beavis1729

Yeah, the game was on 1/10/82, temp -9F with 30 mph winds.

The winter of 1981-82 was legendary in many parts of the Midwest. I had just moved to the Chicago suburbs at age 7, so unfortunately I don't remember it. It's probably the benchmark winter for MSP. 3"+ of snow cover for 130 consecutive days, from 11/19 through 3/28. Dec had a -5F departure from current normals. Jan was a -14F departure, including 7 mins in the -20s. Feb had a -5F departure, and Mar -4F. Record depth 38" on Jan 23rd after back-to-back 17" snowstorms. Strangely enough, November was very mild until the 19th, then the bottom fell out and the fun began. Also, Chicago hit -26F on 1/10, 2nd coldest on record, and also hit -25F on 1/16 and -23F on 1/17. I think the -40C H85 isotherm showed up in the lower 48 that January, which is incredibly rare. INL hit -45F on 1/17, and had an average daily low temp of -23F in Jan 1982. That's unbelievable. And INL had 148 consecutive days of 1"+ snow cover, from 11/25 through 4/21. Then, 3 days later, it hit 82F on 4/24, as if to say "ok, we're done with winter now". Fun times...

This is an example of why there are so many varied opinions and grades on this winter so far. Just like real estate, everything is local. For instance, while Rockford IL had a really good 10-day period early on (around 15”), the snow depth was 0-1” from 12/13 through the end of the month, including a brown Christmas. After the good early period, there has only been 6” of snow between 12/11 and today (nearly 9 weeks), with the highest depth 2” and most days with either bare spots or completely bare ground. That’s not good. If the early snowfall would have stayed deep, then the tiny amounts of snow over the next several weeks would have been ok, especially given the recent cold. But it seems nearly impossible to combine snow with cold. Same theme as always - SDDs matter. And we keep getting frustrated on that metric, at least on this side of the lake. I know some areas had a few LE events, but not material enough to make an impact on SDDs and the look and feel…plus not everyone experienced good LE to begin with. The dreaded NW flow chinook pattern, where the angle of the cold is wrong and nearly everyone suffers. It’s the persistent theme in these parts, where there have been favorable periods in recent winters, but the non-favorable periods are a disaster. It’s all or nothing. It would be nice if the non-favorable periods were at least decent (say 2-4” of snow each week at a minimum), solely due to the calendar. Plus it hurt us this winter because the good period occurred so early in the season, that the snow melted from below because the ground was too warm. Ugh. But it was definitely fun to take a Jeb walk in the -10F air in January. So the winter hasn’t been all bad, just feels like a missed opportunity for a really solid winter.

Beavis #2, ha ha

Ugh...that would drive me crazy, especially with cold temps. But we only have 2" of snow cover imby, trying to hold on to every last flake...so who's to be upset about 22".

Wow, that’s surprising how low the depth is. Sorry to hear that. I guess even MSP isn’t immune to maintaining a healthy snow cover, even during the heart of winter. The depth has actually decreased by 4” since 1/1, even with a cold January and 4.1” of snowfall during the month (that’s a very low snowfall amount, but you’d think it would have helped at least maintain the 6” depth from 1/1). There were a few mild days earlier in the month, plus the MSP urban environment probably doesn’t help. Ugh…we need to get past this dry/chinook pattern. Obviously it has been cold recently, but the angle of the cold is all wrong. I used to laugh when Joe Bastardi would say that, but it’s true. This is why you need to build up a snow cover early in the season, to withstand the inevitable dry periods.

That’s very impressive, especially with the significant UHI at MSP. Of course there’s snow cover there and upstream, which helps…and the nights are still fairly long. What’s your current snow depth, and what was the max depth this season?

For sure…had a nice walk last night when it was -10. Even with only 1” or so of snow cover, it’s awesome to feel the quiet of the cold, and the squeaky snow underfoot.

…maybe because people should treat each other well???

Come on everyone, it’s not a competition. The best outcome would be for the entire lower 48 to be covered by snow and ice. Then we’d all be happy.

