Roger Smith

That GGEM 72-84h pass looks like 8-12" in central VA to southeast MD, 3-5" DCA to s NJ and a sharp cutoff near MD-PA border. Let's hope that trend of sharp northern cutoffs moving north works with this one. Then it could be more like 8-12" everywhere and let PA worry about where 3-5" ends up.

Your chances for a direct hit are one in four perhaps, but 50-50 for 2-4" near the northern fringes of the snow. Those aren't bad odds for first third of December. Not a very easy set-up for models to resolve, one thing in favor of a storm would be warm SST values offshore, could force a last minute northeast jog and you'll catch at least some of this. Best bet at this point is 2-5" DCA, but range of possible amounts trace to 15" so lots to play for here.

I guess we have reached the deadline, will be making up some sort of table of entries soon. Would be inclined to accept any forecasts posted rest of Tuesday 4th before I get that project finished, but as soon as a table of entries appears, the contest is closed to participating entries though. Let's say midnight Tuesday CST will be the absolute deadline, it takes a few hours to get this into excel format and processed then transcribed to the website.

Just a subjective comment but I recall the autumn of 1967 producing weather like this November, quite cold with frequent light snowfalls (in southern Ontario), and the weather following that was very mild for a part of mid-December, think I remember something like high 50s just before Christmas then much colder again, and otherwise a rather cold winter (in the east anyway) with a memorable snow to ice storm in Toronto in mid-January (1968). Not much recall of what may have happened elsewhere in that winter, there were long dry intervals in February where I was, almost daily sunshine, and another large snowfall around 12th of March, then a warm early spring developed.

Near-flizzard conditions.

__ Holiday greetings to all, considered no late penalty for RJay after considering his efforts to assist the contest and in view of positional advantage being nil with the forecasts supplied vs points needed but will apply one for the integrity of the Regional Rumble __ check the up to date scoring report in the November contest thread to see how close the annual scoring races are, Regional Rumble is not quite a lock yet for NYC but looking at the range of their forecasts this month, can't really see how anyone catches them, short of one of the Mid-Atl dynamic duo having a perfect set of predictions. Even then, 190 points to catch up (PHL probably too far back now). The individual all-nine is probably still in contention for the top five or six at least. Scotty Lightning had a lead of 23 over myself and I was 18 ahead of wxallannj after November, BKV and DonS are lurking not far behind. __ in any case, will post a list of total scores without late penalties for all regular contestants after this month, to show how you compare with no late penalties applied __ I have not done that all year and will be interested to see it myself. __ I invite any of you to post any thoughts (or send by PM) about future of this contest, I am willing to continue what I have been doing, or I could step aside for a new host and then I would be willing to continue scoring while that new host does the meet and greet portion of the contest? up to you folks, I am somewhat disappointed that I cannot seem to increase the numbers even with the Rumble concept, and we've gradually lost quite a few regulars which may or may not be related to my being the host? Don't know, I wonder if perhaps my controversial methods or possibly storm busts in regional forums have an effect on contest support, although really one's decision to participate in a contest should be mostly about one's own desire to forecast plus whether or not the contest is well run -- I believe this one is well run, even if I am the flakiest dude on the planet in some other aspect of weather (or life). ... meanwhile, I do take part in organizing contests on forums in UK and Ireland and have not run into the same rates of contest field attrition or decay over recent years, so perhaps it's a problem related more to Am Wx and the fact that many members stay in their regional forums mostly? Whatever, we need bigger fields, or do we? If there are twelve very committed people it has its own merits. I think if it was down to just me and two other guys, then might be time to apply the DNR. Despite all of that, thanks for your continued support of the contests. We could make up quite a list of the departed though, and some regions have stopped appearing here altogether. I did try to offer regional forum portals for the contest, but only two people ever used those, anyone who heard about the contest through that regional announcement came over here to participate. (will be p.m.'ing these thoughts if I don't think they were spotted, as we need to make some decisions in December about 2019) Table of forecasts for December 2018 FORECASTER ________________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ____ DEN _ PHX _ SEA Scotty Lightning ______________ +1.5 _+1.5 _+1.0 __ +0.5 _+1.5 _+1.5 ___ --0.5 _+1.0 __ 0.0 wxallannj ___________________ +1.5 _+0.4 _+0.4 __ +1.1 _+1.2 _+1.7 ___ +1.4 _+1.6 _+0.3 hudsonvalley21 _______________+0.9 _+0.3 _--0.2 __ --1.2 _+0.7 _+0.4 ___ +0.6 _+1.8 _+1.4 DonSutherland.1 ______________+0.5 _--0.6 _--1.0 __ --0.2 _+1.0 _+1.2 ___ +0.3 _+0.5 _+1.1 ___ Normal __________________ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 ___ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 ____ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 RodneyS ____________________ 0.0 __ 0.0 _--0.6 __ +0.7 _--0.5 _+0.2 ___ +0.7 _+1.0 _+0.3 BKViking ___________________ --0.4 _--0.6 _--0.8 __ --1.5 _--1.9 _--0.2 ___ --0.2 _+0.9 _+0.8 Tom _______________________ --0.9 _--0.8 _--0.9 __ --1.9 _--1.5 _--0.2 ___ --0.6 _+0.5 _+0.8 ___ Consensus ______________ --0.9 _--0.8 _--0.8 __ --0.9 _--1.3 _--0.2 ___ +0.3 _+1.0 _+1.0 RJay ______ (-3%) ___________--1.0 _--1.0 _--1.0 __ --1.0 _--1.0 _--1.0 ___ +1.0 _+1.0 _+1.0 Roger Smith _________________--1.0 _--1.3 _--1.0 __ --0.9 _--1.3 _--0.2 ___ +2.5 _+2.0 _+2.8 IntenseBlizzard2014 ___________--1.1 _--0.9 _--0.7 __ --0.9 _--1.5 _--0.5 ___ --0.4 _+0.7 _+0.6 Stebo ______________________ --1.2 _--1.5 _--2.1 __ +0.8 _--2.5 _--1.2 ___ --1.0 _--1.5 _+1.2 dmillz25 ____________________ --1.9 _--2.5 _--2.5 __ --2.0 _--2.5 _--1.2 ___ +1.0 _--1.0 _+1.5 wxdude64 ___________________ --3.1 _--2.8 _--2.9 __ --2.7 _--1.4 _--0.4 ___ --2.1 _+1.1 _+1.9 ____________________________________________________________________________ Color codes show warmest and coldest forecasts. Normal is tied coldest for SEA. Consensus is 7th ranked (median) of 13 forecasts. Welcome back to IntenseBlizzard2014, I think you've played one or two of these before. Good luck to all, and check the November thread to see how close the contests were at end of last month.

