Snowstorms

2 hours ago, Stebo said:

And this is why I like March snows. They melt within a few days

 

Not big on snow cover eh? 

3 minutes ago, Malacka11 said:

Right. And the way he doubled down and refused to acknowledge how what he said would obviously sound very sketchy was truly pathetic. Acted like a total victim of some witch hunt and then instead of letting it all fade away, he made a similar mistake once or twice again.

I really couldn't believe it because he was possibly the first poster that I recognized back in 2018 as being high-quality/knowledgeable, especially since he was a mod. 

If so, then I guess he wasn't really apologetic but was gaslighting and playing the victim card? I learned that when it comes to things like this, peoples views don't really change. But hey I don't really know him but for this particular situation, I don't condone it. 

I agree. I felt the same too. But as the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover right? 

1 minute ago, Malacka11 said:

He literally made an entire OT thread asking for opinions and then acted shocked when everyone was like what the fuck

That'd be my reaction too. Kind of sickening. I'm 28 and for me personally, I wouldn't date any girl younger than 21-22 and that's on the low end. Anything younger and I don't even want to think about it or look at it. 

2 hours ago, Malacka11 said:

My guy he literally made a post in OT about whether anybody else finds 16-year-olds attractive a couple years back. If that's not our business then I couldn't possibly tell you what the fuck is.

really? that sounds like some r kelly shit. If you catch my drift. 

Just over 4" here in Toronto. Had a brief period of +SN earlier, was impressive. 

1 hour ago, hardypalmguy said:

10 of the top 16 warmest starts to winter in Milwaukee have occurred since 2001…

Climate change. Winters be getting warmer and shorter. 

18 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

It's bad. Montreal reached 10° this morning for the first time this winter. The previous latest first 10° temperature occurred on December 29, 2015. Before that, the record was December 28, 2001.

Wow, I didn't even know that. This torch is no joke here in Toronto too. Our average low right now is 12F and we've only hit 12F twice this whole winter and both times were during that Christmas outbreak. December still ended up well above average despite that 3-4 day Christmas outbreak. 

The Rideau canal, the longest skating rink in the world, has yet to open due to a lack of cold. 

20 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

The 30-year normal for January at ORD is now 26F. Using 1951-1980 normals, it was 21F. So, Januarys in Chicago are 5F warmer at ORD than it was 40 years ago!! That would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Even worse, no one in the scientific community or general public seems to care.

People can debate that it’s only a timing issue I.e., the 60s and 70s were relatively cooler decades), or some UHI…but those are the facts. Our winter climo has always had very little margin for error, so this type of warming just kills things. 

Here is a recent comment from a respected poster in the MA forum. Obviously it’s not our area, but the thought process is still similar and valid for us:

—————

Something vexes me. Over this now 7 year run of futility the one constant has been the problem a strong pacific jet has caused.  But that’s now been a constant for 7 years through 4 Nina’s, 2 neutral and 1 Nino. And we’ve seen it cause the same problem in opposite pac longwave patterns. If we have a Nina like ridge the screaming jet goes over the top and digs a trough to Mexico on the west coast pumping a huge SE ridge infused with pac puke.  If we have a Nino like trough the jet goes under and blasts sub tropical pac puke straight across the whole continent.  The issue is according to research I’ve seen referenced the enhanced jet isn’t related to enso it’s a result of the expanding Hadley cell and might be permanent. If so…what are we even looking for?  We’re failing in opposite ways because of the same underlying problem and I don’t see that going away no matter what longwave configuration we get.  I mean ya once in a blue moon we will luck into the super rare full latitude epo pna ridge combo but the other 90% of the time what’s the answer? 

Exactly. When you shift the baseline, the warmth doesn't seem as pronounced or almost mute. But on the grand scale of things, averages aside, if you compare current winters to previous winters, you'd notice considerable differences. Chicago and many surrounding areas have warmed considerably. I know people like to talk about the 80's and how snowless they were. But a lot of them were cold winters. The warm winters we keep seeing year after year or the prolonged thaws, did happen in the past - yes, but not as frequently as they have been right now. 

