michsnowfreak

With the abnormally cold November, if we were to have an abnormally mild February and cold March, that would be a rather rare streak of 5 consecutive months where the mean temperature was quite steady. Not saying that will happen, I do think February ends up on the colder side, just would be interesting.

If it is frozen it probably will survive without high dew points. Ours took about 72 hours of dew points in the 33 to 37ﾟ range to do it

Feb will be the coldest month of winter.

Exactly. Our few Sunny days have been the very cold days.

Larry Cosrove tells the Eastern seaboard he expects mild to continue for most of February with a quick back loaded Winter through mid March before warming. Meanwhile, he says cold and snow during February should be between the continental divide in the Appalachian mountains (ie, looking decent for the lakes). Honestly, this Winter is just not going to be the kind of Winter that I like, snowcover just wont establish itself for long periods, so we might as well see if we can keep the hot hand at getting juiced up systems moving through the region.

The consistency of temperatures within a few degrees of the mid 30s, humidity of near 100%, and off and on rain and snow showers continues. Endless Gray is not unusual in midwinter, but the fact that the mercury is barely budging for days and the air is damp is unusual. We are now down to lots of piles & just a few patches of snow , the dew points just won't drop to freezing.

Sounds good. I work from home that whole week and then I'm going to the UP the next week for 4 days.

Lol. I think it's funny that when we do have a crap Winter you really have to limit your talk of the actual weather that has occurred, and just keep saying its the worst ever to avoid being called out lol. If you know me, you know that this is exactly the Winter that I do NOT prefer. Simply stating that we've had average snowfall is the absolute truth. How have we gotten to that point? Two big snowstorms and lots of little Lake effect snow dustings. If you know me, you know I would much much MUCH prefer a healthy dosage of spread out clippers. Snow cover is surprisingly not even running that far below normal, once again, because we had record snow cover in November. All of these things are absolutely not the way I would draw up my perfect Winter. But they still are what they are. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard on the weatherboard (granted these people apparently do not post here anymore) back in the day when we would get small snow after small snow after small snow leading up to a very nice Winter but with not a lot of big storms, they would say I'm tired of these nuisance snows, I just want a big storm then nothing. Where. Are. They. Now?

This isnt even the complaint thread lol. I simply stated its been active. I have been on weather boards for 18 years and there is always, always, ALWAYS complaining. There isnt a weather pattern possible that avoids whining. This year, complaining is warranted.

Im irritated too trust me. And Ive stated as much multiple times. Its just not been as bad here as the OV. I said its been active here, and it has. Snowfall is running avg and precip well above.

Yes i was referring to the Grand Rapids comment about an active weather pattern. It's been a mild Winter here obviously as well. But it's not like it's not been active. Locally we are running around average season snowfall to date, but it has definitely not felt wintery much of the time

Meh, it's been eventful here in the Great Lakes, that's not been an issue. Neither is season snowfall to date. The issue is having Winter sustain itself from more than one week at a time. I see no reason however why the active pattern will not continue, when you see all the noise in the in ensemble precip means in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, that tells me it likely will remain active. And you can count on some of us getting more snow. The million dollar question is will we get a stretch of cold and systems that are all snow?

We have had fat snowflakes falling off and on all night long and absolutely no accumulation, just adding to the wetness. Temperatures and dew points not budging from the mid 30s. It feels like a damp April cold snap. Still lots of piles and snow banks everywhere, but grass starting to show up & overall snow depth a saturated, ripe, squishy 1".

Interesting that they plugin numbers near big cities, so I would have assumed that was the official totals for those cities. But Detroit is at 21.9", yet the number shows 17, and Flint is at 30.9", and the number shows 24". I definitely wouldn't expect the map to be perfect lol, but if they're putting numbers by only the big cities, I would expect those to be correct.

It was very foggy last night, kind of started suddenly then lasted.

I see the term "pig" often. I know its not good, but what exactly is it lol?

