michsnowfreak

17 minutes ago, roardog said:

There’s a lot of over reaction in here. The pattern we had this winter and last winter would have resulted in very warm winters even if it was 1895. When we start seeing above normal temps in “cold” patterns then we can start to worry that it will never snow or be cold again. I mean look how cold it was over the entire western half of the country just last winter. Most of this sub had a cold winter just two years ago and that’s after a warm December. It’ll get cold again if the pattern supports it. 

Exactly! I have estimated this winter with finish 4th warmest on record for Detroit, but the top 3 (1881-82, 1931-32, 1918-19) have remained comfortably on top for good reason.

Quite a diurnal spread today. After a low of 28F, DTW shot up to 61F.

1 hour ago, beavis1729 said:

All The Climate Changer is doing is shining a light on what a catastrophe this winter has been, and speaking up when everyone else is silent.  He's taking the data angle, and I'm taking the emotional angle (I've been doing the latter for years, but 2023-24 is the last straw).  Either way, it's horrible...and deserves to be hyped and communicated as much as possible.

He's right that the media is basically silent on what is going on this winter.  Shockingly, it's even worse than that, because Joe Public is actually happy to have warm and snowless winters.  If people are thinking this, then journalists aren't doing their job because the facts aren't getting communicated accordingly.

Let's just do what the US does on every environmental issue - just remain silent and complicit.  There's a political/justice-related saying from Plato:  "silence is consent".  And just like bullies do in school, people who have the courage to document and speak out against atrocities are often punished and told to keep quiet. I'm not comparing this winter to various forms of social injustice - just trying to make an analogy for purposes of understanding.

This winter has set a new bar for how bad things can be.  My go-to place in northern WI (Minocqua) has only had 15" of snow this winter, and 124 (!!) SDDs.  They average 100" of snowfall and approximately 1,600 SDDs.  And their DJF temp will probably shatter their old record by 3-5F, with records going back to the early 1900s.  This is an abomination, and doesn't deserve to be minimized.  From both an emotional and data-related standpoint, how can people be ok with this?  Why isn't everyone furious and worried? The shocking thing about Winter 2023-24 is how bad it has been across nearly all of the Lower 48.  Usually, at least some places have winter while others miss out - but this season, it's across the board.

That's what he and I are trying to say - trying to get people to care, and to stop minimizing things.  It's not right for winters to be warm like this.  People can debate the degree of CC vs. natural variability...but, either way, it's just not right.  So, we should say it.  And don't even get me started on UHI - a whole other issue which is extremely concerning.  If you step back and realize how much humans can impact temps in a city environment, it seems so unnatural...yet everyone just accepts it and moves on.  The normal January low at ORD has increased by 4-5F over 40 years - how can that be ok??  We as a society should be doing everything possible to stop this - but no one cares at all.  Gee, I wonder why - everything is "individual freedom" - heaven forbid we pool together and take collective action to solve problems. Individual freedom should be A consideration, not THE consideration. And then when a group of people actually does work very hard and summon up the courage to try to change something, it gets stalled because society/government/policy wonks/corporations/etc. don't want anything to change.  

For people who love winter, it has been hard to suffer through every winter since 2014-15. That's 9 winters in a row.  You can have the other 275 days in the year - what's so wrong with letting people have 90 days of consistent winter?  Most people on this board love winter, yet they act like bullies and put everyone else down when they express their true thoughts.  Why aren't we all in this together?  What's the problem with admitting that you love the season, and that the current situation is horrible? 

It doesn't matter what ENSO and the 5,000 other cyclical indices say; there should be more than 10 "good" days, even in the worst winters.  Not expecting 90 days - but at least 50 or 60.  The good folks in Minocqua and nearly every other place in the Lower 48 are suffering because of this.  No one wants to have a drink at the local watering hole, or get together with friends at a nice restaurant, when there is no snow for skiing, tubing, stargazing, snowshoeing, and other activities.  And a true, deep winter-like White Christmas (not just 1-3" of slop at best) has become a pipe dream, even though it's the shortest days of the year and it should just happen because of the calendar and the mystique around it.  The winter atmosphere is slipping away, and everyone is just staying silent while it happens.  It's catastrophic - so please let people speak up about it without feeling shy about it, and spread the word.  There is no need to rationalize something that is so bad - we just need to admit how horrible it is, and stop being in denial.  It can't and shouldn't be rationalized.

