coastalplainsnowman

Just occurred to me that we are coming up on the *30* year anniversary of the Storm of the Century.  That's both ridiculous and scary.

13 minutes ago, nycwinter said:

a new mayor can change the rules

you're not kidding

9 hours ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

Well Boston has only 7 inches of snow for the entire season so far. I’m doubting it works out for them either. 

If you asked your average snow-loving Bostonian in November if they would sign up for receiving 1750% as much snow as NYC this winter, I bet they would figured on receiving more than 7".

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

aint no way DC is going to get anywhere near normal, I'd bet both houses they don't even get to 10 inches, just not possible

both houses - humblebrag lol

If this lack of winter keeps up, and doesn't happen again in future years to this extent for awhile, do you think this season will be referred to as 'The Year Without a Winter' or do the Christmas week cold snap and the super-brief recent cold snap disqualify it?

For comparison, looks like the 1816 Year without a Summer did have some brief bouts of 90+ weather, so maybe it wouldn't be disqualifying.

1 hour ago, forkyfork said:

boring

Just wondering, how easy was it to spot?  Visible to the naked eye?

12 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

What a year 

Not to mention Huntsville Alabama ahead of NYC, 0.6 to 0.4.

3 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Warming winters in New York City:

Winter 2022-2023 will be the 8th consecutive winter that is warmer than the moving 30-year average

 

 

 

All - I don't mean this directly to Don, I'm just referencing his chart - though of course Don your thoughts would be greatly appreciated too.  Playing devil's advocate here - Just going by this chart, it looks like NYC's Winter Mean Temperature per the moving average has increased by about one and one-third degrees in the past 65 years.  By my rough math that trend would turn NYC into Baltimore in roughly 200 years.  That the rate of increase over the preceding 57 years was sharper than the most recent 65, if anything, evidence points toward a flattening, but I digress.

Given how the stars already have to align for big snows along the coast - i.e. the likelihood of such an occurrence is historically so low, that our chances of seeing another quite snowy winter in our not to distant future are only negligibly diminished compared to, say, the 1960s.  It's like if I buy 34 lottery tickets instead of 36.  My chances of winning the lottery are undoubtedly diminished, but how likely is it to affect the outcome for me?  I'm probably not going to win a big prize regardless.  And if I do win a big prize, I was lucky, regardless.  I'm taking the time to make this point because it seems like there's sentiment around here to the effect of 'we've entered a whole new era, how can we trust the long term models anymore, etc.'  Maybe that is all true.  But the chart above suggests to me not yet.

I've got no meteorology background, which I know is obvious.  Just curious as to folks take on this and if you think it's off base.  Thanks.

59 minutes ago, SACRUS said:

1807 - It was the famous "Cold Friday" in the Midwest and South. The temperature did not rise above zero in Ohio and Kentucky. (David Ludlum)

"Cold Friday."  The best part of this is how in 1807 there wasn't so much word inflation yet.  'Cold Friday' today would be 'Polar Vortex Arctic Blast Frigid Friday.'

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

As milder air pressed northward into a rapidly retreating Arctic air mass, the sky was filled with high and mid-level clouds. The mercury slowly clawed its way back from the single digits, climbing through the teens, and into the 20s. Two photos.

Nice pics, Don.  In that second one you certainly have their attention.  

45 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Mt Washington is interesting and I didn't know the stratosphere could get that low.

I find the Himalayas far more interesting though, with the possibility of yeti running around up there lmao ;-) and huge mountains that are the stuff of legends.

 

The explanation the NWS gave with that tweet was great.  Can't tell you how many times I've seen charts like that on here and had not the first clue how to go about reading it.  They gave a nice explanation for the layman which is much appreciated.

4 minutes ago, TWCCraig said:

3.6 for the low here

The maps from the Euro a few days ago showing well below 0 here didn't verify, but we ended up colder than models like the GFS/CMC. A blend of these models had the best forecast. I recently pointed out how the Euro was too cold, particularly over the ocean. Case in point, this morning 6z Euro initialized with -15 for Provincetown on Cape Cod. However, the coldest it got there was around -4. It's interesting that this model has some sort issue when extremely cold air masses move over water. It doesn't make sense for it to be -15 in Provincetown, but only -10 in Boston. 

Is it noteworthy that Montauk hit 0 while White Plains only got down to 1?  Westhampton hitting 0 I understand, what with its freakish radiational cooling, but Montauk?   I thought that was interesting.

1 hour ago, Cfa said:

I wanted to throw boiling water in the air to see what happens but I’d probably just burn myself.

Today’s low of 1 is the lowest temp on record for my PWS (5 year history), the highest is 99. 1 degree off of 0 and 100.

Temp now up to 12.

