coastalplainsnowman

2002 was great - no doubt - never seen rain go over to snow and accumulate on *everything* like that did However, 1983 takes the cake for me. Granted, just enough snow to cover the grass and street, but check out the high temperatures from that day. Christmas Eve's high temp was just past midnight in the 20s. Fell through the day down to 5 on Christmas Eve night, and didn't get out of the mid teens on Christmas. Awesome. One year prior we were outside in short sleeves on Christmas Eve 1982..

One other point about the whole snow in December discussion. For all the good reasons given here, there's also the whole thing about *where we live.* For anyone on here who's not still in school/college, especially nearish to the coast: growing up how many snow days did you have in your lifetime in December?

On the bright side, the biggest daily total later that winter, other than 1966, which I couldn't find, is as follows. Statistically speaking, it seems that the last two months of meteorlogical winter for these winters are, at worst, no worse than average in terms of still seeing a big snowfall. Maybe even better than average odds? I'd be ok with the 2016 result lol. 1973: 1.8 1983: 12.5 (seems low) 1987: 8.1" 1998: 5.0" 2016: 27.3

We have to have at least one 60 degree day the week leading up to Christmas, so everything was bound to align for that eventually.

Last year I wanted to try to prove this out, i.e. what the standard deviation looked like since 1995 as compared to the previous similar timeframe, but I never did it. To the eye it definitely looks like the size of the standard deviation has increased significantly.

100%. That timeframe saw 50"+ snowfall *more often than not* even on Long Island. Anyone growing up during that is bound to be disappointed. Compare it to a kid of the 80s. Even after 2000-2018 I'm still happy with anything that covers the grass.

In fairness, the Jets could play all their home games at Atacama Desert Stadium and they would still always be sloppy.

Reading this I was thinking about how if from ages 5-25 I experienced roughly a dozen winters of 50" + snowfall, on Long Island no less, what my snowfall expectations would be like with that as a frame of reference. It would be impossible for them not to be sky high.

Regarding this part: "There were always warm years here and there, less snowy and more snowy winters. But both the magnitude of and frequency of warmth right now appears unprecedented. At least from temperature data I’ve reviewed. I do find that upsetting. Not much I or anyone can do about it, but it sucks." I look at it this way - In the worst case scenarios, NYC metro's weather in 25-30 years will be similar to what, current northern VA? If you grew up there in the 80s/90s, you still had some historical and memorable snowstorms and cold. You wouldn't have thrown in the towel, right? The snow and storms wouldn't come quite as often as here - maybe - since there are so many other factors as we know - but they'd still happen. Same situation here. It's not like we live in the Arctic, and I think the 2001-2019 set our expectations way higher than they should be. If temperatures continue to rise like they have been, regarding historic snows, it's like our odds of winning $500 on a lottery ticket dropped from 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,500. At the coast at least, it's always been a longshot, with enough other factors at play that the total amount of winters we're around and able to appreciate it are barely sufficient for a good sample size.

Does it bother anyone else that they can't bother to put a color on geographic Long Island? I mean, only about 8 million people live here. If they did the same to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska combined, I bet a lot of folks would rightly complain that the map isn't anywhere near complete, yet those states total about two thirds of the population of Long Island. Also, get off my lawn!

On the Nassau south shore that snow hung on til about 3:30 or so. I remember looking out the window at school, already cursed with enough meteorology knowledge to know that rain was on the doorstep, and so was unable to share in the joy of my bilssfully innocent classmates, yet shocked at this storm which was breaking the 'inevitable changeover to rain' axiom that I'd come to just concede as a fact of life. Will never forget shoveling my driveway after school in what had by then in fact finally become rain. It was without a doubt the most waterlogged, brutally heavy snow to shovel that I've ever experienced.

Also, the bitter, *bitter* miss in 1989 - either February or March. Almost the opposite of '83 in terms of expectation vs result. Left for school expecting a heavy snow to start mid day. Ended up with Not. A. Flake. It was the type of storm which today would have caused schools and businesses to close premptively. If memory serves, Atlantic City got 18" and Montauk got 12". That one left me convinced that an '83-like storm was never ever going to happen again. What a fitting way to end the 80s.

I remember years ago having to do a regression analysis for a statistics class in school. I picked the topic "is there a correlation between snowfall in November and an overall snowy winter", hoping to find a direct relationship between the two. I found no correlation, but didn't know if that's because there was really minimal to no relationship or because I was bad at statistics. I'm still not sure but I'm encouraged by what you said above.

Let's hope for a break from the trend of having one out of place, spirit destroying, hideous, 55+ degree day in the week leading up to Christmas, as we've seen in the majority of Decembers the past dozen years.

I don't think it will be a carbon copy of last year, only because that would be the first time in recorded history. For those raising the point that it's been much warmer lately, let's say we have a 1980s Baltimore / DC climate now. They still average between 16-20 inches of snow a year. That's still a few decent storms. What'd we get, 3-5" total along the coast last year? Raleigh, NC averages 5.2" a year. Are we in a Raleigh, NC climate? No. For those reasons I chalk last year up to being an anomaly which will not repeat this year. I hope this ages well.

Absolutely. I call that beating Murphy's Law by playing Murphy against himself.

I'll never forget this one. After a week without power following Sandy, it was finally restored hours before this storm hit. 3 hours later, right after the generator was finally tucked away, the power was out *again*, only to come back on the very moment after I'd cleared a spot in the snow, rolled the generator back out, and had fired it up. In the wind I believe I heard the weather gods mock me that night.

Wait, you took that pic doing 53 with a vehicle one car length ahead of you?

Hey figured a lot of folks on heee would like this: https://x.com/joecioffi/status/1717311370155229600?s=46

It's amazing how memories get distorted over time. I realize of course that 95/96 was far snowier than 93/94, but my memory of 93/94 is of nearly continuous snowpack, even in the street itself on some neglected side streets. 95/96 I think of like what was discussed yesterday - big snows but with warmups in between. I would have figured 95/96, even with all the snows, would have had half the days of 93/94. Wow.

A 30" snowstorm will always mean a lot, but I get your larger point. The reason is that most of us here don't know how to live in the moment and enjoy the damn snow while it is happening. Before the snow has started falling, we look ahead and say "it'll be melted in two days." Hell, during awesome banding we don't go out and enjoy it - we watch the banding *in the basement, on radar* and are sad *during the banding* because it's going to end in 20 minutes or whatever. The above might be a bit too autobiographical, but I know I'm not the only one. You know who you are. Anyway, that's why I (we?) don't like big storms sandwiched between warmth.

Am I correct to say that the radar in the Northeast is fairly unusual today? Reminds me of how it looks with an arctic blast, except instead of flurries there are tons of what look like mini thunderstorms, though in winter they'd be coming more from the NW than from the N/NNE.

If anyone has any predictions for the upcoming fall colors that would be great. Seems like most recent years the prediction was for muted colors due to little rain and above normal temps in the time period when they have the most impact. This year we've been kind of normal temp wise and way above rain wise, right? So maybe that means above normal vivid colors this year?

Taking this at face value, Massapequa Park seeing nearly 2" less than North Massapequa (4.73 to 2.79) is quite the dropoff.

Honest question - how does a type of tree acquire immunity to a beetle?