beavis1729

Even I might have to concede that the cold spells in INL could be a bit much…but it’s worth the price of admission for continuous snow cover in DJF. Plus, the summers are more tolerable there, and it’s not too far away from the boundary waters and Lake Superior. On your last point, I’d suggest ME, VT, or NH. It’s a beautiful part of the country too.

INL would absolutely be great. Even during winter 2011-12, which was horrendous for nearly all of us, INL still had continuous snow cover for 3.5 months. Think about that. The most pathetic winter in our parts still ended up with more days with snow cover than Chicago’s best winter on record (1978-79). That drives me crazy, the huge winter gradient over a relatively short distance. So close, yet so far. I feel even worse for winter lovers in STL or southern IL, where they essentially have no winter…and it’s not really that far away from here. The big issue for me is the volatility. The down periods of winter are so bad, that they overwhelm any good periods. No matter how good it has been from late November through December 10 (which then got dropped down several notches due to the ridiculous snow melt event from a few days ago), there looks to be very little snow over the next 3 weeks. What should happen is, even in the down periods, there’s at least 3” of snow every 7-10 days. It’s horrible to go 2-3 weeks without any snow cover and cold. To sum everything up - we supposedly had a great winter period, but then ORD ends up with no snow cover at the end of the supposed good period. How does that happen? The bad period hasn’t even started yet! Winter is supposed to feature certain things, so it sucks when it doesn’t, no matter where you live and regardless of what climo says.

Fair question. To frostfern - yeah, the UP would be nice. Or, even just somewhere 45N or north, where temps are more reliably colder and the sun angle is lower. Every little bit helps. My son is thinking about going to Michigan Tech next year, but will probably land on WMU. Anyway - the quick answer is because of the frustration when something good goes away. To me, snow is only meaningful if it stays on the ground, i.e., it "looks and feels like winter". When you walk outside during DJF, this is how it should be. There doesn't need to be 3 feet of snow cover with sub-zero temps, but highs below freezing with reliable snow cover (and no annoying bare spots under trees/open areas/etc.) would be nice. Of course the snowfall itself over the past two weeks was good, but when it all gets wiped away then it ruins everything about it. On top of that - at the moment when I posted my rant, it was because 3 bad things all happened at once, vs. what it had looked like a few days before...or even vs. how things "should be" in winter: (1) Much faster snowmelt than it should have been (2) The Thu & Sat clippers began trending away from the area (3) the mid-late Dec warm-up was becoming more likely instead of just la-la land/model volatility. In other words, we were finally having a good start to winter...and then it vaporized (no pun intended). 3-5 days ago, I was thinking we'd end this upcoming weekend with the highest depth of the season so far, say around 12" (due to surviving the thaw with around 8" and then adding 4" between the two upcoming clippers), then we could coast into a White Christmas even if there were a modest thaw. Now, none of that will happen. The main point still stands - a million things need to go right to get snow in the first place and then keep it on the ground. Even one single above-normal day wipes out nearly all of the snow from the prior 10 days, in addition to the annoying warm soil temps. Soil temps are just one more thing that can go wrong; I never realized how much of an impact that had until recently. Too early in the season, soil temps are warm. Too late in the season, sun angle melts the snow on a normal/sunny winter day. So now our "dependable" winter season is January? No, that's not true either, because most Januarys get into the 40s here a few times, and of course record highs on most days are 50s/60s. That's unacceptable for the heart of winter. Now we have to suffer through a non-good pattern, where it may not feel much like winter from 12/15 through month's end and even into January. The good parts of winter can really be good around here, but they only last a couple of weeks. Winter is 13 weeks, not 2 weeks. It's frustrating when you need everything to align in order to have it look and feel like winter, instead of the calendar dictating it. Snowfall isn't the issue here - it's temps. To me, there should not be puddles and melting in winter. When that happens, it sucks. It doesn't matter whether it's logical to believe that, or if snowfall/temps are "better than normal". When your climo sucks, you need to do a lot to overcome it. Many people on this board seem to take a logical approach, where they're happy when winter is better than climo. But I'm not.

