michsnowfreak

I guess it all depends. My neighbors and I are always striking up conversations with each other. Since the deep south is filled with a lot of outdated bigotry I've always assumed the hospitality bit is just a cover.

This is another example of why I like snow cover. I've seen double the snowfall you've seen this season yet yours locked into place ahead of this ridiculously boring pattern, while I've had bare ground with these overcast days where the high and low are a few degrees apart. Its been a very mild start to January but mainly because of the low temps.

lol midwesterners are known as being friendly. If you think they are not, id stay away from the east and west coasts if I were you

Another interesting thing i notice about anomalies in ensembles and weeklies is that 850mb temps are colder relative to avg than 2m temps. Maybe a sign that lower diurnal ranges (& hopefully unsettled weather) will continue as it turns colder?

Weeklies actually had a cold end to Jan (week 3) before a mild first half of Feb (week 4-5) then cooling towards average (week 6). That said we've been told many times that weeklies accuracy plummets after week 3.

I use https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org. It is an awesome tool you can play around with it all day to find what you want lol.

Several people have noted that big storm potential seems elevated in February. It would not surprise me in the least if we get slammed. Does not necessarily make up for all this downtime though. If you like wire-to-wire Winter theres nothing that can save this zzz period. if you just like a good storm or active strerch tere is tons of time left for that.

Lol I know, my brother lives in Chicago (Lincoln park). On Christmas Eve about 20 minutes after it started snowing here he said, this is already more snow than I have seen all season in Chicago, lol. December actually saw average snowfall here but it was entirely synoptic. It is just strange that we usually manage to get mood flakes and squalls from the lake but we have not gotten any yet this season. The actual west MI snow belts are having a near record slow start to the season. Yet who's getting the non synoptic snow? Chicago is, from airplanes and smokestacks

This is so weird that Chicago keeps getting snowflakes from smokestacks and airplanes but yet were not getting any flakes from Lake Michigan.

Avg high/low Dec 1 is 41/29 and Mar 1 is 40/24. But obviously you are heading in different directions going into December versus going into March. There have been stretches over the course of the climate record where December has been a very wintry month but for the most part January and February are harsher Winter months than December. In recent years February seems to be the go to month for lots of snow.

impatience is all around, but a pattern change and pattern shakeup is imminent. The details are unknown, but its definitely a wintrier, more active look then the complete zzzz thats been in place at least a week. With the dead of Winter approaching I looked up snowcover as a metric to see when the highest percentage of time with snow on the ground was for Detroit. The highest likelihood of having snow on the ground is January 6th to February 17th, with the best time, aka the dead of Winter, being January 25th to February 3rd. Interestingly it's almost 3 times as likely to have snow on the ground on March 1st as it is on December 1st.

This is a totally theoretical statement....but for some snow weenies....let's say the month period from Jan 20 to Feb 20 ended up with a temp departure of -3° and snowfall at 75% of average. Many would say, "so much for a pattern change". Lets say it ended up at +1° with snowfall 150% of avg, they would say "awesome pattern change". A more wintry change seems near imminent, but in the end it will be the amount of active wintry weather that defines it.

lucky. I have 2 glacier piles remaining and that's it. sounds like slippery sledding pack.

Without even looking up the totals I see some awful winters for the midwest. Some ok ones too though. Detroit has now fallen below avg on the season (14.5 vs 14.9 avg to date). hopefully that changes by late month.

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.