Roger Smith

I've been searching for our missing two feet of snow. Last three winters we maxed out at 27" snow on ground, the max so far this winter is 5 inches (now a frozen three). Somebody must have our snow!

Small children and dogs could disappear in this one. Potential for two feet of snow.

I am half expecting next 24-48 hour model trends to be towards greater coastal development, lower central pressures for the coastal low and a consequent beefing up of QPF over NJ, PA, NY and s NE. There is a fairly robust energy peak around Jan 26-27 so the slower this evolution develops, the better the results. Current record snowfalls on 25th and 26th of January are 10.0" from 1905 (an 11.0" 2d event) and 12.3" from 2011 (a 20" 3d event). There could be a run on one or even both of those depending on timing. It is very difficult to break record low mins in this urban heat island situation but easier to match record low max, those are in the 12-14 F range around Sunday-Monday. I think Saturday may be very cold all day but it has less chance because the date record for Jan 24th (6F 1882) is also the monthly lowest value for low max. Oddly, December and February both have lower values (2F 1917 and 4F 1918). There has not been a sub-10F max at NYC since Jan 21, 1985 set a record of 9F. There was a 10F reading in Jan 1994, and 13F in Jan 2018.

Movin' on up to the East Side ...

This is looking very good to me, I think the only real change potential in modelling from here to game time is a slight weakening of the cold air barrier to the north, which has been modelled at near-record intensity (474 dm thickness contour at heart of the outbreak over nw MN on Friday and still sub-480 into Quebec by Sunday). This can weaken by a few dm thickness without doing any harm at all to your snowfall potential, in fact I would say a moderate weakening would still be a plus for all between NC and central New England. 18-24 inch potential with this one.

Pretty sure I recall that guidance for 1-23-2016 was in the 10" range for NYC up until 24-36h before event, it only took a slight northward tick on the track to bring the max snowfall axis north several degrees of latitude. I think there would be a tendency for models to overcook the depth of cold in the air mass arriving over the Great Lakes region Friday-Saturday, I am seeing some thickness values that could easily be 6-12 dm too low, in this case a weakening of the cold air barrier is your friend rather than being a problem.

Another historical note to add to the Kennedy inaugural snowstorm (1961) ... NYC had 16 consecutive days with maxima below freezing from Jan 19 to Feb 3. Another large snowfall happened at the end of the cold spell, 17" fell Feb 3-4 1961. There was also a rare below zero not a daily record event (-2F on Feb 2, 1961, the record being -3F 1881). The warmest reading in the 16-day interval was 29F. The second half of Feb 1961 turned very mild. I recall this sequence from my own location west of Toronto (as a kid) and ice-jam flooding that took place on a small river covering the main street of a nearby village. This was before I started to observe as a high school student.

Not to mention I have the longest daily commute to subforum offices. I appreciate @everybody.