I did it at 4 degrees.   Not the best result I've ever gotten, partly because water wasn't totally boiling, but definitely crystalized before hitting the ground.  Something tells me I could reach my 90s God willing and will still try to get outside to do this every time.

how utterly sad

I only know what it means if the groundhog a) sees his shadow, and b) does not.  Not sure what weather is in store if the groundhog dies.

I'm just thinking of that term, 'groundhog'.  What a lazy way to name it.  Does that thing look like a hog to anyone?  Same goes for 'prairie dog.' 

9 minutes ago, Pellice said:

Fun article in the NY Times today about meteorologists' largely unsuccessful attempts to beat back weather hyperbole:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/science/weather-forecasts-language.html  

1st 10 articles per month are free, so should not be behind a paywall, yet.

Just now, North and West said:

I saw this a few weeks back and it’s just like any other specialized communication that people forget: normal people don’t talk like this.

I have a hard enough time keeping up with MJO, ENSO, PNA, etc. (I’m convinced some of these are made up just as a gate-keeping device), don’t go throwing around vortex and other apocalyptic jargon just to get clicks and ultimately confuse people.


.

In an environment in which virtually every severe weather event is presented by many media outlets, including ones devoted to weather 24/7, as just more evidence that the world will soon be over, this was inevitable.

It must be a law that long range forecast weather graphics whenever it is forecast to be very cold or very hot, must replace the graphic indicating cloud cover with a condescending red or blue thermometer.  "The temperature will be 15 degrees on Saturday. This means it will be COLD.  Here's a picture of a blue thermometer just to make sure you get that."

Out walking the dog tonight, just cannot believe this weather.  It's a pre-Thanksgiving 'I just beat the darkness finishing up raking the leaves' atmosphere out there.  No chimney smoke smell, just earth/soil.  That's all I got as far as imagery / setting the scene goes.  Unreal.

47 minutes ago, TWCCraig said:

Pretty cool sky for a winter day. Sunshine and dark ominous clouds to the north

Thank you - was thinking exactly the same, that whatever it was I was looking at to the north and west, it didn't seem winterlike.

Just now, lee59 said:

  I agree the climate is getting more mild. However from 2009 -2019 NYC averaged almost 40 inches of snow per year. I think it was because of a pattern that had so many storms going near the benchmark. Now we are in a pattern that has inland cutters so it favors more toward the Great Lakes. Yes I feel  like our winters are becoming more mild but it is a gradual thing not a turn on the switch for tons of snow to no snow.

On the other hand there's this quote from the baseball player Bill "Spaceman" Lee from years ago:

"I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out."

1 hour ago, Allsnow said:

If we get nothing next week it’s over until next winter. CPK. Will most likely finish with 0.0 on the year, which is incredible 

Through March 1st or March 20th?   No doubt its been terrible and doesn't look good, but betting on 0.0 for the year would be a brave bet, just because something somehow always materializes, however weak or late in the game it may be.

3 hours ago, North and West said:

As Crowded House once crooned, don’t dream it’s over.


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Yes, but at the same time, when it's snowless for this long, something so strong could carry us away.

I'm figuring someone already made this analogy but here goes.   Potentially breaking our snow drought just shy of the record, as the final poke in the eye, reminds me of a certain hometown football team which will remain nameless, winning a few meaningless games at the end of the year a few years back to lose out on the prize for worst team and the  #1 draft pick that would have gone with it.

And, of course, the year they did manage to score the #1 draft pick, Peyton Manning saw that and said 'I'm going to stay at Tennessee!  They're better!'  Ok I added that very last part.

10 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Yup feast or famine, and it'll probably be either next year or the year after, seeing what usually happens after really bad winters like this one.

After 2001-02 we had 2002-03 (need a nice strong el nino) and after 2011-12 we had an average winter in 2012-13 and then a couple of blockbusters after that.

 

I've wondered about the whole feast or famine thing here on LI.  Anecdotally, at least, it seemed true.  I started messing with some data I scrounged from a newsday web page showing annual snowfall totals since the 1950s.  I tried standard deviation first from 1950-1985, then 1986-2020, that showed a larger SD for the latter, but it was tough to visualize.  Then I tried taking the range of min to max annual snowfall for each decade.  That had surprising results, with the only real outlier being the 1980s.  Lastly, I threw out the min and max for each decade, figuring you'll have an anomaly on each end every decade, and then repeated the exercise.  I think this captures best what LibertyBell describes:

I realize everything about this approach is probably an abomination to any scientist on here, but I figured what the heck, it's so slow right now I'll post it.

2 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Thanks. I almost forgot how horrible 19/20 was too.

Also despite 72/73 being the lowest snow season it was considerably colder than a lot of other futility years. 

So that season was more attributed to bad luck than anything 

Along those lines, the largely quiet 80s are nowhere to be found, which makes sense.  As we know, those winters were largely cold, and the snow wasn't *that* terrible, it just lacked big storms (other than '83) and seemed to have a lot of N&W or changeover storms for us coastal folk.