I'm going to trust that others are with me in this rant...but if not, then ignore or delete the post, and call me crazy/unhinged. How do we get 15" of snow in a 7-day period, then it's down to bare patches a few days later with only 18 hours of above-freezing temps? It's absolutely ridiculous, and wipes out any earlier thoughts on "a great start to winter". If the snow doesn't stay on the ground, it's as though it never happened. Even prior to the short thaw yesterday, the depth was down to 9" IMBY, which is a whole other issue...as the depth went down by 6" with sub-freezing temps. Now it's down to 3" of slush. I realize there can be some compaction and a bit of melting over time, and when you have 18 hours with temps 34-38, but the sun never came out...which normally would help. It's not like it hit 50F with dews in the 40s. There should be 10" of depth now, not 3"...and it's even worse by ORD and the more urbanized areas. Why is it so ******* difficult to preserve snow around here? Do soil temps really make that much of a difference, combined with a half-day with dews over 32F? How do you lose 15" of snow with one day above freezing, during the time of year when sun angle is the lowest? It's a like a million things need to go right to get snow in the first place, and then a million more things need to go right to keep it on the ground. One tiny thing goes wrong, and it all vanishes. If yesterday's "storm" would have tracked 75 miles further south (which is just a chaotic blip in the grand scheme of things), none of this would be happening. One tiny annoying random event should not destroy 2 weeks of a good pattern, but it does. Same thing happened with GHD I in Feb. 2011. 22" of depth on 2/5/11, and it was essentially all gone 10 days later. If that were March, no problem...but that shouldn't happen in early-mid Feb, well within the winter season on the calendar. This looked like a guaranteed White Christmas a few days ago, now it's almost a guaranteed brown Christmas...just a complete 180 degree turnaround.

Yep, trying to ignore that for now and enjoy the next 5-7 days. Hopefully WI/MI can cash in on the event later today and tomorrow.

If we lose more than 2-3 inches, it will be very frustrating after such a good start to the season. There's so little margin of error here for maintaining appreciable snow cover...even 12-18 hours of milder temps can do a lot of damage. The new wrinkle this season has been melting from below due to warm soil temps. Heaven forbid you try to build a snowpack early in the season...

So? No need to be a jerk…Jerry is in town for the week and hoping for the best outcome like all of us.

Hopefully the 18z EPS won’t show as much of a reduction in QPF…we’ll see I guess.

Wichita Falls hit 92F today. That’s unbelievable for November 15th. Old record was 85F in 1965.

A major storm recently hit western Alaska, causing huge impacts and damage to coastal communities. https://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2025/10/storm-catastrophe.html?m=1

This is the earliest 80+ min on record for Chicago. Previous earliest was 6/28/1913 (min was 81 on that date).

I know analogs aren't going to be relevant at every single location in the lower 48...but 2013-14 was one of the harshest winters on record in parts of the Midwest with respect to both cold and snow, and 2024-25 was one of the least harsh and most boring & uneventful winters that I can remember in my lifetime (I've lived in northern IL for 45 years)...at least when using snow depth days (SDDs) as a metric. In terms of sensible outcomes and "feel", the two winters were literally as opposite from each other as possible. It wasn't even close. One example of this is that Chicago and Detroit had near record snowfall in 2013-14, while Moline IL (not very far away from Chicago) just had their least snowy winter on record in 2024-25. While there were definitely some cold outbreaks this past winter, the severity was unfortunately mitigated in may areas due to lack of snow cover over a large swath of real estate. With decent snow cover, this past winter could have been a memorably cold winter here...but instead it was just "meh". None of this is meant to be a knock on your post/conclusions. I'm just suggesting that, for a winter weather lover, it all comes down to sensible weather/feel and IMBY outcomes.

