michsnowfreak

The cfs and euro weeklies, terrible as they have been, are insistent on mid-March cold. Im hoping it can spin up one of those mid-late March strong Nino snowstorms lol.

Me too. Im definitely interested in the insistence of the CFS and Euro weeklies (though the weeklies have been awful) on mid-late March cold because that matches up extremely well to many strong El Nino Marches (warm first half/cold second half, often a snowstorm). If it happens it happens, if it doesnt it doesnt. But not going to avoid discussion of it because its not what the masses want. El Nino or not, the amount of times we have seen a big mid to late March snowstorm after a mild winter is crazy.

Some people get sour when their dramatizations are consistently proven wrong by facts.

Theres a huge difference between a March/April cold snap and a sustained long-lasting winter pattern. Its kind of like how every year since 2013 some call for "morch" with any sight of a mild pattern (sometimes not even that) but it never has been close to happening. Warm spells? Yes. Morch? No.

The February 2018 warm up was impressive and lasted the better part of 10 days. And while it was able to wipe out the cold departures for the month, we spent the first 3 weeks of the month with deep snow cover and it was actually my favorite period of a pretty harsh winter. 2017-18 was the one true harsh winter since the "glory days" ended in 2015. The one thing that that February warm up did do is it made the month finish warmer than average, and that would be the only month from November to April that was not colder than average.

Not a met, but we experience these type of events fairly frequently here in the Great Lakes. I'm guessing you were right in the fgen band. Those can produce insane rates, massive snowflakes, and you can easily attain 20-1 or better ratios even if the temperature is around freezing. We've even had a few spring snows where that will happen and the surface is so warm it only sticks on the grass and not the cement, but the actual snow itself on the grass is a fluffy ratio. Then what will happen outside of the band is much lower ratio snowfall. So it would not be uncommon at all for "place A" to be in the fgen band, have a temperature around 30°, and finish with 0.45" liquid and 10.0" snow while "place B" just 20 miles away is not in the band, has a temperature around 30°, and finishes with 0.28" liquid and 3.3" snow or something like that.

Pretty! Glad you got some snow!

2020-21 was basically an average temperature and snow season here (a few inches above thanks to a crazy April 21st snowfall). But it was the product mostly of an excellent cold, snowy February. Which is another subjective thing. If you're going to do an "average" winter, is it better to coast all the way through with a well dispersed winter, or better to have some bad periods and some great periods cancel each other out? 2005-06 had a postcard perfect thanksgiving to christmas period with lots of cold and snow but the rest of the winter sucked. This is another reason I'm intrigued for a la nina for '24-25. The risk of a snowy December is much higher than climo here. Which would be extra sweet with quite a few shitty Decembers lately. Not sure how it translates in new england, but I do recall a few nina winters that front-loaded favored the Midwest & Lakes and back-loaded fvored the East Coast & New England, but not sure if those were the exception or the rule.

1882, 1976, 2017 are other impressive late Feb warmspells.

I'm thinking March starts warm then we get a mid or late month cold snap and someone gets a good snowstorm. Fits well with strong nino climatology, and the cfs is certainly selling that. Of course right now it's all speculation.

Sunset pic from today. Brisk wind too. Current wind chill is 0°. The weenie in me just realized something. After a stretch unlike anything in the climate record, repeatedly toppling heavy snow records in February like dominoes, this is now 2 very lean Februarys in a row. Shows that things always try to even out some. This is good news for a reversal of our dingy December trend

Actually, I do use that when I give my unofficial grade here. But there's nothing wrong with discussing the snowy and not snowy seasons too.

2019-20 thru 2021-22 came out as close to average as you can get here. Last winter was below average but nothing crazy. This year certainly seems ripe for a much larger negative departure but again, I hate discussing stuff like this in a matter of fact way considering we have 2 more months that we can get snowfall. Some lean snowfall years were practically a given. I would write the script a lot differently. Personally, I'd prefer a cold and dry winter if we're gonna do low snowfall (then maybe we'll have good snowcover). But most areas racked up such an excess of snow from the 2000s to mid-2010s that it would be an unrealistic dream to have that continue, and one would expect the 30-year rise in avg snowfall to level back off a bit.

As I've noted before, the disparity in snowfall the past several winters between SE Michigan & NW Ohio has been greater than is usual. That's just going by a lot of visuals many storms, another thing is Toledo's measurements are taken well south and West of the actual city, so it's probably even worse than the city itself the past several years. It seems that's usually the case in the real mild winters. The difference in colder winters is much less and every once in a while Toledo can even beat Detroit.

That is only thru mid-Feb last year, but its easily overdone in all of southern MI. Flint averages 52.0” 2019-20: 53.7” 2020-21: 48.6” 2021-22: 60.5” 2022-23: 46.5” 4-year cumulative +1.3” Detroit averages 45.0” 2019-20: 43.7” 2020-21: 44.9” 2021-22: 47.1” 2022-23: 37.1” 4-year cumulative -7.2” Grand Rapids averages 77.2” 2019-20: 53.5” 2020-21: 46.1” 2021-22: 71.0” 2022-23: 110.7” 4-year cumulative -27.5”