Looks like GRR bottomed out at -19, congrats and good call. Skies cleared just after sunset, then remained that way until clouding over again this morning…so things lined up about as well as can be expected re: radiational cooling during the overnight hours.

NWS Duluth

Nice. It dropped to -38 at Manitowish Waters, in the beautiful north woods of WI. I was there a couple weeks ago for my nephew’s outdoor hockey tournament.

Just saw in the NE forum cold thread that the Brunson, MN coop hit -43.

Yeah, temps tanked overnight up there where skies cleared with calm winds, much colder than forecast. Manitowish Waters WI hit -38, and Minocqua -34. Even as far south as Stevens Point, it was -25.

Yep. Of course I’d prefer more snow, but beggars can’t be choosers. I go to northern WI a few times each winter for snowmobiling and relaxing. That’s my ideal climate - every winter, you can count on frozen lakes and ponds, plus constant snow cover for 2+ months…it’s just a matter of how much. And they don’t salt the roads to death. Plus, the summers are nice - warm, but not overly hot/humid.

Cold and dry, maybe a few flurries over the weekend on the northern edge of the big storm. Dropped to -12 with WC around -30 this morning, and only made it up to -5 this afternoon after a midnight high around 0. A beautiful sunny day! Not much snow cover, but enough to cover the ground fully in the neighborhoods.

Correct again.

Correct.

Was a beautiful morning, -12 and windy...and crystal clear deep blue skies. Perfect for a jeb walk. I'd be in heaven if we had 4-6" of snow cover like in Detroit, but at least it looks and feels like winter imby...and I mean only literally in my backyard. There's 1-1.5" of snow cover, which itself is a bit annoying as it probably mitigated the impact of the arctic outbreak here and upstream, and there are bare spots on the roadways and other areas, like under trees. But as long as I'm actually looking out my window, it's all good. While I agree this has been a bit better winter than the past 3, the snow pack has been abysmal since the melt around Dec. 10th. The biggest problem to me was the non-white Christmas...which seemed like a good possibility after getting 15" of snow between late Nov. and 12/7 or so. Or, at least it should be. While it has been cold with small bouts of snow over the past few weeks, we shouldn't be happy with essentially zero days with 3"+ snow cover from Dec. 10th through Jan. 31st. That's the heart of winter, and a 3" snow pack isn't really asking for much. Still more time left...and as long as the most obnoxious winter pattern in history (the dreaded chinook pattern) is gone, things should hopefully get a bit more interesting soon. The chinook pattern cut off all return flow from the gulf, and the ridge out west was always lurking...so even when you got a bit of snow, 1-2 mild days would melt it. Unfortunately, that general pattern lasted for 4-5 weeks. I mentioned this elsewhere...but if I lived in MT, WY, CO, or SD, I would be going crazy. They've had no winter so far. At least we've had a little bit here. And I don't really pay attention to actual seasonal snowfall totals. What matters is the look and feel, measured by either SDDs or the # of wintry days (which are defined as days with 2"+ snow cover and a high temp in the 20s or colder). We haven't had very many, if any, wintry days since the melt in early Dec. If we had a decent snowpack built up over time, building off the great early start this season, then the delays between snow events would be more tolerable.

-12 here. Rockford -14, wind chill -37, dew -28. Duluth -29, wind chill -57. INL -33, wind chill -51. Wausau (only a 3.5 hour drive from here) -25, wind chill -51, dew -35.

And a dew of -31. It’s amazing when you have an arctic airmass like this, and the normal diurnal swings are neutralized. H85 temps are near -40C in northern MN right now, an extremely rare occurrence.

Fosston, MN...not bad for 3pm local time. FOSSTON LGT SNOW -24 -36 51 NW21G33 30.36R WCI -54

Right, good point. Mainly, I was just surprised how cold it was at H85 that far southwest…which I didn’t expect to see. My hope is that strange things could happen with a gradient like that.

Strong SE ridge and H85 low fairly far west. I know, probably grasping at straws.