Extreme forecast report All six of these locations -- DCA, NYC, BOS, ORD, ATL, IAH, are wins for coldest forecasts. Normal has five of these shared with coldest forecast since that was either a small positive anomaly (DCA, NYC, BOS) or zero (ATL, IAH). Scotty Lightning shares wins at DCA, NYC and BOS (+1.0, +1.0, +0.5) vs -3.1, -3.3, and -1.8. Roger Smith shares wins at DCA and NYC. Stebo also shares a win for NYC. wxallannj has sole possession of ORD with a forecast of -0.8 (actual was -5.7). RodneyS has wins for ATL and IAH with forecasts of 0.0 (actuals -3.7, -3.6). DEN ... At -0.5, this was a close call, but it failed to qualify (at -0.7 to -1.1 it would have been a win for Stebo (-0.8) and a shared loss for coldest forecasts RodneyS and dmillz25 (-1.5). As fourth coldest forecast is -0.5 (wxallannj), that is the high score and DEN fails to qualify. PHX ... Unlike the other seven, this one produced a loss and a win. The final value is -0.3, and Stebo has coldest forecast at -1.1. The second coldest forecast was -0.2 from Tom. This makes Tom a winner and Stebo gets a loss, (-0.7 would reverse the order ... Normal is not in contention for PHX unless it actually finishes closer to zero, as Normal shares the win for outcomes --0.1 to +0.4.) SEA has finished at +3.1, a shared win for DonSutherland.1 and Roger Smith (+2.2) with warmest forecasts. ___________________________________________________________________ updated annual standings Roger Smith __________17###-1 (can fall to 14-1 see below) RodneyS _____________12-3 __ Normal ___________ 12-7 RJay ________________10-2 Scotty Lightning (SD)____9-1 wxdude64 ____________ 6-4 DonSutherland1 ________5-1 hudsonvalley21 ________ 4-0 AfewUniversesbelown.. __4-0 wxallannj _____________4-0 Orangeburgwx ________ 4#-0* (can fall to 3-0 see below) so_whats_happening ___ 2-0 Stebo ________________ 2-1 Mercurial _____________ 1-0 NRG Jeff ______________1-0 BKViking ______________1-0 cerakoter1984 _________ 1-0 H2OTown_wx _________ 1-1 Tom _________________ 1-1 * no decision (Mar for IAH) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # wins excluding "a few Univ b n" will be withdrawn if a few Univ b n enters a third contest.