Not sure if Toronto would see the full depth of cold in this outbreak, but anyway these are the records, I was going to strip out the high records but perhaps they will be interesting too, note the record warmth during the first portion of the Chicago blizzard of 1967, but eventually a heavy sleet to snow storm developed on 26th into 27th across Ontario also: <<< Daily Records for Toronto (downtown) 1840-2025 >>> Date ______ High max _____________ Low min ____________ high min _____________ Low max Jan 20 __ 54 F __ 2006 _____-10 F __ 1892 ____ 40 F (1995) ______ 6 F (2019) Jan 21 __ 56 F __ 1906 _____ -13 F __ 1857 _____ 40 F (1906) ______ 1 F (1943) Jan 22 __ 57 F __ 1906 _____ -20 F __ 1857 _____ 44 F (1906) _____ -11 F (1857) Jan 23 __ 57 F __ 1967 _____ -17 F __ 1857 _____ 40 F (1967) _____ -2 F (1882) Jan 24 __ 57 F __ 1909 _____ -17 F __ 1872 _____ 44 F (1909) ______ 2 F (1884) Jan 25 __ 61 F __ 1967 _____ -13 F __ 1884,1945_ 40 F (1916) ______ 4 F (1920, 45) __ (max also 60F 1950) Jan 26 __ 53 F __ 1950 _____ -17 F __ 1927 _____ 41 F (1858) _____ -4 F (1927) Jan 27 __ 51 F __ 2002 _____ -11 F __ 1925,27___ 41 F (1974) ______ 0 F (1925) Jan 28 __ 52 F __ 1916 _____ -13 F __ 1873 _____ 41 F (2002) ______ 4 F (1885) Jan 29 __ 54 F __ 1914 _____ -18 F __ 1873 _____ 38 F (2006) ______ 3 F (1873) Jan 30 __ 56 F __ 2013 _____ -14 F __ 1898,1908_ 44 F (2013) ______ 4 F (1908) Jan 31 __ 54 F __ 1988 _____ -18 F __ 1920 ______ 45 F (1988) ______ 7 F (1920) Temperatures in these records (extracted from my thread in climate forum) were observed in F deg to 1978 and have been converted from C deg observations since 1978. The 1857 cold wave was also associated with a coastal snowstorm. There was also a very cold set of readings on Jan 18, 1857 (max 0, min -18) before a slight warmup and the record cold plunge that began on Jan 21st. These 1857 readings were before a lot of long-term U.S. data sets but at Providence RI, Alexis Caswell also recorded severe cold and a blizzard in Jan 1857. His records include -9F on Jan 18, 18.0" snow Jan 19th, and -14F on both Jan 23 and 24. I hope history does not repeat fully because in Feb 1857 there were destructive floods in Ontario and New England as temperatures went to the other extreme and heavy rain combined with snow melt. Those events were mainly in the second quarter of the month.

A look at anomalies and projections, plus an update on seasonal snowfall ... ____________________ DCA _NYC _BOS __ ORD _ATL _IAH ___ DEN _PHX _SEA __(anom 1-16) _____+2.0 _+3.1 _+2.8 ___ +6.7 _+6.8 _+8.3 __+10.2 _+4.8 _+2.7 __(p anom 1-31) ___-2.0 _-1.5 _-2.0 ___ -0.5 _+1.5 _+3.5 ___ +5.0 _ +4.0 _ +2.0 (17th) _ Extreme cold will dominate eastern and central regions in second half of January and will even cut into the large positive anomaly at DEN for a few days but will not reach PHX and will have less impact on the southeast. I could imagine even lower outcomes than shown in the east as these projections require an anomaly of about -6F now to 31st. Some days will average -15 to -20 anomalies. Snowfall reports below will be updated in this post whenever necessary. The end of Jan temp anomalies will be updated around the 24th and preliminary scoring will be posted after that update. ____________________ DCA _NYC _BOS __ ORD _ DTW _ BUF __ DEN _ SEA _ BTV snowfall to 1-17______1.6" __8.7" __5.4" __22.5"_ 24.7"_ 43.0"__ 7.9"_ 0.0" _ 36.3"

Well that's interesting because Feb 1934 was super cold in eastern N. America. (so was Dec 1933, Jan 1934 was closer to average)

Maybe Charlie Brown WILL kick a field goal after all. And if so, nobody else will !!!

I think the GFS is improving, they are now cancelling snowstorms shown on day 12 by day 10.

I think there will be a much better period of winter synoptics late this month into first half of February especially seeing that extremely cold air masses keep coming south and that period is peak climo for snowstorms.

Generally clear skies over the PNW and s BC, but widespread fog in valleys, sunshine on hills and alpine areas. Where I live, my north view is clear blue skies and my south view is a bright white cloud a little below my elevation and drifting towards me at times, but it has stayed sunny with highs around 7 C 45 F. A few valleys getting out of the fog are 10-15 C and valleys in fog are just slightly above freezing. Most of eastern WA and the southern ID region are under this inversion fog. Visibilities are quite low. Very mild on the Oregon coast, highs near 17 C 63 F there today.