I've been reading up on some of those Hadley cell expansion theories. To my understanding, La Nina's expand the Hadley cell. And in the past, I've read a few research papers that said in a warming world, you'd likely see more La Nina's than El Nino's, which may sound counterintuitive, but when you consider the expansion theories, it could make some sense. But it's still too early to form any conclusions. I'd like to see more work on this. 

34 minutes ago, radarman said:

it's not a perfect match but there are a few similarities to our last 3rd year nina Jan.  I'll accept the ing in advance.

 

But at least Dec 2000 was cold and snowy unlike Dec 2022. 

23 hours ago, Hoosier said:

I disagree with this a little bit.  Whether you meant to or not, your post is implying that we ought to expect consistent winter conditions over 3-4 months.  It's just not the case where most of us live, and it really has never been.  There's almost always thaws in winter, and sometimes they have been pretty prolonged in distant years past.  

We can argue whether the thaws have become more intense/longer lasting over time.

You do have a valid point. And thaws do happen almost ever winter. But my issue revolved around the longevity of those thaws, especially of late. When you go back 30+ years ago, thaws like this were never this common or frequent. December has been a shit show lately and January no different. See below;

2023 - warm so far

2021 -  warm (came off a warm Dec)

2020 - warm

2019 - 1st half was warm (came off a warm Dec)

2018 - couple thaws in one month

2017 - warm

2013 and 2012 - warm

A couple nice cold ones from 2009 to 2011 but it doesn't undermine the warm January's from 2006 to 2008 especially Jan 2006. 

Based on the data @michsnowfreak provided, many places around the lower Great Lakes haven't warmed in the last 50-100+ years. So I guess from your perspective it may not seem like much. But for those of us further east or further north (like Wisconsin), the warmth has been more significant and pronounced, so it's easy for me to make that assumption. And that assumption is climate change. 

I don't think snow is a big issue. It can still snow with marginal temperatures and 2019-20 was a perfect example of that. I think the bigger concern is the warm winters we keep seeing year after year. For example, both Toronto and NYC have warmed 3-5F in the last 100 years. I'm not sure about Chicago or Detroit but I'm sure they've both warmed up too.  

A 2 or 3 week cold snap doesn't or shouldn't undermine the insanely above average temperatures outside of those 2-3 weeks. A month of winter with 2 months of extended Fall like conditions is not normal by any means. Winter is, for most of us, 3-4 months long. I think it's time to accept seeing one cold winter in a slew of warm winters may become the new norm. Unless this is just a cycle and it'll break off at some point. 

10 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I would LOVE an ultra strong el nino-- I don't think a 'weak' el nino will be enough.  Not to change this pattern.  Some of those weak el ninos we had in the 50s that came after la ninas didn't produce much snow either.

Give me a 1957-58 or 2002-03 type strong el nino....historically this is what you need to change the pattern, not some wimp of a weak el nino

We might need a 82-83 or 97-98 type of Nino to reset the Pacific. 02-03 was still only moderate. And then take a break from Nina's, if possible, thereafter. But I agree those 50's weak Nino's were terrible. 

I'll take 02-03 any day. Solid winter all around and was much needed after that diabolical 01-02. We got 60" that winter, well above average. 

16 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

They are?  I'm not sure how accurate these models are now but it could be the climate has shifted enough to create a semipermanent la nina-- I guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

Whether it's a Nino or Nina, they haven't been properly coupling with the atmosphere and winter after winter we all get pure garbage. Our average low right now is 12F and we haven't been below freezing in 9 days now. We might need either a strong Nino (which may or may not happen for a few more years), or a couple neutral years to "reset" things. I would think?

Seeing that graph Don posted is intriguing to say the least with both NYC and Toronto warming nearly 6F in the last 120+ years. 

6 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Was that the same winter we had a historic ice storm that ranks up there with Jan 1994 as the two biggest ice storms we've ever had, Don?

Jan 1994 was amazing 1.5-2 inches of ice here on the south shore!

Does anyone ever keep records of the biggest ice storms?

I'd like to see the records for both NYC and JFK if they do.