--1.0 _ --1.3 _ --1.0 ___ --0.9 _ --1.3 _ --0.2 ___ +2.5 _ +2.0 _ +2.8

Just to fill out the field to a reasonable size, I will extend the deadline for entries three days to the end of Monday, Dec 3rd (06z 4th will be the lock-up time). You can edit previous submissions to that deadline, no need to mention it as I don't copy anything until after that deadline has passed. I will maintain the log of actual snowfall in the entry form to the end of Nov 30th, not beyond if it does snow in the first three days of December. That is so I can convert the entry form into the first posting on actual amounts (Oct-Nov). Have mentioned the contest out of forum to see if we can get a few "blow-ins" from other snow capitals.

If you enjoy predicting snowfall, two other opportunities: (a) 18th annual NE-US snowfall contest at http://www.newx-forecasts.com/#RULES (during the season, 20th annual storm forecast contests, lots of fun, numerous AmWx members involved) firm deadline end of Friday 30th, season is only Dec 1 to Mar 31 so ignore current totals. ... 25 locations around the eastern U.S. incl the four we have here and SBY. and (b) Great Lakes - Ohio valley regional forum snow contest, over in that forum not a firm deadline (I set this one) and you could enter on Dec 1 or 2 -- the current totals are in the entry form and they count towards contest totals. worth a visit if you want to see snowfalls to date in the Midwest (42" MQT). ------------------------------------------------------- Looking forward to this one and the Dec 21-22 snowstorm (8-12")

How did this season work out? I lost track.