And I'm not saying we'll never have good snowstorms or occasional cold outbreaks again.  But that doesn't really matter either way...because winter is a mindset based on duration and consistency simply due to the calendar, not the ups and downs of individual storms and needing to hope for certain patterns to produce anything resembling true winter cold. In summer, we don't worry about warm temps - they just happen. And that's great, for summer. I'm not opposed to summer and any other seasons - just let them fit into their appropriate place on the calendar.

One thing I do agree on - there should be a separate thread for climate-related info.  But there's no need to jump down people's throats simply because they express genuine concern and frustration.  There could be a kind request to start a new thread - very simple.  In many aspects of life, it's difficult to deal with situations where you feel alone, like you're the only one experiencing something.  One purpose of these forums is to bring people together who have a common interest - so let's get back to that and support each other. It would probably be easier if we knew each other in person, instead of typing keystrokes through a screen.  I just want all of us to have good intentions, and do things for the right reasons.

If you want to take the "not so serious" angle - that's fine too.  For people who love winter, it has just sucked lately - there's no other way around it.  So let us complain and vent; I wish others did the same.  Stop the bickering - nothing to hide.

LMAO. No. He literally has zero knowledge of any weather past or present in our region other than playing around on xmacis. The examples are countless, but he couldnt even tell you what happened last year, much less 10 years ago or 140 years ago. I was informed by his majesty that DTWs 37.1" of snow last winter was not representative of SE MI because Toledo Express Apt (70 miles SW of DTW) only had 14.3". Even though Ann Arbor 25 miles west had 51.6", & White Lake (40 miles north) had 44.7" and Flint 46.5". I really dont even think he has a genuine interest in CC, its obviously more an extremist agenda for him. We have a CC forum for this reason. Just like we have banter threads, general month threads, storm threads etc.

In any of your other rants, you get on anyone citing a statistic, an average, or etc, letting them know that it is unacceptable to like winter and accept average. Yet you come to the defense of the most one-dimentional type of poster there is, nothing but numbers with zero explanation. Just confusing to me. What do I think of this winter? I think its been HORRIBLE!!! But two unusually warm winters in a row with a roaring pacific and this year a strong Nino is not going to suddenly be your new climate. There is a difference between weather and climate, and I dont think anyone on here denies global CC, so we shouldnt all have to put in a preface acknowledging CC anytime we want to make a post discussing WEATHER on a WEATHER forum. 

BTW, I know we did a little better here in MI, but its a crime to lump this winter in with every year since 2015. We have had some great months and one good harsh winter (17-18). Did we come down to earth from the snow blitz before that? Absolutely! Let me explain to you how averages work. Since 2015-16, Chicago has averaged 34.9" of snow the past 8 winters, which is about 2" below the longterm avg. The previous 8 winters before that Chicago averaged 50.9", about 14" above avg. No way in hell were they going to sustain that. And yes, I am aware you dont accept your average. Im just explaining.

7 hours ago, Lightning said:

Climate Change is not in the news daily.  Billions upon Billions of dollars are not being spent it.  Weather events are never in the news.  

You are such a drama queen!!!

 

Whats even funnier...is you can read newspaper articles from other historically warm winters (1881-82, 1889-90, 1918-19, 1931-32, 1982-83, etc) and they discuss the abnormal warmth, lack of snow, and "open" winter as they called them....and manage to actually discuss the oddities of the weather WITHOUT throwing CC into every (or any) sentence. Also, they do not plaster it as a front page spread contrary to what youve heard. I know as I have a subscription to view any daily newspaper since 1837. Oh, and btw, Detroits 3 warmest winters are 1881-82, 1931-32, & 1889-90. Stay tuned for TCC's expert analysis of why those records are wrong and shouldnt count 

2 hours ago, Powerball said:

It probably works the same way when some root for a warm Fall (I.E. October 1963) that others would find miserable.

1 hour ago, mississaugasnow said:

haha thats because you'd enjoy an April snowstorm. I find March 2012 interesting from a weather standpoint. Overall though I enjoy warm springs and hot summers. Im not a big fan of 30s in early May with wet snow the same way most here dont like 50s in January and sun. 

Fall is one of my favorite times of year, So yes, a 1963 type torch would disgust me. But a 2012 type of march is pretty much one of the only things in weather where you are just asking for agricultural disaster. For things to bloom so advanced so early, freeze damage risk is huge. Most fruit crops are grown in rural areas where temps plummet on cold nights. So let's say you have a frosty 31° on April 28th in Detroit. It's probably 22° at Joe Blows orchard. The only two times I know of when things bloomed so ungodly early were 1945 & 2012, and each saw ruined crops due to freeze.

