michsnowfreak

23 hours ago, Malacka11 said:

I hear you and raise you this hilarious CMC output from last night:

Obviously this was just some laughable model fluff (if only it weren't), but simply out of curiosity, has such a widespread event ever occurred in the history of this country?  

I remember quite a few storms that covered a ton of ground. Not those ridiculous totals, but good storms.

7 hours ago, RogueWaves said:

CFSv2 has begun to re-think it's torch December over the E CONUS, fwiw. As for being "due" here in the S GL's & OHV, I disagree. The past 2 good Dec's balanced the dumpster fires of '14 & '15. I'd say it's more like a balanced ledger going into this one.

You have to go back to 2012 to get average December snowfall here.

2017: snowy (5th snowiest)

2016: snowy (14th snowiest)

2015: low snow (6th least snowy)

2014: low snow (2nd least snowy)

2013: snowy (20th snowiest)

What's interesting is that the snowy December of 2013, which would be snowy in most winters, would seem like a meek onset to the most severe Winter we had ever seen here. The low snow of December 2014 was an absolute train wreck of a month as a whole, but ended up completely lost in an otherwise severe Winter, plus it followed The historic Winter the year before.

18 hours ago, Cold Rain said:

Yep, as per consensus, December is the mildest of the 3 winter months, though, he hedges that it could be colder.  AN snowfall TN valley, SE, mid-Atlantic, and southern NE, with the axis of highest anoms through TN and the upper SE.  Temps generally -3 - -5.

Just read his monthly outlooks. Calls for colder than normal temperatures November, January, February, and March with warmer than normal in December. He makes it sound like December has potential to be quite mild and then February very cold. Not a fan of mild December's although after the last two I suppose you could argue we are due. Naturally this does not mean there won't be a few good snows, just not consistency of the last few decembers.

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Thats because you dont rely on big snow events for your seasonal totals, so your variance isn't as great.

True. Although as with everything else, the 6-12" snowstorms are increasing as is the lake effect. 

10 hours ago, JBinStoughton said:

Hopefully, beyond any typos, he’s right on the money with that forecast! 

He is calling for huge winter on the east coast. Here he is calling for colder than avg with avg snow. As long as we avoid big thaws and have continuous snowcover i can deal with that lol.

On 11/3/2018 at 11:47 AM, weathafella said:

He did a good job with the presentation.   I question the severe 2012-13.   My memory of that is snowy but above normal temperatures.

He typed 2012-13 & 2013-14 but i think he meant 2013-14 & 2014-15. Just like his outlook was typed 2017-18 but he meant 2018-19. Dt is very knowledgeable but the king of typos and grammatical errors lol

9 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Just to follow up on BTV's snowfall, like most other sites in New England it has seen quite the uptick in snowfall in the past two decades.

Think of it this way, between 1892 and 1999 they only exceeded 100" of seasonal snowfall in 6 winters.  So for 107 years, there were 6 winters with 100+ inches of snowfall.  Between 2000-2018 though, they've exceeded 100" on 4 occasions. 

So for the first 107 years of snowfall records, they exceeded 100" on average once every 17.8 years.  In the past 18 years though, the rate of exceeding 100" in a season is once every 4.5 years.

This is a trend that really fascinates me for northern locations. Same in Detroit. Average snowfall was 40" in the 20th century but moved into the mid 40s in the 2000s and average the past decade is 55". The avg is similar to Boston, but totally different climate. With our type of climate it's usually quite hard to get a really snowy Winter or really low snow Winter (ie straying too far from climo; less than 30" or more than 60" rare). From 1880-2002, there were only 11 winters that saw more than 60". From 2003-present there were 7 winters that saw more than 60". So 11 winters in the first 123 years of record and 7 in the last 16 years.

4 hours ago, outflow said:

Two days later and all bombs cancelled. Talk about big swings.....and misses

We have now begun what will be 6 months of storms and rumors of storms. Plenty of nice surprises and plenty of disappointments on the way. This is only the beginning lol.

16 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Yeah, underrated storm.  Really quite amazing geographical coverage of snow for that time of year.  

Speaking of that November 1966 storm, that was the last time Chicago had a 1"+ snow in the first 10 days of November (and it was only 1.5" since they were on the western fringe).  Ironically, there have been a couple bigger October snows since then... in 1967 and 1989.  

Wow crazy. Flurries are common, but as you said getting a good old blanket of snow prior to mid November is not common. Thats crazy about Chicago I'll have to check Detroit.

Most places ended up between a few tenths of a degree above or below average. So essentially it is going to be considered widespread an average October temperature wise. Obviously that could not be further from the truth. The first 3rd of the month was basically August at the last 2/3 of the month was basically November 

The system actually does remind me of a few snowfalls in recent years where there was a sharp cut off to my North and West. It was not heavy rain but it was constant, I'll have to measure in a little while. It is November so im in snow mode!

1 hour ago, Frog Town said:

Not much discussion about the warm blob in the GOA and it's ramifications on the eastern U.S.  The current set up in pacific is eerily similar to that of '13-'14.  I think we basically need the warm blob to stay into December, and for the ENSO state to level out at weak.  I feel like all eyes are this before anyone really makes a valid Winter Forecast, all goofy computer models aside.  

Anything that references anything about 2013-14 sounds great to me!

11 hours ago, Malacka11 said:

Dang. Hearing all of these stories from others really puts Chicago winters into perspective... even in a bad year, we usually have at least one warning-worthy event in Northern Illinois I'd say (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only lived here for ten years lol).