Four seasons contest update -- final scoring for the 2017-18 four seasons AUTUMN 2018 (Sept, Oct, Nov) ______________________ score ______________ score _______________ score (totals) FORECASTER ______ (original six) __ Points ___ (western) __ Points ____ (all nine) __ Points wxallannj _____________1083 ____ 6__________ 596 ______ 7________ 1679 _____10 Scotty Lightning _______ 1110 ___ 10 __________537 ______ 3 ________1647 _____ 7 RodneyS _____________1047 ____ 2 __________ 498 _____10 ________ 1645 _____ 6 Tom _________________1073 ____ 5 __________567 ______ 5 ________1640 _____ 5 BKViking _____________ 1068 ____ 4 __________518 ______ 1 ________1586 _____ 4 ___ Consensus ________ 1039 ____1 __________536 ______ 2 ________1575 _____ 3 Stebo ________________ 1109 ___ 7 __________ 464 ______ -- _______ 1573 _____ 3 dmillz25 ______________ 971 ____ 1 __________ 568 ______ 6 ________1539 _____ 2 Roger Smith ___________1048 ___ 3 __________ 487 ______ 1 ________1535 _____ 1 ___Normal ____________ 954 ___ -- ___________532 ______ 2 ________1486 _____ 1 hudsonvalley21_________952 ____ -- __________ 531 ______ 2 ________1483 _____ 1 Don Sutherland.1 _______960 ____ 1 __________ 494 ______ 1 ________1454 _____ 1 RJay _________________911 ____ -- __________ 542 ______ 4 ________1453 _____ -- wxdude64 _____________1012 ___ 1 __________ 359 ______ --_______ 1371 _____ -- jaxjagman ___(2 mo)___ 772 _____-- __________ 352 ______ -- _______ 1124 _____ -- Four Seasons total points to date -- final standings for 2017-18 four seasons contest ... listed in order of all nine total points ... FORECASTER ____ (original six) __ Points __ (western) __ Points __ (all nine) __ Points wxallannj _________ 2, 1, 10, 6__ 19 ______ 1, 5, 1, 7___14 ___ 2, 3,10,10 __25 Scotty Lightning _____10, 0, 4, 10__24 _____ 10, 6, 1, 3 __ 20 ___10, 0, 2, 7 __19 Don Sutherland.1 _____5, 4, 5, 1___15 _____ 7, 4, 6, 1 ___ 18 ____6, 4, 6, 1 __ 17 RodneyS ____________ 0, 7, 1, 2 _ 10 ______ 1,10, 4,10 _ 25 ____0,10, 1, 6 __ 17 BKViking ___________ 3, 0, 7, 4 ___14 _____ 1, 7, 1, 1____10 ____ 3, 2, 7, 4 __16 Tom _______________ 0, 5, 6, 5__ 16 ______ 6, 1, 1, 5 __ 13 ____0, 5, 5, 5 __ 15 ___ Consensus ____2, 1, 5, 1__ 9 _____ 3, 4, 2, 2 __11 ___ 4, 1, 7, 3 _ 15 Roger Smith _________1,10, 2, 3 __16 ______ 5, 0, 0, 1 __ 6 ____ 4, 7, 0, 1___12 hudsonvalley21 ______ 7, 1, 1, 0 ___9 ______ 3, 2,10, 2 __17 ____7, 1, 3, 1__ 12 ___Normal __________ 7, 0, 0, 0 __ 7 ______ 6, 0, 0, 2 ___ 8 ____ 7, 0, 0, 1 __ 8 wxdude64 __________ 4, 6, 0, 1 __ 11 ______ 0, 0, 4, 0___ 4 ____ 1, 6, 0, 0 __ 7 dmillz25 _____________1, 0, 1, 1 __ 3 ______ 0, 1, 7, 3 __11 _____0, 0, 5, 2 __ 7 so_whats_happening __ 6. 0, 0, 0 __ 6 ______ 2, 3, 0, 0 ___ 5 ____ 5, 0, 0, 0 __ 5 RJay ________________1, 1, 0, 0 __ 2 ______ 0, 2, 5, 4 ___11 ____1, 1, 1, 0 __ 3 Stebo _______________0, 2, 0, 7 __ 9 ______ 0, 0, 0, 0 ___ 0 ____ 0, 0, 0, 3 __ 3 H2O_Town__WX ______0, 0, 0, 0 __ 0 ______ 5, 0, 0, 0 ___ 5 ____ 1, 0, 0, 0 __ 1 jaxjagman ___________ 0, 0, 3, 0 __ 3 ______ 0, 0, 0, 0 ___ 0 ____ 0, 0, 1, 0 __ 1 (only forecasters with any points are in table) Congrats to wxallannj for winning the four seasons contest (all nine), Scotty Lightning takes the "original six" portion and RodneyS wins the west.

Just an invitation to the winter snowfall forecast contest, deadline is Friday 30th at end of the day. The entry form shows the snowfalls to date (which would be part of your forecast). Hope to see you there.

I hope you've had an enjoyable Thanksgiving break, now ... With many of the contests close in terms of scoring, this is the final month of competition for 2018 ... and the usual forecast challenge ... predict the anomalies relative to 1981-2010 in F deg for DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ___ DEN _ PHX _ SEA The usual late penalties apply. Good luck ! (NYC leads Regional Rumble by a not quite insurmountable margin, see provisional scoring for NOV for details).

A: That will happen if you hang around with models all day.

I think that one-storm two-day record from 1895 could fall with this one, 12-14" potential. Will say 11.5" ORD narrow miss on the record (as quoted earlier in the thread). GRR should probably double their call. Would go 9 inches there. DTW about 4 inches, will start as rain but gradually change over. Any place this starts as rain with east to northeast wind and 38-40 F temp will quickly change over and go all heavy snow. Where it starts at about 45 F southeast wind, could take longer but many places will lose their access to warm sector as the low rapidly occludes and snow surrounds the center. It is operating from Pacific moisture, Gulf inflow will be limited (dew points in current warm sector in 30s). Strong dynamics are the reason for the heavy precip more than Gulf moisture. The pivot south of DSM is plausible, would not be saying much more than 2" there, trending to 10" at IA-MO state border.