2 hours ago, Snowstorms said:

I do agree we had a nice stretch of cold/snowy winters for a period of time between 2008-2015 and a few others since the start of the century (2000-01, 2002-03, and 2004-05).

But the severity of those cold winters don't compare to the severity of warm winters we've experienced since the late 90's and I'm not just talking locally but nationally. 2023-24 is about to be the warmest winter on record across the nation and is on the heels of other recent warm winters like 2022-23, 2019-20, 2016-17, 2015-16, 2011-12, 2005-06, etc. All of these winters are different ENSO types too. 

Maybe certain locales may not be breaking warm records but in broader context, it is historic given the shear number, longevity, and severity of warm winters. It isn't always about the records but rather the continuing (+) anomalies.

If trends continue, at some point, snow will catch up. Can't constantly have marginal snow events as our climo should be and has supported colder snow. 

I was talking specifically snow. The amount of snowfall and the number of large snowstorms during that timeframe I discussed FAR exceeded longterm averages. Again, to the point it was unlike anything in our period of record. While not as extreme, snowcover days were also comfortably above longterm averages. A winter with avg or slightly colder than avg temps and a lot of snow will absolutely seem more severe than a winter with well below avg temps and light snowfall. And with colder winters you run the risk of suppression and less snowfall.

These last 2 winters were far warmer than average and absolutely not the norm. Snow climatology is a continually evolving thing, just like everything else in the weather. What happens in the coming winters all we can do is wait and see.

4 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Can't agree here. It'd be nice to see more legitimate snow chances, but it's been very sunny which is certainly a welcome change to the brutal harshness winter can have. Warm & cloudy would be absolutely brutal, I'm glad we've avoided that

February has been quite sunny, but December & January were extremely cloudy, at least in MI.

4 hours ago, WestMichigan said:

Everyone is saying this, bu tliving in West Michigan this would most likely be an agricultural disaster like the Morch everyone keeps rooting for.  Early blooms followed by a frost are very rough on this area so while I appreciate everyone's desire for warmth, please no.

I dont get the love for a freak warm March ala 2012. Thats why I have no problem rooting for what others consider miserable spring cold. 

14 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

'24-'25 winter will be rockin'

Bring on La Nina

11 hours ago, DocATL said:

So last winter was a Nina and Chicago hardly had any snow. This year in a Nino we get two weeks of winter. Not sure what’s normal at this point.


.

11 hours ago, Powerball said:

As mentioned before, this sub's kind of paying the piper for the string of good winters in the late 2000s / early 2010s.

Everything has a equillibrium.

Powerball is correct. Many cities in this sub had a record stretch of snow from about 2008-2015, and also a few great winters pre-2008 as well. As someone who is a local climate "expert" you always get somewhat of a balancing out, even if not fully. Averages do sway up and down over time, but we were far above our climo from the mid-00s to mid-10s.

All that said, what I CAN tell you regarding ENSO is that most of the enso states (3 strengths of nino, neutral, 3 strengths of nina) have a higher probability of a certain type of winter, but usually with a few exceptions. The ONLY state that is a pretty much guarantee is what we had this year, a strong Nino. Some are better than others, but NOT ONCE have we had a good winter in a strong Nino, and this dates back to the 1870s. You can bank on a warm winter overall, and just hope that you get a few periods of fun. Meanwhile, a weak El Nino is often a cold and snowy winter here. 

A switch from El Nino to La Nina is often welcome news for our region. La Ninas often, though not always, are snowy, stormy winters. They also have a tendancy to be more front-loaded, though again, this is not always the case.

2 hours ago, mississaugasnow said:

It would be interesting to see a late March snowstorm. A few aspects of this winter can be pretty much confirmed now. The lack of ice on the Great Lakes is guaranteed to be well below average and maybe even record breaking. A cold snap in mid-late march would need to be historic in duration and temperature departures for it to budge and even then im unsure. 

Snow is the next one but still too early to confirm that for GTA-Rochester-Syracuse-Boston. 

