Roger Smith

The anomalies to mid-month are roughly near normal in the east to +5 F in parts of the west. A somewhat colder interval lies ahead for most regions, with variations the final anomalies look likely to be near normal east to +3 west. I will track this more precisely in about a week and post some preliminary scoring.

I don't foresee anything very different from the above, would just add that there may be potential for some heavy lake effect snowfall events and large temperature variations in the Midwest that could include a few episodes of near-record cold there. This makes me wonder if the snowfall anomaly will be highly positive in the upper Midwest trailing southwest and with a secondary maximum over the central Rockies. I think the east coast will be lucky to see one major coastal storm but could have a half dozen moderate snowfall events from redeveloping lows.

Boston, MA _____ 47" NewYork, NY(Central Park) ____ 24" Philadelphia, PA ___ 23" Baltimore, MD ____ 17" Washington, DC __ 13" Albany ___ 62" Hartford, CT __ 50" Providence, RI ___ 38" Worcester, MA ___ 77" Hyannis, MA ____ 28" Burlington, VT __ 87" Portland, ME ____ 70" Concord, NH ____ 67" Above normal snowfall will be mostly confined to some snow belts of Great Lakes, and parts of the upper Midwest, parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Storm track will often be across the Ohio valley into northern New England, and infrequently near the east coast, but it won't be as mild a winter as some of the past few. Snow will be generally around 80% of long-term normals for most of the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

Would you say all of that 4" fell on Sunday, or if not, what portion fell on Monday? The only heavier snowfall for Nov 9th was 5.6" in 1921. That date also set a low maximum record for the date (30F). The snowfall record for Nov 10 for Toronto (downtown location) was 5.5" in 1898 and 7.0" fell Nov 9-10 1898 at that location.

The old penalty structure was probably too harsh and would tend to inhibit people from posting relatively not-so-late forecasts, but having absolutely no late penalties is not that good either long-term, I will give it some thought for 2026 if we keep going, and have late penalties that make sense. Other contests that I am involved with have much more routine late penalties that are applied automatically (whether by me or some other person running a contest). The turnout for those is larger, which tends to mean that the contest organizer(s) are not as wary of annoying people with late penalties. I think as a scientific question, there is usually no more skill shown on 2nd or 3rd than there is on 1st or day before that. The late penalty concept for a monthly forecast contest is mostly to encourage on-time entries so everyone feels equally likely to do well and also so the organizer can get the table of forecasts done and move on to their normal routines. Sooner or later somebody is going to crush that 810 barrier, this could be the month, never know.

Nov 9-13 may be the only five day interval where some or most people reading this were alive when NYC set its daily record low. After the 9th (1976) two were set in 2017 and two in 2019 (probably on same nights rather than two consecutive nights in each case). Two out of three of the winters following these unusual record lows were of course good ones, 2019-20 closer to average by recent standards. Add to this the 2012 snowfall event and this is one of the few times of year to outperform the classic climate of the past in terms of producing cold weather and snow. Not that this necessarily would affect the 30-year average, I suppose there have also been intervals that were well above normal to compensate. The ones that come to mind are a bit earlier such as 1975, 2022 and 2024.

BWI 16.7" DCA 14.5" IAD 16.9" RIC 12.0" SBY 9.8" numerous small events and one moderate event in a fast flow highly variable pattern

