 51 2010s- 53

Very interesting that you bring that up, because I was noticing the opposite here. As soon as It got warm enough for the snow to melt I noticed the ground sucking it up, especially muddy areas. I was thinking, it was just below freezing for several days and now it's sucking it up like a sponge what the heck. But it was probably because every time we have got a cold blast in this mild December we had snow insulating the ground. Even this morning, snow on the grass melted before snow on the roof tops.

oh for sure. just as I cringe at talk of futility and thinking a bad pattern will never end lol. there's also talk of -nao and blocking. it would seem to me that colder is very likely as we head to the dead of winter, but so many players involved in what the actual pattern will be. suppression? clippers? ghdiii? time will tell but the possibilities are many.

how much snow did you end up with?

I was able to find Gaylord records since 1939. But I don't know where they were taken lol. 6"+ snowdepth days per decade 1940s- 76 1950s- 98 1960s- 107 1970s- 115 1980s- 101 1990s- 99 2000s- 101 2010s- 88

Supposedly the SSW is underway. I look forward to your analysis as we get closer to mid January. There's one crowd that will see snow and cold no matter where they look and there's another crowd that sees torches, futility, and screw jobs wherever they look. It's the non biased analysis like you that I especially look forward to!

Our snow from overnight has now completely washed away, back to the same piles we had before the snow. Not that it was unexpected, but still never fun to see.

I can try to look up the data however It's a little more difficult in the North country due to less climate stations. I would think Sault Saint Marie is probably the best option to look up? One thing that's pretty certain, it doesn't matter where you are looking, the 1970s were the coldest winters on record just as the 1930s & 1950s were some of the, if not the, warmest. So any Temp graph would have a similar downward curve if you did 1920 to 1970, upward curve you did 1970 to 2020, or a more subdued upward curve if you did 1920-2020. Snow and snow depth would be the interesting one, and I would think that either Alpena or the Soo would be the only places that had consistent records. interesting enough, the 2010s had the most 6"+ snowdepth days on record at Detroit, thanks in large part to 2013-14 & 2014-15...2nd place was the 1970s. The 1940s had the least.

I suspect its the same thing we see now. Milder winters caused more LES

you are correct, i didn't know this. One thing that's pretty common no matter where you look is the 1930s-50s were the most putrid period of winters for the northeast half of the country.

The 1970s were the coldest and in many cases snowiest decade on record. Thats why i brought up 100 years, though idk if winter sports were popular in 1920. If a snowmobiles heyday was in the 70s, i would see their point. The same chart ending in 1970 would show Buffalos winters had gotten 1.3° colder in the previous 50 years. just in case you're interested, here is Buffalos avg 6"+ depth days per decade 1900s- 21 1910s- 35 1920s- 26 1930s- 17 1940s- 27 1950s- 11 1960s- 32 1970s- 38 1980s- 27 1990s- 20 2000s- 26 2010s- 21 source: xmacis

Picked up a quick 0.9" of snow with the band. At 13.8"on the season.

Buffalo's average winter temperature averages 1.3° warmer and 2 days less per year with snow on the ground than 100 years ago. (Snowfall itself has increased significantly). It would seem to me like anyone who's into snow activities would still be into them the same. I go to northern MI every Feb and all you see is snowmobiles. We are often the only car parked in a restaurant lot of snowmobiles . I always thought of mid to late winter as the best time over early winter, even though Bing fills our minds with those gorgeous December scenes. Here, our winter temperatures are 0.8° warmer than 100 years ago, snowfall several inches more, and snowcover days have held nearly steady. Basically, it would seem like the slight increase in temperature is giving us more snow & precipitation so the net result is similar snowcover. Again im talking overall. Obviously it varies from year to year. Between 2012-15, the Great Lakes just saw 2 years with record ice cover and 1 year with record early U.P. snowmelt.

Makes sense. We had 3.6". I have a friend in Toledi who posted a pic and im thinking, thats way more than an inch lol. Nice brief burst of heavy snow tonight. Probably near an inch in less than 2 hours

What did you get on Christmas? TOL only reported 1.0" but they are west of Toledo

I said it was ridiculous that Chicago was talking seasonal futility less than a week ago. And I still say its ridiculous lol. anything can happen i suppose.. Only 4 more months to go I guess.

what link do you use for the para gfs? it's stuck on like a week old run on tidbits.

Hopefully it would yield a good clipper pattern. Im all for a clipper parade and cold. We've had 3 snowfalls of 3-4" so far which us better than many, but each only lasted on the ground 3-4 days. If it's going to be smaller snows, let's add them up. If it's going to snow melt snow melt snow melt, let's get a big one.

Well it helps that I have a lot of knowledge in my head about what are the good and bad years in Detroit lol. So I started by looking at snowfall at Chicago through December 31st, Then went down to December 15th. looked at all the years they were under 1" and compared it to Detroit snowfall to see how many of those times Detroit was 10" or more. It's not foolproof but I think I got it lol. Does that make sense?