He seems like a super intelligent dude, but I feel like the absent-minded scrolling of forum posts screeches to a halt when I come across one of his posts and I have to really, really concentrate on what hes trying to say.

Yeah its a glacier. This was this morning when i woke up to nasty rain. The big glacier piles everywhere will remain...but how much snow will?

Excellent analysis OHweather. Keeping hopes alive for a wintry Feb. And as for snow climo, tomorrow is the climatological halfway point of the snow season at Detroit. Half of the snow should have fallen, with half to come, so we pretty much are right at the midpoint now. As has been said, weve done fine from a snowfall total perspective, but not from a sustained winter one.

One last thing Ill say on the subject, is that lake effect snow here, far outside the belts, growing up, always meant lots of flurries and the occasional snow shower where you might get lucky and dust up a few tenths. However, the past decade or so we have seen multiple les bands drop snow in inches, not tenths, into southeast MI. They happen almost yearly, including a few crazy instances of 6"+ (I have not been lucky enough to be in those bands lol). I N-E-V-E-R saw LES of that "magnitude" make it to this portion of the state when I was a kid (Ive been a weather watcher since the age of 11 or so, ie, early to mid-1990s). FYI, heres average seasonal snowfall & snowcover per decade at Detroit & Chicago, 2 Great Lakes cities outside the belts and on opposite sides of Lake MI. DECADAL SNOWFALL AND 1”+ SNOWCOVER DAYS DETROIT CHICAGO 2010s 49.9” 53 days 42.7” 44 days 2000s 45.3” 51 days 38.5” 45 days 1990s 37.9” 37 days 33.5” 36 days 1980s 45.2” 47 days 38.1” 45 days 1970s 45.6” 57 days 55.6” 56 days 1960s 31.8” 57 days 44.6” 48 days 1950s 37.8” 47 days 38.2” 38 days 1940s 27.8” 48 days 33.7” 42 days 1930s 32.9” 44 days 30.9” 32 days 1920s 46.1” 49 days 27.3” 32 days 1910s 39.6” 59 days 31.2” 49 days 1900s 46.3” 36.6” 1890s 43.2” 1880s: 43.1” As for the belts, Ill be on Lake Superior in Munising Feb 16-19, so BRING IT!

I certainly hope it changes for the better for all of us. What i do find encouraging for the remaining 3 months of the potential snow season is that we have now locally 4 very unusually moisture laden storms this cold season. Nov 11/12 (hvy snow) Dec 28/29 (hvy rain) Jan 10-12 (hvy rain, ended as ice/snow) Jan 18 (hvy snow, ended as ice/rain) It would not be uncommon to see just one such storm (moisture wise) the entire winter season, and weve seen 4 at the halfway point. Again, all of this does not mean good will happen. Just as a cold pattern does not guarantee good clippers (which would be our savior in a suppresion pattern). This is FAR from the winter of my dreams, but locally it could certainly be worse, so what else can you do but take your chances moving forward?

Im not the best with indicies...all i know is if it remains active in the dead of winter and there's no torch (which there is not), can easily have more snow fun.

The ensembles have once again returned to a colder pattern beginning in early Feb. Lets see if this time sticks. I do like how it looks to remain active, might as well try and luck into another nice snowstorm lol.

It would be a lot of work to get all the data, too bad we dont have climo experts in the area. As far as measurment techniques, i remember years ago i asked a local met about the every 6 hours method and he stated that its been in place as long as he can remember (1960s) but for first order stations the practice has been in place as long as is remembered. However If a lake belt location only measured once a day that would definitely show up as less, as so much of their snow is super fluffy. So what you would need to do is look at a first order station. Coops will have more errors and variance. Another way to do it is to look at daily snow depth.

Snowfall is absolutely increasing in the Great Lakes. Detroit just finished its snowiest decade on record, and without all the numbers in front of me I imagine most of the Lake belts did as well.