PrinceFrederickWx

I couldn't help myself so I looked this up now for BWI and DCA. There is one winter I can find which should give weenies hope: 1913-14. BWI was shut out until Feb. 6, when 0.2" of snow fell. That was the start of a pattern change featuring below average temps and numerous nickel-and-dime events, until the season finished at 23," which was 3.7" above the 1991-2020 average. DCA was shut out until Feb. 13-14, when 6" of snow fell. The final total at DCA was 28.6" which was 14.9" above the 1991-2020 average. Second place goes to 1965-66, where BWI was shut out until Jan. 22-23, when 2.1" fell. DCA was shut out until Jan. 26, when 6.9" of snow fell. The airports ended with seasonal totals of 32.8" and 28.4", respectively. As 1965-66 has been touted as one of the top analogs to this winter, it's probably best to wait until around then before being reaped.

I’m actually really curious now as to what the last date is that the airports have been shut out, yet still ended up above-average snow for the season. My cursory research over the weekend seemed to put the date around Jan. 23, but I’m going to look into it more if we’re still shut out next month.

I’m stepping down from operations and appointing @Wxdavis5784 as interim CEO of the Panic Room Hotline, Inc. Also, we are offering one last special: Sign up for the platinum quadruple play package within the next 48 hours, and you will be enrolled in the AmWx Jelly of the Month club; it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.

I’m going to assign you to handling option 2 (Trouble with your El Nino performance) from here on out. We’re expecting a large influx of callers in the coming weeks and unfortunately do not have the budget to hire more staff, as half our annual expenses are now going to pay @WxWatcher007 cushy retirement pension.

In recent years I’ve become a big fan of taking a Jebwalk on dark foggy 50ish degree evenings like this, especially through the field next to my neighborhood. Seems like we get a lot of these in December and I love them.

Idk about that, winter can start pretty late here yet still wind up average or even above-average. 1987, 1966 and 2016 didn't get started until around Jan. 19-23 and all three ended above-average. My original point was separating the God-tier winters from the "good, but not great" ones. It has to snow early and snow often to get to that level, and if we're still shutout by the second half of December, you can pretty much kiss all those goodbye.

@Eskimo Joe Here's the bottom ten.

I'm about to head out but I can when I get time.

Here's a little chart I made of the top ten winters at BWI from 1893 onward, along with the corresponding first snow. (Note: LWX has said snowfall data before 1893 for BWI is of questionable quality, so I excluded those). For all of the winters, there was at least one accumulating event by Dec 13. My only point is that if we're going to be having an epic winter, it probably needs to start snowing really soon to keep up. If it doesn't, then our upper limit is the next tier down like 1987, 2016, 1966, etc.

We could obviously still get above average, but the epic winter calls like 02/03 and 09/10 are already in serious trouble IMHO. We would need to start getting on the board soon or we’re already falling behind.

^our dark lord has returned. Cue the entrance music:

I think I know what you’re doing here? That’s an interesting strategy, it might work. (or maybe I’m overthinking it and you just think a big southern slider is happening lol)

@RodneyS I'm upping this just a bit. BWI: 4.3" DCA: 2.1" IAD: 5.8" RIC: 1.5" Tiebreaker SBY: 2.2"

Please sir, just drop a couple dimes into the slot, and I will happily complete your call as requested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebcrRFzJmWQ

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I started counting from the year I started running the contest; Rodney just continued from there. I have no idea what contests were run in the years before. At the time (if I remember correctly) no one was interested in doing a snowfall contest that year, so I set it up. I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s “climatology denial,” but I wasn’t joking when I posted earlier this month about the snow totals getting pumped up, followed by revisions downwards right before the close. I think there’s a tendency around mid-November for people to get all hyped up; they see digital snow for the first time maybe, or a perfect pattern being shown in the long range, and start to think, “maybe this is the year, finally?” There also just seems to be a tendency in recent years for the models to give weenie solutions around Veteran’s Day, followed by a rug pull right after Thanksgiving.

I want a dollar every time I hear about "that look" and the "El NIno flex"

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The November pump-and-dump; every single year.

A few of our sunflowers from the summer successfully seeded; they’re still growing well. Hoping we can get a few blooms out of this generation before it gets too cold. We’ve never had sunflowers last this far into the year before!

There's really only one match I can find with a comparable El Nino of this strength with a November this dry, and that's 1965. Although 65-66 was a good winter. The next best match would be 1991. That was definitely not a good winter lol This was just using BWI data.