You're definitely right; the snowstorm itself is only half the fun. It's the days before, with a significant event becoming more and more likely with every model run, that really crown a storm. I feel cozy and wintery just thinking about it. 

That's a good point, sometimes I do forget that a good Winter here does not mean the same just to my South. Last winter was even more extreme than usual, as we had a very good Winter in Michigan but literally once you got to the state line it dropped off drastically.  Hoping everyone scores this Winter,  of course myself included he hehe

Great pics Jim. I took a walk in the park today to soak up the peak Fall color. It was a more dull color show than normal, but some beautiful color is seen nevertheless.

3 hours ago, Hoosier said:

2000-01 is another one.  It flipped to crap in January but it's pretty hard to forget that December.  Generally speaking though, I don't disagree with michsnowfreak's point, especially among the general public.

Oh and yes I was referring to the general public. We weather weenies remember everything lol!

7 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Yeah that's probably the case for many of us outside of the snow belts.  Last season was off to a pretty slow start here, going into Feb with <10" for the season.  Ended up with over 40", and had that awesome 11" event in late March.  Definitely made the misery of the first few months fade away.  On the flip side we got missed by pretty much everything the rest of the season following GHDI back in early 2011.  Left a little bitter taste in the mouth despite the epic-ness that was GHDI.  

Coming off of our epic, historic Winter of 2013 -14, November of 2014 was very cold with several small snows and people were thinking another harsh Winter was on the way. Then December came and ended up being very blah with hardly any snow. But once the calendar turns to January the rest of the Winter was bitterly cold and had one huge snowstorm. so it was certainly remembered as another harsh Winter. Not nearly as severe as the one before, but still remembered as a harsh Winter, the icky December forgotten. Fast forward to 2016-17, we had plenty of snow in December but then the rest of the Winter was very mild with cycles of snow melt snow melt, the Winter itself was remembered as a very mild Winter. Ironic thing locally is if you look back at the past 4 december's? The last 2 were very snowy and the previous 2 were very low in snow. So if there's anything we are due for here....it is an average December, at least snow wise.

You can absolutely have a good Winter with a bad December, just like you can have a bad Winter with a good December. What I have noticed is that if it is one or the other, whatever happens the 2nd half of Winter is what people remember. You can have be buried in snow in December, but then have a mild rest of Winter, and when that Winter is referenced shortly thereafter, people remember how mild it was. On the other hand, you can have a mild December with little snow then get slammed after New Years, and people reference it is a harsh Winter. All that said, I feel we are due for a less snowy December than the ones we've had recently here, but I certainly hope it is not that bad. Naturally once we get to December, even in warm december's we can get good snow storms and good Lake effect snow. I'm sure cosgroves comment is very East Coast biased.  He references a cooler November in the center of the country with warm on the East and West coasts. Also says it will be stormy. Also hints at a potent Winter for the East shaping up after Christmas, so hopefully it hits our area before then lol

2 hours ago, Snowless in Carrollton said:

I said this is my first year in the midwest. I've been here since January. I found last winter pretty boring for the most part. The biggest snow we had here was 4". Back in GA where i'm from, they had a snowstorm close to a foot last winter.

That is probably unusually low for a biggest snow of the entire winter.

59 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

I don't know as much about Cincinnati's storm history, but Indy has terrible big storm climo.  Getting a foot there is a huge deal and something that doesn't happen often.  It's weird though, because areas south of Indy have had storms around/over 2 feet... like southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. 

I thought snowless in Carrollton was in the Midwest last Winter? Anyway, Midwest and East Coast climatology are completely different. Regardless of your latitude in the midwest (it gets greater the further north you go), rule of thumb is more Winter in the Midwest, bigger storms in the East. Cincinnati and Indianapolis are capable of getting huge snowstorms, but they do not happen often. Although actually, Baltimore and DC have terrible Winter climo when you think about it. They can get monster storms, but without them, there is hardly any Winter there. 

1 hour ago, (((Will))) said:

I've noticed that. Every time I go to the lower peninsula the snow cuts off abruptly before the bridge.

Your area is an anomaly though. Suddenly you're driving past Gaylord and theres almost as much snow as in the Keweenaw. Then it abruptly stops outside of Saginaw and theres just brown grass.

There is almost always a lower spot near the bridge. I have been up north several times in February the past decade where the snow is deeper in Detroit than at the bridge. As for abruptly stopping to brown in Saginaw...Saginaw south to the state line is subject to more winter thaws so there will sometimes be brown periods, but far more of the winter is snowcovered than not. It seems that there is an annual low spot in northeast MI where no LES falls (tawas area) where they wont get the thaws but they get less snowfall than southern MI.

18 hours ago, josh_4184 said:

Yea, that is why i was wondering what the ENSO state was for that winter, my area had close to 200". Last few years have been average at best for the Northern Mi snowbelts. One of these years we will get another good LES hit. 

 

2008-09 was a snowy winter state wide.

5 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Great pics guys.

Took these earlier today out by Muscatine.

Great pics of peak!

7 hours ago, bowtie` said:

^ Challenging light condition yet executed extremely well. Shame about the power lines though.

It was literally a last second shot. I was at the red light right before I turn into my office complex and the way the light was streaming in it was quite a sight, i literally grabbed my phone and snapped, i only had seconds lol.

this morning

Regarding the dry winter scenario, last winter would have finished as a drier than avg winter had it not been for a late Feb rainstorm, but yet snowfall was well above avg. Just another example of how easy it is to have above avg snow in a dry winter.