__ Table of forecasts for November 2025 __ FORECASTER _____________ DCA _NYC _BOS __ORD _ATL _IAH ___DEN _PHX _SEA hudsonvalley21 ___________ +1.4 _+1.6 _+1.3 ___+0.1 _+1.8 _+1.2 ___ +2.2 _+1.5 _ -0.3 BKViking __________________ +1.3 _+1.1 _ +1.0 ___+1.0 _+1.4 _+1.8 ___ +2.1 _+1.9 _+0.5 so_whats_happening _____+1.1 _ +1.4 _+1.9 ___+1.4 _ +1.1 _+2.1 ___ +2.4 _+2.4 _+0.8 Tom _______________________ +1.1 _+0.8 _+0.7 ___+1.1 _+1.4 _+1.7 ___ +1.9 _ +2.1 _+0.3 wxallannj __________________+1.0 _+1.0 _+1.0 ___ +2.8_+2.5 _+2.9 ___ +3.1 _+2.6 _+1.0 RJay ______________________ +1.0 _+1.0 _+1.0 ___ +0.8_+2.5 _+2.5 ___ +3.8 _+3.5 _+1.7 Scotty Lightning __________ +1.0 _+1.0 _+1.0 ___ +0.5 _+1.5 _+1.5 ___ +0.5 _+1.0 __0.0 ___ consensus ____________ +1.0 _+0.8 _+0.7 ___+0.5 _+1.4 _+1.8 ___ +2.1 _+2.4 _+0.8 yoda ______________________ +1.0 _+0.8 _+0.6 ___+0.4 _+1.3 _+1.9 ___ +2.2 _+2.4 _+0.7 DonSutherland1 __________ +0.8 _+0.8 _+0.7 ___+0.1 _+2.0 _+2.2 ___ +3.0 _+2.5 _+0.9 ___ Normal __________________ 0.0 __0.0 __0.0 ____ 0.0 __ 0.0 __0.0 ____ 0.0 __0.0 __0.0 RodneyS __________________ -0.4 _+0.1 _+0.3 ___ +1.5 _-0.5 _+1.9 ___ +3.3 _+1.0 _+1.5 Roger Smith _______________-1.4 _ -1.4 _ -1.7 ___ -2.3 _ -2.5 _+0.9 ___ +1.5 _+3.5 _+0.8 Ephesians2 _______________ -1.5 _ -1.0 _ -1.5 ___ -2.5 _ -0.5 _ +1.5 ___ +2.0 _+4.0 _+3.0 wxdude64 ________________ -2.2 _-3.0 _-2.7 ___ -3.3 _ -1.5 _ -0.4 ___ +0.5 _+0.8 _+2.1 -------------- Persistence (Oct 2025) ___ -0.5 _+0.6 _+1.6 ___+4.1 _+1.3 _+4.2 ___+2.4 _+0.9 _-0.5 --------------- Highest and lowest forecasts are color coded; Normal is colder than all forecasts for DEN and PHX.

Re the approaching Newfoundland windstorm, you don't often see changes this rapid and dynamic at a weather buoy site such as this one to the south of western Newfoundland ... winds went from east 40 knots to south 50-70 knots to west 50-65 knots in about three hours and the temperature spiked at 20 C (68 F). I see reports already of southeast winds gusting to 100 km/hr in southeast Newfoundland but I wonder if the public forecast is strongly worded enough for the gusts that are going to hit there in about 2-3 hours from now? http://ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44139

Quite the windstorm developing overnight to hit southeast Newfoundland (Avalon Pen) on Tuesday, winds could be near 150 km/hr in gusts. Low deepens to 945 mb as it approaches the Terra Nova area. I wonder if this is a sign of explosive development potential for lows later on in the approaching winter season in the general area? Then the next one along on Wednesday night develops rapidly off Nova Scotia and could bring 2-4" snowfalls to Atlantic Canada and eastern Maine towards conclusion of storm precip Thursday morning, but it looks like just a few wind blown flurries for New England otherwise, maybe scattered 0.5 to 1.0 inch snow over higher terrain .... are Lake Champlain snow squalls possible? ... there are some unusually cold air masses for this early showing up.