JFK stayed below freezing for the duration of the Jan 1994 ice storm so I know they were all ice/frozen and no plain rain.

 

I wonder if it was bad as the 2013 ice storm in Toronto? We got 2 inches of ice too and it practically solidified the 5" of snow we had on the ground. 

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto-ice-storm-2013-photos-from-the-gtas-winter-nightmare 

1 hour ago, Frog Town said:

I feel like last year, at about this time, everyone was in the Acceptance stage of grief (Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance).  Then, low and behold, February comes.  

Can't just winter for a month and still call it winter. I thought winter was a 3-4 month package deal? We been getting scammed for a while now. 

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

I see there's a snow drought going on up there too, outside of a few select lake belt regions.

Syracuse has been in a snow drought for years.

There's been a couple good ones in the last 25 years which is literally every winter in your following post, except 09-10, but we had our version of that 2 years prior (07-08). Also, 04-05 was pretty good too. 

I think the bigger story is the rising winter temps. We've warmed over 3F in the last 40 years lol. And in recent years 60% of the snow we've gotten was with marginal temps. A degree higher and it would've been rain. So unless this is some cycle, at the rate we're all going, it may only get worse. 

So yeah it's pretty bad. 

6 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Might need to take another trip to Iceland to see some snow lol

One thing that is clear-- there is never a guarantee of snow around here, no matter the pattern or signal lol.

I think the closest we can ever come to a guarantee anywhere in the East is that there will always be lake effect snow lol.

 

Lake effect is extremely localized. So it's really only a guarantee for maybe 5-10% of people living near the Great Lakes. The other 90-95% of us just get mood flakes and that one 5 minute burst of heavy mood flakes. Take it from me, I live near Lake Ontario and we only get 1-2 decent chances, at best, per winter lol. And that too, no more than 3-4". Plus there's been no lake effect snow now for 10 days cause it's too warm. 

It's been a very shit winter. 

2-4" possible across the GTA, away from the Lake, this evening into tomorrow. Lake Ontario temperatures are still relatively warm for this time of the year. This combined with cold upper air temps, will allow the lake effect band to sustain itself through tomorrow morning. 

If surface temperatures were colder, this would've been a nice 4-8" event. But we'll take it. 

October finished a degree above average with no sub-freezing lows recorded at YYZ lol.

Been in the 40s all day.

Still waiting for our first freeze. Too much cloud cover and uhi preventing it. 

16 minutes ago, Torchageddon said:

Its was overcast and dark for the 6th day in a row here, I felt cold as well moreso than before. This has been a remarkably horrible stretch of weather that will be remembered/reviled. It was suppose to break up mid-day but not a second of sun appeared. I've been around 11C/52F for 96 hours but its dropped a few degrees. Heat is coming on reguarly as if its winter 

I haven't turned my heat on yet but may eventually haha. This ugly upper level low has kept all of us in the low to mid teens since the weekend. Some of the hi-res models had lows in the low single digits tonight but with the thick cloud cover in place right now, that seems unlikely. 

Early next week looks nice though. 

9 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Adirondack park is by far the best one in NYS by a long margin. I believe its the largest state park in the country. 2nd would probably be the catskills, followed by the finger lakes/alleghany. You should join our discord as we have a few people that live in Toronto already. Check your PMS, I'll send you invite.

I haven't been to that side of NYS yet. I just googled Adirondack and I'm blown away. Wow!! I thought mountains like this were only on the west coast. I'm definitely going to check this out in the next couple of weeks. Not that far from Montreal either. 

Sounds good, I will join your discord group. Thanks again for the recommendations. 

I went to Allegany State Park for the first time back in May. It was a beautiful park, so I went again in June and August haha. 

I was looking to drive down into NY State again to see some Fall colours. Any recommendations on good parks? Preferably with some good mountains. 

Currently 80F but a nice line of thunderstorms about to roll in soon. 

Forecast low of 37F tom night. Impressive cold front. 

1.9" since June 1 and only 0.3" halfway through July lol. Looking like California out here. 

Can't complain, been nice to get out of the house and not worry about rain.