Differences in latitude of snow swath may be partly a signal of model rates of cooling of near-track boundary layers because I think this system is the kind that goes moderate rain to sleet to heavy wet snow along its track, warm sector never very robust and falls apart rapidly after 00z 27th, so it may not be only an issue of low track but this mixing and phase change recognition. And I think the actual outcome may be south of most guidance as a result.

This low really loses its warm sector quickly once it reaches western MI, probably an argument for a southward shift of the snow zone in general after passing Lake Michigan. Would suggest 8-12" s.e. IA, n IL, s WI into parts of s/c MI and 2-5" beginning to appear east of South Bend into se MI, sw ON, rain-snow mix in OH. Rapid pressure jump to coast means Toronto could see mostly snow despite the track.

If you happen to be wondering if this early intense cold outbreak in the east has some predictive value, the answer is no ... as an independent variable. I took the coldest readings on Nov 21st from Toronto's 177 years of data that I have stored on an excel file, and averaged out the temperature trends from today's date to the end of the following year. (readings of 8 or more degrees below average) Within five days the cold signal was (on average) largely extinguished from the data, and all three of the winter months showed a trend that was more or less normal (on average of the 28 cases). Through the remainder of the following years the most notable anomaly was a warm mid April and a cold end to September of the following calendar year. Much of the rest of the trend curve stayed very close to average (indicating random scatter). The range of outcomes varied from the super cold January of 1977 to a very mild January in 1950. So considered "stand alone" this cold tells us nothing predictive about the winter ahead. If you are interested, this is the set of years with the lowest temperatures on Nov 21 (in chronological order) ... since 1841 1850, 1857, 1869, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1879, 1880, 1888, 1895, 1903, 1905, 1911, 1914, 1916, 1929, 1932, 1937, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1976, 1984, 1987, 2008, 2014 These averaged 11.8 degrees (F) below the average of the entire data set for Nov 21. By Nov 28th it was no longer below normal and oscillated around normal for the rest of the winter. The coldest period that spanned Nov 21 to 26 was in 1880, with record lows on several days and an average more than 20 degrees below normal. The coldest December to follow any of these years was 1976. December of 1875 stayed very cold to 20th and flipped to very mild where it stayed all through Jan 1876. (Nov 30th 1875 was the coldest November day in the period of record). The winter of 1869-70 produced the most snow of any winter at Toronto. However, 1932-33 was relatively snow free. There are several winters here we would not want to see repeating (if looking for snow and cold) ... these include 1875-76, 1905-06 (improved towards end), 1929-30 (record warm Feb), 1932-33, 1949-50, 1951-52 (okay in Dec 51), 1972-73 (not much snow), 1987-88 (mild). So in other words, don't place too much faith in the "early indicators" theme, means nothing by itself. It can lead to almost any sort of winter overall.

The entry form now contains snowfall to date for all twenty locations, as you probably are aware, the contest runs from October to May and so these amounts would be part of your forecast totals. MQT already up to almost 40 inches. The amount shown for YXU - Tillsonburg is likely about 4" short of current totals after squalls hit that area today. (this station updates two days behind the others)

Hudson Bay rapidly freezing over this week, James Bay already half frozen (western half). This is allowing frigid arctic air to arrive in northern Ontario with less than usual early season modification. Looks like a very potent lake effect setup for tomorrow into Thursday. WNW type localized squalls with 12-24" potential. This reminds me of Nov 1976 when all lakes in central Ontario froze over a month to six weeks ahead of schedule and Dec-Jan were brutally cold, Feb-Mar 1977 turned exceptionally warm.

I may be describing what they were doing 30-40 years ago and perhaps now they have other methods worked out. But if it's what I think it is, the choice of the analogue year is based on whatever considerations may be available just like you see other LRFs on this site being developed from analogue years, chosen for some reason such as similar El Nino, similar Pacific etc. The only difference would be the date shifting for lunar dates. But while some researchers have gone down that lunar road to a conclusion where they think the Moon is a big player, my own research points to the idea that the Moon is just strong enough to modulate the ingredients it is forced to handle by the teleconnections. So the date shifting times the highs and lows, then hopefully the storm tracks are accurate because of the analogue year being a good one. If you choose the wrong analogue year and date shift, you'll still see some ghostly correlations because the timing of highs and lows somewhere close to your region will be the same. But the temperature field will be all wrong. That would perhaps happen if it's going to be a cold winter and they choose 2012 as their analogue.

