michsnowfreak

They were my junior high and high school years. Like I said. Honestly. Going from 1990s winters to 2000s and 2010s winter was just like going from 1950s winters to 1970s winters.

Happy first official day of Winter everyone!

Officially at DTW, there were no 6"+ storms from Dec 8, 1994 to Jan 1, 1999 (closest being 5.8" on Mar 20, 1996).

The snow started re-sticking mid afternoon and I picked up another 0.6", so finished with 0.9" on the day. Sitting at 4.9" on the season. DTW had 1.1", season 4.8". I wouldn't miss metro detroit winters if I lived where you do either . Obviously yesterday had everything to do with track/confluence and what not. Have a friend on Long Island whos been dying for snow after several years of almost nothing, so im glad he could score a little snow outta this at our expense. Monday will probably just be another in what has already been multiple light meausurable snowfalls, wont be anything special down here. I'm never ready for a winter warmup, but knowing that one is coming and will be followed by a return to cold right after the New Year I'm really hoping the pattern gets a nice shake up and we are off to the races as we often are in January.

Confluence screwed SE MI sure, tho the SE 2 counties were extra screwed. Hopefully we get one of those clippers that gets a lake boost to make up for it. Off to a smashing start. So far this season I've had two 1-2" type events that were forecast a dusting, and two forecast 1-2" events that were a dusting

Though the writing was on the wall, disgusted with this one here. A slushy 0.3 of snow imby which melted as it's hovering at 34°. Even though pretty much everyone N and W of me in SE MI had more, it was overall a let down event for most of light wet snow. 4.3" on the season.

Few highlights (1994 arctic outbreak, blizzard of 1999) but the 1990s winters sucked. They were VERY similar to the sucky 1950s winters in terms of both snow and temps. It's why I would laugh anyone's ear off who is our generation and uses the centuries old line "winters when I was a kid...". The 2000s and 2010s winters were like a different world...just leaps and bounds better winters.

27.6", and the best event was a surprise snowstorm March 20th that dropped around 6" with some thundersnow. Chicago was screwed too. It's one thing to be screwed because everything is going south or north, but in 1995-96 a narrow corridor from Chicago to Detroit (excluding the lake zones) was screwed because almost everyone N, S, E, & W had a good to great winter. Again, never seen anything like it. Fortunately in the years since, Detroit often made up for it being in the jackpot zone many times.

I've brought up that winter many times. In all my years following weather, never seen more of a screw zone than 1995-96.

This is a good reminder for the young winter. Even now cast models can be off by 50+ miles, to say nothing of so.ething 3, 5, 7 days out.

Weeklies continue the cold look starting Jan 6.

And its already changed to cold on todays run. Changes every 6 hours.

We saw a few good storms in SE MI thanks to that in 2022-23. We had the blizzard conditions and White Christmas that originally looked to be a big east coast storm. Then Jan 25 & Mar 3 were scenic paste jobs complete with thundersnow.

Haha you are going to run you're warm January call til you can't . The wxbell surface temps for that exact same timeframe you posted that wxbell 500mb map is for near to slightly below normal temps in the Lakes and northeast. And its the dead of winter no less. Ie: not warm at all. That said, most consider the weeklies a big gamble past week 2. So week 6? Total crapshoot.

The clipper loses some steam by the time it gets here so it looks like a widespread 1-3" snowfall. Imo that's more of a "special weather statement" where 2-4" is advisory. DTX is usually decent on advisory timing. GRR cracks me up bc everything is an advisory. Heavy synoptic snow coming with 5-7"? They'll issue an advisory instead of a warning. Lake squalls forecast to drop an inch with isolated higher totals? They also issue an advisory.

You want to see me lose my crap? I probably would've in 1978-79. DTW only had 35.6". While Chicago was buried. It was a cold winter but those storms that hit Chicago gave us brief rain/ice then back to cold.

It's been plenty cold this Dec. Not a favorable pattern. There have been periods in the climo record where DJF were equal. But recently it's been very heavily Jan-Feb dominated.

Oh I know. I have a few pics from that winter. Better than 78 here. 78 is way overrated HERE. I'd take 81-82 over it. Many winters are underrated. Especially recent ones. Look at Docs post above. We were so spoiled that a "normal" winter was considered terrible in the 2000s/10s. And while we've certainly had some mild winters recently, we still have gotten good snowstorms. To call a few winters a new norm is insane.

That is completely false. If anything, larger snowfalls have INCREASED over the years rather than decreased. I'm sorry you moved to Chicago during an unfortunate stretch, but you missed some of the snowiest seasons on record in this region by a hair. And even, the milder winters have had some good, dynamic snowstorms. The problem in the milder winters is shitty snowcover retention.

Most of the winters since the record smashing SDDs of 2013-15 have been ok here, at least climo wise, with 1 really good winter (2017-18) and several good stretches, but definitely not great overall. I had to peak at data, and Im shocked how much worse Chicago did than Detroit in 2017-18. Wasnt a terrible winter, but definitely not beavis worthy. Although ill say, Chicago had a good winter in 2020-21. Again, not beavis worthy, but very deep snow in Feb.

Interesting. I never pegged you as a snowlover. I pegged you as liking a good storm and then being done with it lol.

Good data. I will work on the rest of it. I have the pre-1948 snow depth as well, for some reason its not in xmacis. As expected...2013-14 was the winner, with an INSANE number of 923! This is 409 MORE than the vaunted winter of 1977-78. And 2014-15 actually comes in 2nd place with 574.

Oh Ive been saying that all along. Its a bit of a regression to get closer to normal, particularly with precip/snowfall. Even with the domination of milder winters since 2016, snowfall has not really suffered from a historical perspective. Since 2016, theres been 1 standout high snow season (2017-18) and 1 standout low snow season (2023-24) and the rest of teetered in the vicinity of average. Thats why its particularly rare of late to see the unseasonably cold pattern since late November yield very poor snow results outside the belts. Im actually going to do the thing that Beavis talks about when I have time (probably after New Years lol) to add up SDDs. Idk if its a metric he made up or not, but its snow depth days. Not the total number of days with snow otg, but adding together each day with snowdepth for a cumulative number. i suspect the 2000s-2010s will dominate that list.

History time lol. We've actually been fortunate in SE MI compared to areas away from the Lakes. It's just been a very bad synoptic start to the season despite the cold start. Funny thing, cold and dry patterns are more rare now than they used to be. Sure we get the occasional CAD stretch in places, but widespread cold for weeks with almost nothing synoptic to show for it regionwide is more rare. This was another thing that made the 1930-1969 stretch so unbearable for snowlovers locally. In addition to many very mild winters (esp 1930s & 1950s), many of the colder ones were cold and dry. The 1940s especially had a knack for long cold stretches with just light snowfall, then a big rain or ice storm then back to CAD. For me personally 1995-96 is what I think of when I think lots of cold and little snow. Obviously this winter is very young, just an observation of what's happened so far.

You misunderstood me. Like I said. Weather on weather board is really becoming taboo. It's why SO many good posters are long gone and many of the ones left are just here because we've been for so long.