michsnowfreak

Regardless of how cold it gets in January, there will be a warm up around/after Christmas following the next cold snap.

The current DTW Dec avg is 31.3°, not sure where you see 33.3°. The la ninas since 2017 have had more paltry Dec snowfall than usual, but also snowier mid to late winter than usual. Could be cyclical, not sure.

They are somewhat similar but I wouldn't say basically the same. Snow is much deeper in Canada and the temps couldn't be more different the last 2 decembers. The lack of snow in many locations is due to how dry it has been the last several weeks.

Agree. And I see nothing wrong with their thinking. There is absolutely no sign of a torch (the word torch has really taken on a new meaning from its origins of record warmth, now some people call +2 a torch lol). I really think this will continue to be an up and down winter. Im just waiting for it to become more active.

Averages are updated to 1991-2020. And wow I didnt realize it was running that mild further east. Its been very underwhelming synoptic wise - nearly all of our 4.0" so far has been lake effect or lake enhanced. Call it a quirk or call it whatever, but the low snow Decembers have been very oddly persistant since 2018 for most of the region (with a few small exceptions). Again tho, we have balanced it out and then some with snowy Jan and/or Febs. Weird, but thats the weather.

To each their own, Id take cold and dry over mild. The weather will likely continue up and down, hopefully it gets more active.

BAMwx is not even close to JB. Even if they may have a cold preference/bias, they explain things and their thinking. Its no different than the warm biased mets out there.

DTW got down to 10°. I thought this looked cool out my office window, the steam hitting the sun

This December so far has been cold and dry tho, very different from the mild ones. More than likely, the overall surplus of blah Decembers is probably just a run of bad luck, much like the recent overall run of good luck with Februarys.

There's been hardly any synoptic snow anywhere yet this winter, so I wouldn't call anything a cycle really. This young winter has been all about LES, and that's something Chicago rarely cashes in on. Period of 19th - 22nd may have something, but wayyy too early to do anything other than speculate.

You didn't have bare ground today lol. But I get your point.

Most of our 4.0" this season is lake effect, obviously outside the belts. Other nearby areas have done better. Plenty of days with flakes have made a nice atmosphere in an otherwise zzz pattern, but time to get some synoptic snow in here!

Squally with blowing snow overnight then below zero wind chills this morning. Picked up 1.3" here, 4.0" on the season. DTW had 1.2", so 3.7" on the season. Some areas (detroits immediate NW burns) got 2-3" overnight.

2013-14 is Columbus' 2nd snowiest winter on record with 56.4". Only 1909-10 saw more. Interestingly, while it was a cold winter there as well, it wasnt nearly as cold relative to normal as up here, ranking only as Columbus 28th coldest on record. I do think you are remembering the storm of Dec 21/22, 2013. Columbus saw temps soar to 69F with 2.17" of rain (a half inch of snow did fall Christmas Eve however). Up here, we had rain and freezing rain, with a bad ice storm JUST to my north. What was interesting about it here, was that we had snow on the ground continuously from Dec 8 - Mar 29, but what had been an 8-inch snowpack whittled away to patches and piles on Dec 23rd and lasted for a few days. While Christmas had frozen patches, piles, and a fresh dusting, it wasnt an official White Christmas (we had T depth). Those few late Dec days centered on Christmas were the only such days we would see any grass until late mid-late March.

Yup. And that's in addition to the bitter cold. The combination of heavy snow with the cold defied climatology.

Hopefully we start getting active like 2007-08.

The very next winter (2014-15) had deep, long lasting snowpack too, but agree that nothing came close to that winter since. In fact...nothing in the entire period of record touches 2013-14 for combo of snow, cold, wind, snow depth.

There are many things that shake up patterns. SSW talk is definitely overrated. Imo the most useful time for a cold/snowlover in the midwest to have a SSW would be mid-late or late winter. It can produce midwinter cold when climo is slowly warming up. But before mid December? Useless. Just stay away from any prolonged torches and roll the dice as we head deeper into winter.

Do you have a link for the weeklies site? I always just use wxbell

96.2" here. Water content in snowpack was over 4" in feb.

The last 10 years have had 4 White Christmases (2016, 2017, 2020, 2022). Since 2000 exactly half the Christmas mornings have been white.

Surprisingly despite a stretch of anemic Decembers, we have been able to keep pace with our 50/50 White Christmas avg.

DT can definitely be a trip, but he is somewhat subjective unlike coldmisers like JB or some of the warmistas you'll see on the main weather forum of this board that forecast with nothing but their biases. Ive said it many times before and will say many times again...we will have harsh winters again, but we will never have another 2013-14. It was a harsh winter for all in the midwest and northeast, but SE MI was basically ground zero.

Yes. Actually, there were a few decent wintry periods in Jan, Feb, & early Mar 2016. Nothing great, but better than some other super ninos. But Dec 2015 was absolute torch. Nov was warm too, tho we did luck into a snowstorm locally.

Two totally different winters tho. 14-15 was overall a harsh winter, 15-16 mild.