When I was starting my research many years ago, I looked at some of their forecasts. This would have been around 1981-84. It became obvious to me that their method had something to do with picking an analogue winter and date shifting it to match lunar dates of the current winter. Here's a hypothetical example. You think 1909-10 will be a good analogue for 2018-19. Maybe solar activity and other teleconnections come into the decision too. So you look up the lunar dates for 1910, compare them to 2019, and shift the weather data already recorded for 1910 to the 2019 corresponding dates. It can't be more than 15 days different to shift either forward or backward to match them up. (I have not quoted a real analogue year here, nor have I looked up the difference in lunar dates). Every 19 years the moon has similar dates, also 8 and 11 years are small corrections. That means little to chances of choosing those years because the moon is only viewed as a sort of modulator of the overall weather pattern, not the creator of it. So if the overall setup looks good in the analogue winter, the number of days you have to shift is not a big concern. I'll follow this thread, and perhaps I can tell you from the results which analogue winter they are using and reveal the date shift involved. Then you can predict what the Almanac will predict from looking at that analogue winter and shifting the dates accordingly. Let's hope 2009-2010 is it. If so, the shift will be about -9 days (lunar events in that winter ran 9 days later than this winter). That makes the period Jan 21 to Feb 19 look very enticing (because it snowed several times Jan 30 to Feb 28 of 2010). If I had to use this method alone, I might just choose 2009-2010 and date shift it myself. The one thing that they might or might not realize is that date shifting requires some phase alterations because some lunar events shift slightly different numbers of days, so just because you have a stellar analogue ten days later than your winter forecast of choice does not mean you can do a seamless date shift of ten days, some parts have to be shifted more like eight or twelve days. And that might concentrate or defuse a storm system to have the two separate energy sources shifting different amounts. Just picking a year at random and lunar-date-shifting won't be very useful because you might randomly select a totally different pattern. This only works (to some extent) if you have a good pattern match. Another variable that doesn't shift seamlessly is lunar distance, the perigee cycle is independent of phase and declination. Perigee analogues are found every 9 years back (8.86 if you want to be more precise). And hey lookee there, 2019-9 = 2010. Hmm.

I was living in southern or central Ontario from a young age (let's say 1960s) to 1995. From my own experience and memory, these storms are memorable: 1. Severe blizzard on April 2-3 1975 in central Ontario, not much was lake effect but a total of 27" fell then drifted to 8 feet in places. Highways were blocked and people stranded for several days. 2. The blizzard of '78, although I was on the milder side of it working at a weather office of a private company in Toronto. You can imagine the shock we had drawing up the 12z map on Jan 26/78. So the experience was somewhat vicarious looking at the observations coming in from the heavy snow zone, while Toronto was getting very strong south to southwest winds but very cold air and blowing snow. 3. Tons and tons of lake effect in various winters of the 1970s, but the storms at end of January 1971 were most memorable, blocking roads for weeks in some parts of central Ontario. 4. A bit earlier while I was still in high school, a heavy snowstorm on Feb 25, 1965 dropped a level 18 inches west of Toronto. That was the heaviest snow I had seen or measured with my fairly new weather station. It was almost matched by 16 inches on Jan 22-23, 1966. 5. Northeast of Toronto at Lakefield ON, in Dec 1992, around the 9th or 10th, we had 22 inches level with no drifting, from a complex nor'easter and Great Lakes low. Had to go out and drive in that to pick up a paycheque. At least it wasn't blowing around. I guess I should give honorable mention to snow that fell on the last day of September 1974. That was the only measurable snow I ever saw in September. About an inch or two maybe. I remember the storm that Chicagoland had in Jan 1967, it was a bit less extreme for me, a mixture of sleet, snow and rain with thunder. The more memorable part of it was a temperature near 60 F that I recorded the day before it arrived. I got stuck once in Buffalo driving back from PA, think it was around the last day of November 1979. Not the biggest Buffalo snowfall ever but enough to close all the highways for several hours. Funny how you can remember day to day weather events from half a century ago and I would struggle to describe the weather here last week.

Note to contest entrants -- feel free to edit to Nov 30th, I don't make any copies of your posts until after that deadline, so no need to flag an edit ... and be aware that contest runs start to end of season so anything that happens in November counts. MQT already has 20.6" of snow this season FYI.