michsnowfreak

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?

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.

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.

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.

You may start feb in single digits for snow. But dont count on your lowest temp already having been set. Probably another late spring.

Agree. Also, if anything our winters are getting longer because we seem to be getting earlier and later snowfalls now, regardless of what happens in between. A longer Winter is not necessarily a better Winter, and vice versa, as obviously the meat of Winter is what is most important. 2015-16 and 2016-17 were back-to-back warm winters (though we surprisingly managed to do OK with snowfall), which followed back-to-back brutally cold winters in 2013-14 and 14-15. 2013-14 was the most severe Winter on record here.

January 1950 was one of the most roller coaster month you will ever see in the lakes, though it certainly leaned on the warm side.

Not very warm lol (other than op euro), but much milder than it was looking. The mildness appears to be brief however with these models you can't guess on anything.

Bastardi is a joke. I will say tho that the suffering of mid dec to mid jan appears over, at least here.

God i hope not...65-66 was terrible here. Although jokes aside, the long range after next weekend's brief mild up is back to cold on all models, which naturally is to be taken with a grain of salt

I agree!!! Thanks!

Not so sure about that, it appears the cold will be widespread.

It goes without saying that cold & active would be the preference, however, even cold, dry and clippery is a massive improvement over what we've had in December and January. After a nice bout of sustained Winter in November, it's been nothing but fleeting cold shots and brief periods of snow which quickly melted. So now that the light is at the end of the tunnel, I am counting down the days lol.

CFS has colder than normal weeks 3, 4, 5, 6 with normal to above normal precipitation. If only its partially correct, some fun times lol

I welcome a cold clippery pattern. Bring it. Thanks for the analysis, we have very few mets in this subforum. Please keep us updated in the coming days and weeks as well!

Obviously all the attention is on this weekends storm, but I must say, the long range is starting to look better and better per ensembles (& CFS, tho CFS has been hinting at this for a while). Bring on some more sustained winter, something we have not seen since November. Since then its been brief bouts, ie, yesterday at this time it was in the low 40s, now there is an inch of snow on the ground with temps in the low 20s and wind chills in the single digits, but tomorrow temps will rise to 40 again. Ensembles also look quite active. Hopefully fun times ahead for us all, so sticking with my call of more sustained winter late Jan into Feb.

One thing I've learned is that Winter's come a while they may have things in common with other winters, are like snowflakes. No 2 are the same. There were certainly a trio of harsh winters in the late 1970s, but as the whole, we've seen everything. I noticed that 1950s winters in the Great Lakes tended to have November and March snowstorms and often lots of mild spells during the heart of actual Winter.

Lol nah, it really has not rained much is just been boring.

This has already felt like an East Coast Winter of sorts. We had a big snowstorm in November when 8 to 12" fell in metro Detroit, and since then very little. Obviously on paper we still had far more flakes and dustings than a typical East Coast Winter, but the overall feel is the same. Id prefer my more steady dose of 1-3/2-4/3-6 snows anytime over a big storm followed by zzzz. I agree that 1 massive storm does not make a great Winter, however the irony is there used to be quite a contingent of people in this region on this forum who disliked our gray winters full of nuisance snow after nuisance snow, and instead preferred one huge storm then nothing (or so they said). You would think that moving forward if any pattern was conducive of a big dog, it's this one, with se ridge pumping warm air to our south and east and the cold building to the north and west. Certainly not saying its happening, just saying the chances are probably better than usual. I do feel it turns much colder later in January into February, hopefully we get into one of our good old cold clipper regimes. It will be very refreshing to see the complaints change to those of suppression

No doubt there will probably be fluke events, but as you said, pointless than expecting anything until it's 2 days or less out. The models seem extra up-and-down this year. Once the ridge starts moving further East, it seems as if the Great Lakes are in a bit of a battle zone, do you think that bodes well for a possible big winter storm?

Thanks for the update. For a bit now I've been kind of feeling that it was going to be a repeat of last year with the mild holding until late January when it turns much colder, and then last in to February. No doubt some will luck into some snow during the mild period, but it will not be fun times and the weather boards until the last third of the month lol