Exactly. Where and when has Missouri even seen 2 feet of snow lol? Kansas City has not seen a 12"+ snowfall since 1962, and although St. Louis saw one in 2013, they have never in recorded history seen a snowfall drop 16" or more, and only once (1912) had a storm drop over 14". If we are going to play it this way, let me count the storms where someone in the Detroit area got 14-18" in a storm (Jan 1/2, 1999, Dec 11/12, 2000, Jan 22, 2005, Jan 1, 2008, Jan 5/6, 2014, Feb 1/2, 2015, Nov 21, 2015). That list grows if you count any one over a foot. And yes, the lake enhancement is absolutely a factor why Chicago outdoes Detroit in the EXTREMELY RARE monster storms (and Detroit outdoes Chicago in 6-10" storms). Look at just west of Chicago to Rockford, IL. Their biggest storm of all time was 16.3" in 1918 (less than Detroit saw in 2015). The only time they have eclipsed a foot in modern times is 2011 (14.3") and prior to that, the last storm of a foot was in 1948. Again, talking ONE foot, not two. If the only thing in weather you want to see is something thats a once or twice in a lifetime event, and everything else is nothing, then weather is not the hobby for you lol.

One of the "fortunate" products of a slightly warmer winter climate has been an increase in precip and snowfall. When I look at the top 10 least snowy winters for Detroit, 5 of them were terrible, mild non-winters almost everywhere, but the other 5 can be blamed on terrible luck and the warm & wet to cold, dry & suppressed pattern.

Some popcorn snow squalls today. Been a while since we have had these type where snow varies literally every few yards. Some areas had whiteouts, others just flurries. I received 0.2" in Wyandotte. Looking at freeway webcams earlier was crazy. The SW of DTW there was nothing and NW of DTW easily 1-1.5". I drove a straight west-east road for a 5-mile stretch and saw it go from dusting to inch back to dusting in that 5 miles. Very airy fluff, settling/evaporating in the cold wind.

Congrats central Ohio. Of course I'm jealous it didn't hit further north, but it's well deserved!

Cumulative. For consecutive, the top 5 longest streaks consecutive days 1"+ snowcover are: 1.) 81 days - Dec 12, 1903 - Mar 1, 1904 2.) 77 days - Dec 31, 2013 - Mar 17, 2014 3.) 73 days - Dec 11, 1944 - Feb 21, 1945 3.) 73 days - Jan 1, 1978 - Mar 14, 1978 5.) 72 days - Jan 8, 1912 - Mar 19, 1912 Top 5 longest streaks consecutive days T+ snowcover 1.) 119 days - Nov 25, 1903 - Mar 22, 1904 2.) 110 days - Dec 9, 2013 - Mar 28, 2014 3.) 109 days - Dec 6, 1977 - Mar 25, 1978 4.) 101 days - Nov 30, 1919 - Mar 9, 1920 4.) 101 days - Dec 6, 1962 - Mar 16, 1963

I broke down Modoki La Ninas at Detroit, since Ive heard it may be Modoki. But I also want to look at 1st year Nina and Nino-Nina transitions to look for any trends. Main trend I see is, for a change, December is our friend. MODOKI LA NINAS Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Tot 1973–1974 0 0.1 16.4 14.1 11.2 5.7 1.7 0 49.2 1975–1976 0 6.5 19.8 15.1 4.9 7.5 2.1 0 55.9 1983–1984 0 3.5 19.9 9.9 8.7 9.7 0.1 0 51.8 1988–1989 T 1.0 6.3 5.3 9.6 2.4 0.5 T 25.1 1998–1999 0 0 1.2 27.3 7.8 13.2 0 0 49.5 2000–2001 T 1.3 25.1 3.4 2.9 5.4 0.9 0 39.0 2008–2009 0 2.2 21.4 25.2 8.5 1.0 7.4 0 65.7 2010–2011 0 T 9.3 17.9 31.7 8.6 1.6 0 69.1 2016–2017 0 0.1 16.8 11.8 2.2 6.9 0.1 0 37.9 Avg 0 1.6 15.1 14.4 9.7 6.7 1.6 0 49.2 1991-20 avg T 1.9 8.9 13.9 12.2 6.2 1.5 0 45.0

Houghton has never been whats considered a 1st-order station. You can never trust any of that data. Marquette didnt become a 1st order station until 1961.

The UP is a different ballgame, especially with their lake belts, terrain, etc, but for Detroit, if you REALLY want futility, everything has to go wrong, not just some things. Some examples would be a warm, wet Nino that turns cold, dry & suppressed. Or a wall to wall warm winter where the cold shots have little snow with them. Its futility for a reason. Anytime we get an undesirable winter, people talk futility. And its way worse after being spoiled rotton with a parade of record snow seasons from the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. Look at this season as a whole. December was horrible...doesnt mean Oct/Nov snow doesnt count. Yeah, winter was largely confined to 2 weeks in January. But we had a parade of snows, one after the other. It wasnt just a little 1 inch snow followed by 10 days of brutal cold. Plow drivers were putting in 100-hour weeks in that 10-day spell. That all count. Yesterdays snow didnt last a full day. It counts. And so does whatever happens the rest of the way.

DTW is at 21.8", so if not another flake fell it would only be #11 as well. And we all know with 2 more months of snow potential that is extremely unlikely. Terrible as the winter has been, we were not gonna run futility with a stretch like the one we saw in January.

Knowing Easter is March 31st this year, I joked with my mom as we handed out candy to trick or treaters through snow squalls, that with a snowy Halloween, we would have no snow on Christmas and a white Easter. One down...one to go.