I have lost track of what late penalties I applied to whom in the past so, given the fact your position is identical to mine (hopelessly adrift of the leaders) I won't bother to penalize this one. If we keep going in 2026, I am going to have to bring late penalties up to date with current practices and expectations, what I said in the past was going to result in quite a few very large late penalties in 2025 but there are some forecasters here who are never late and they probably feel a bit put out by overly lenient policies too. The problem for me is, the contest is well supported by a loyal group but at the same time we have pretty close to the bare minimum number participating to make it worthwhile, and I am trying to balance the fairness aspect with the existence altogether of the contest. Anyway, same goes for StormchaserChuck who has not posted yet, he's in the chase-the-chase pack with you and me, it really doesn't matter much if we reduce our scores even further, any one of us could win November and December and still finish 700 points back of Tom and hudsonvalley21 and 300 back of the chase pack behind the leaders. I am just trying to stay clear of Normal at this point. General note -- all scoring updated and checked over, back in the thread before November forecasts.

Worth noting one record set at NYC in October was daily rainfall on Oct 30, 1.83" replaces 1.64" (1917). Now that's a good year to be copying, right?

I posted these ideas in other subforums ... I could see this being a highly variable winter with some potent cold shots, flow generally about 260 to 290 deg most of the time, so lake effect quite powerful at times, probably the sort of pattern that could relax to allow coastals once or twice. In the mix would be some +7 to +12 F spells of mild Pacific sourced air masses, even super-cold patterns like 1917-18 and 1933-34 had some milder spells (in fact Jan 1934 was much milder than both Dec 1933 and Feb 1934). So a warmer climate version of those kinds of winters, possibly 1970-71 or 1983-84 could be similar? Not as mild as recent winters and not an all-time cold although one spell could produce a few record cold days. Snow would be lucky to get to near normal but seems unlikely to fall below 50% of normal in northeast coastal regions, probably a bit above normal interior New England. and would add more specific to this region, one or two blizzards likely on tracks from Nebraska to n MO to s IN-OH, frequent strong lake effect downwind of L Michigan and L Huron, very large temperature oscillations likely as Pacific mild and arctic cold air masses alternate in a fast flow with frequent alternations but one or two spells of deep cold centered on the Midwest region. Yours may be the "it" sub-forum for winter 2025-26. Could be similar to that recent winter when MLI, MSP set snowfall records? was that 2020-21? I recall it from snowfall contests we used to have in this subforum.

I recently posted this in the New England subforum and it would apply to NYC subforum as well ... I could see this being a highly variable winter with some potent cold shots, flow generally about 260 to 290 deg most of the time, so lake effect quite powerful at times, probably the sort of pattern that could relax to allow coastals once or twice. In the mix would be some +7 to +12 F spells of mild Pacific sourced air masses, even super-cold patterns like 1917-18 and 1933-34 had some milder spells (in fact Jan 1934 was much milder than both Dec 1933 and Feb 1934). So a warmer climate version of those kinds of winters, possibly 1970-71 or 1983-84 could be similar? Not as mild as recent winters and not an all-time cold although one spell could produce a few record cold days. Snow would be lucky to get to near normal but seems unlikely to fall below 50% of normal in northeast coastal regions, probably a bit above normal interior New England. Will add for NYC, my prediction is 18-23 inches for NYC, 15-20 for JFK, 23-28 for EWR, 30-40 s CT and parts of LI. A more average sort of winter by modern standards at least. I think the big weather stories will be in the Midwest with huge temperature swings and some powerful lake effect storms at times. Probably one decent coastal snowstorm somewhere like mid to late January into early February.

I could see this being a highly variable winter with some potent cold shots, flow generally about 260 to 290 deg most of the time, so lake effect quite powerful at times, probably the sort of pattern that could relax to allow coastals once or twice. In the mix would be some +7 to +12 F spells of mild Pacific sourced air masses, even super-cold patterns like 1917-18 and 1933-34 had some milder spells (in fact Jan 1934 was much milder than both Dec 1933 and Feb 1934). So a warmer climate version of those kinds of winters, possibly 1970-71 or 1983-84 could be similar? Not as mild as recent winters and not an all-time cold although one spell could produce a few record cold days. Snow would be lucky to get to near normal but seems unlikely to fall below 50% of normal in northeast coastal regions, probably a bit above normal interior New England.