michsnowfreak

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

Thanks. Actually I just made a collage myself out of screenshots to kind of make it a little more user friendly to post lol. I simply plugged in what I wanted into Xmacis. if you want anything specific pm me and ill be happy to look it up. it always less you choose a regression line or moving average. It does include this year which was a mistake on my part because it's kind of silly to include the average temperature and snowfall which unfairly skews things warmer (Jan and Feb are colder than Dec on avg) and way less snowy (we have 3.5 more months of snow to go) for this season. Thats a regression line so its not to be used as exact average. Using the past 10 years and not counting this year (again, my mistake) 6 were above the current 42.7" avg and 4 below, but the above were often much above and the below just barely. The 10 years had an accumulated surplus of 67.4" of snow. Snowfall had been fine this season (3 events of 3-4", several more 1-2") but im irritated there's nothing on the ground right now. Am feeling good about 2nd half of Jan though. DTW last 10 yrs 2010-11- 69.1" (+26.4") 2011-12- 26.0" (-16.7") 2012-13- 47.7" (+5.0") 2013-14- 94.9" (+52.2") 2014-15- 47.5" (+4.8") 2015-16- 35.3" (-7.4") 2016-17- 37.9" (-4.8") 2017-18- 61.0" (+18.3") 2018-19- 31.3" (-11.4") 2019-20- 43.7" (+1.0")

Great post and I agree!

It would be nice to get a spread the wealth pattern rather than local jackpots each system. What kind of systems does that pattern tend to favor?

slowpoke- While it's interesting to see trends the last 100 years, some might say that's too long of a period of record. Rather than cherry picking a time frame (anytime you read an exaggerated article on global warming you will notice they start the graph in 1970, this is because the 1970s were the coldest winters on record and will skew a chart to make a temp increase look more extreme)... Let's just do the 30 year "norms" that the national weather service uses. Here are the trends the last 30 years for those same 3 cities. At Detroit temperatures are nearly unmoving and snowfall is increasing. Add Alpena, there's a very slight increase in temperature and a very slight decrease in snowfall. At Marquette, there continues to be a cooling trend in temperatures along with a very slight decrease in snowfall.

I am the one who said that lol. I was just looking up random stats. The 5 consecutive DF were tied with 1929-33 for the warmest 5 consecutive DJFs (really thanks to 3 mild winters). it was not near a record for warmest 5 consecutive "cold seasons" (NDJFM). In the days of Xmacis the stat buff can literally find anything for any Hand picked metric. The previous 2 winters before that 5 year stretch blew away, and I mean blew away, all records for snow depth at Detroit as well. They were far and away the most severe back-to-back winters on record when you combine cold and snowdepth. The 1970s didn't come close for snowdepth. All of that is within 7 years. All in all the 2010s winters at Detroit were colder than the 1990s, 1950s, & 1930s and tied with the 1880s. As for cold/snow, Gaylord doesn't have a steady climate record, but here is a look at Detroit, Alpena, and Marquette winter temp and snow trends over the last 100 years. The regression line is in red. A very slight increase in temp at Detroit and Alpena and a noticeable DECREASE in temp.at Marquette (site change?). All 3 have an increase in snow.

Detroit & especially Toronto can cash in on snow in an east pattern, ive seen it many times before. And the entire sub can get clippers. But obviously sounds like we would want the ridge to stay off the coast so we all could see some storminess.

Thanks as always for the input. It would be nice to get a pattern that's perfect for the entire lakes sub lol. It seems like those in the East are excited about the pattern which sometimes can mean a lot of misses for the Midwest, although the Eastern part of the sub can often cash in on stuff in an eastern pattern. Where's a bowling ball when you want one?