michsnowfreak

Yup. It's ridiculous that it has to even be said, but some have the mindset that you can only choose one or the other.

Actually yeah 2020-21 was better than 1976-77 and 1978-79.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Now. The late 70s winters were brutal, absolutely. But HERE they were nothing really special snow-wise, except for 1977-78, and even that was much worse all around us. 1977-78 was very frontloaded, as winter was really nothing but frigid zzzz after the blizzard (though we did maintain snowpack into March). 76-77 was a tundra in many places and we locally got screwed in 78-79 despite the widespread cold and nearby heavy snow. I honestly think that the constant "blizzard of 78" photos that circulate social media start to make people remember something based on a photo not an actual memory. The winter of 81-82 was just 4 years later and is never mentioned despite being more severe here. And of course decades more recently are winters like 2000-01, 2004-05, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2017-18 all of which easily could stick in a memory better than the late 70s here.

I'm not sure but it's quite possible. But you are absolutely correct how people said it was impossible then (2014). Ever since the 1990s all we've heard is that same song and dance. 2013-14 blew 1977-78 away for severity (cold + snow + snowdepth) here but you get a few down snow years and people start right in with the 1970s. Odd how clearly they can remember 50 years ago but not 10 or 15 years lol. As for 1976-77. The definition of cold and dry the further north you went. Saginaw saw a season total snow of 18".

Amen to the bolded!

December 1989 was impressively cold here although no gawdy temps (lowest -9). The sour thing about that is how 1989-90 turned very mild after new year for the rest of winter. 1993-94 was a much longer (albeit late starting) winter. For me nothing will rival the brutal cold and deep snow of 2013-14 & Feb 2015, but the cold snap of Jan 2019 was very impressive (but short).

I was more referring to the fact that we see mostly negativity wrt the longrange REGARDLESS of what it shows. I literally witnessed Detroits most severe stretch of winters in recorded history on these weatherboards and I can assure you the attitude was mostly poor until storms/systems were in nowcast range.

Feb 2015 closely rivaled Jan 1977 in terms of cold in the Lakes region. Having one of the coldest months on record is actually not something many want to repeat anyway.

I disagree completely. Every pattern we have ever had was "working against us" per many posts on here. And facts actually often get greatly distorted as well.

A long spell of deep winter is coming. How much snow remains to be seen. But some of the posts just magnify how there really is no longrange look that would not come with pessimism. If it was a parade of storms ejecting from the south, I can only imagine some of the posts showing a random op model run of 2m temps in a warm sector.

With the long spell of cold, it would be nice to have a nice snowcover in place.

28 hour storm total rainfall 1.67", trace of snow.

Oh ok. Then I agree lol

Are you talking about tomorrow or Monday? Because there will be plenty of cold enough air available for Monday.

To be fair we had a very cold week even last January.

Great synopsis. Very true about the torch being short-lived, especially compared to how it was hyped up for weeks. Jan 5-10 has been active on ensembles since it came into view, will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Weak ninos can be ok, but strong ninos have always, always sucked here. It's not even a contest. If it's not neutral, I'll take any kind/strength of Nina over a strong Nino.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

I forgot about the day-delayed extended gfs. Of course, you left out the bulk of the month with a colder look, so even the warmest model doesn't look warm.

There is nothing pointing to a pattern where west and east of the Great Lakes do well while the Lakes get rain

Neither models ensemble suite goes past the first week of Jan yet?

JFM 1978, 2013-14, & 2014-15 were as close to wall to wall winter as you'll ever get at this latitude (Detroit). 1978 had the upper hand with cold but 2013-14 killed it with cold + snow + snowdepth. I wasn't around in 1978 but 2014 was insane. I don't consider a brief day or two of 40° before the next arctic front, with tons of snow on the ground, a break in the wall to wall nature of it. But other than that, even the best winters have breaks/thaws, they always have. We literally can get snow from Oct to May but you'll never see it continuous. 1976-77 was bitter cold but also had an extremely cold Fall...by Feb it warmed up big time and March was warm. The fact the the two deepest snow seasons in the entire record were back to back, 2013-14 & 2014-15 is insane. And even more insane that 2014-15 was so cold it did it with just barely above avg snowfall.

Gaylord had a record low of -21° yesterday.

Actually the 80s were decent for snow here. Similar to the 1970s and 2000s in terms of average snowfall, but less big storms. I think it was a very clippery decade. They the 90s took a huge dip before going right back up in the 2000s.

Longer...and colder