Oh from a cold/ice perspective I expect nothing. Strong El Nino plus a raging pacific made this a terrible winter. There is nothing, not an April 1886 redux or anything, that can change that. Im just more interested in a snowstorm, which really is a threat any given March/April regardless of the pattern (and when I say a threat, I mean regionally...who and when would get a storm, if it happens, no idea). Top 3 worst winters of my lifetime would be 1997-98, 2011-12, & 2023-24, but I cant rank this winter until the snow is for sure over. I suppose I should put an asterisk for 1988-89 but too young to remember, and the grand stinkeroo of 1982-83, but I wasnt born til May '83, so I was developing throughout the winter 

3 hours ago, Powerball said:

My comment was more so focused on the "Winter is over" part of that tweet.

They are being flippant and are technically wrong (winter weather can certainly still happen well into March / April as has been pointed out), but I see the validity in the spirit of their statement in recognition of the broader pattern.

BTW, 2012 is funny in a way too because as much as folks talk about March, May was also fairly torchy (it just doesn't get discussed as much being that it sat right in the shadows of March) and both months sandwiched an April with a pretty hard freeze for many areas.

To be honest, I completely forgot about May. Knew 2012 was a very hot summer though. But also to be fair, sometimes Feb 2015 doesnt get its fair due for its cold departures which were similar to March 2012's warm departures.

1 hour ago, EastonSN+ said:

What I find interesting is the fact that both coasts are the only locations to increase snowfall - even down to coastal North Carolina!!

I may be over simplifying, however, this must be due to higher moisture and proximity to events which are continually increasing in intensity. 

I always wonder what goes into those maps. I mean, if they arent using the official data, what ARE they using? It shows a slight decrease in southern MI, but the official data says otherwise. A regression line at Detroit from 1973-74 to 2022-23 shows snowfall increase from 44.8" to 45.5" and Flint saw a big increase from 46.5" to 55.5". Saginaw saw an increase from 42.3" to 50.3". Grand Rapids saw an increase from 67.9" to 79.8". Increases across the board at 1st order stations.

NYC saw an increase from 22.2" to 30.7"., Boston saw an increase from 40.6" to 48.0". 

Using two places that have consistent data with no missing data...in the last 50 years

NYC saw snowfall increase from 22.2" to 30.7" but 1"+ snowcover days decrease from 22 to 19.

DTW saw snowfall increase from 44.8" to 45.5" but 1"+ snowcover days decrease from 53 to 46.

So its snowing more but also melting more.

20 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Today’s Eps still has the official wind reversal in a day or two, then after a brief recovery, has the winds reversing again around 3/5 and staying under the 0 m/s line thru the end of the run around 4/3! And I thought yesterday's run was crazy.

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. 

23 minutes ago, Lightning said:

While that may be true for you and your area, it definitely is not for this area.  There has been many spectacular March and April events in this area that I would love to see something similar again.   

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. 

1 hour ago, Stebo said:

And that one folk is right, no matter how sour you are. Going into March last year, no one expected the amount of snow most of us got, if you did you are lying. Not saying its likely but it is far from impossible.

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

2 hours ago, Powerball said:

 

Some folks may come along and talk about how there's still March to go through which averages a fair bit of snow or how we always see a cold snap in March/April, but you can't fight the overall trends/signals. The odds of locking in another sustained/long-lasting winter pattern for the remainder of this season are progressively diminishing by the day.

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. 

5 hours ago, RCNYILWX said:

Unremarkable locally with 3 days in the 60s and 4 days in the 50s, but enough to wipe out the negative anomalies from the cold and snowy first half of the month. The warmth was more extreme east of here.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 

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.

15 hours ago, RU848789 said:

Snow ratio time. I thought it was 15-20:1, but we actually got 22:1 - damn!  Got 11798 cc of snow melted down to just 530 cc of liquid, so the 11.25" was only 0.5" QPF.

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.

13 hours ago, Allsnow said:

Pretty! Glad you got some snow!

20 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

2019-2020 was technically neutral and 2020-2021 wasn't that snowy in New England.

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.

53 minutes ago, Frog Town said:

Late February is looking very late '98ish, another very strong Nino year.  

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

7 hours ago, Snowstorms said:

Yeah would be quite historic too. But the way this winter has gone, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a warm March like 2010 or 2012. 

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 

3 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

You’re all measuring “futility” wrong.
 

Instead of total snowfall, try looking at SDDs, or average temperature, or # of days with snow cover, or # of days with the high temperature below freezing.

Those are much more important metrics when determining the grade of a winter. If a 6” snowfall occurs and then melts in a day, it doesn’t really do much. But if a 6” snowfall occurs at the end of November that helps to usher in cold temps and snow cover through the end of December, it makes the winter a lot better. 

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.