That’s an incredible amount of QPF for a northern location during the cold season. Crazy to have a 5’ depth drop to 3’, then back up to 5’ during the same season. I’m guessing 4.5+ months of continuous snow cover that winter, including 3-4 months of foot+? Hopefully there will be another winter like that up there soon. It seems like an impossible distant memory, the way things have gone recently. 1983-84 was a decent winter in the Chicago area, relatively speaking. I was 9 years old, and it’s the first winter I actually remember. Christmas Eve 1983 had the coldest daily average temperature on record, -11/-25 at ORD and a bit colder in the suburbs. 1/30/2019 came close, -10/-23 at ORD.

That’s incredible…definitely a legendary winter of yore.

Wow…I imagine your snowpack lasted forever that season, even if much of the rest of that winter was dry (?). One of the all-time cold winters up there, right?

It dropped to -45F in Hettinger ND, under perfect radiational cooling conditions. This is incredible, considering that it's relatively late in the season. Probably around 50 degrees below normal (?). Weather observations for the past three days for Hettinger, Hettinger Municipal Airport Imperial (Metric) Date Time (mst) Wind (mph) Vis. (mi.) Weather Sky Cond. Temperature (ºF) Relative Humidity Wind Chill (°F) Heat Index (°F) Pressure Precipitation (in) Air Dwpt 6 hour altimeter (in) sea level (mb) 1 hr 3 hr 6 hr Max. Min. 19 07:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.63 1049.3 19 06:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 0% 30.63 1049.2 19 05:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -43.6 0 0% 30.63 1049.3 19 04:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 -36 -45 0% 30.65 1049.5 19 03:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -43.6 0 0% 30.66 1049.8 19 02:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.67 1049.5 19 01:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 0% 30.68 1050.3 19 00:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.68 1050.2 18 23:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -40 0 0% 30.68 1050.4

An intense arctic airmass is in place across ND and eastern MT. This would be very impressive in mid-winter, but even more so on Feb 17-19. Coldest since early Feb 1996? Here's the NWS forecast for Crosby, ND in the far NW corner of the state. Temps were in the minus 20s at midnight, so the daily max may end up around -20. That is incredibly rare. Washington's Birthday Sunny and cold, with a steady temperature around -20. Wind chill values as low as -40. North wind 3 to 8 mph. Tonight Partly cloudy, with a low around -45. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. Tuesday Sunny and cold, with a high near -14. Wind chill values as low as -45. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph. Tuesday Night Mostly clear, with a low around -43. Wind chill values as low as -60. Light and variable wind becoming northwest around 5 mph in the evening. Wednesday Sunny and cold, with a high near -5. Southwest wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Wednesday Night Clear, with a low around -26. South wind 6 to 10 mph.

With complete respect, I don’t think this is accurate. Most guidance was hinting at around 0.4” of QPF 36 hours ago with ratios around 15:1, generally leading to 5-8” of snow. Some were showing even more, but I agree with not giving them much weight. Now it’s looking like 0.25” of QPF with 12:1 ratios, around 3” of snow. That’s a huge difference. It’s frustrating that a million things need to come together to get a proper snowfall around here. What happened to clippers?

I think Mason City only has 2.7” on the season, which is arguably even more shocking than the SW Iowa stat since Mason City is near the MN border.

Ha ha...I wish this were true.

I don't understand why you keep arguing about this - we're on the same side. Can't you admit that our climo is horrible, if you're a person (like yourself) who likes snow...and especially snow cover? Just because it has been relatively better in recent decades, doesn't mean it's good. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp? Every winter in Miami gets an F; it's the same concept. In my mind, the last 10 winters have been horrible, because there have been way too many thaws. Doesn't mean that snowfall itself has been horrible, but as everyone knows that's only one aspect to winter. 2013-14 and 2014-15 were the last good winters, and all I keep hearing about is how great they were and that we should never ever complain again...and how we should just be content with the current winter that hasn't had more than a 1" depth all season. Those good winters were 10 years ago...are we going to keep falling back on the nostalgia of them forever and ever?

I have to believe that the observations back then weren't very reliable. How could Detroit only have one 6"+ storm over a 10-year period? If that's actually correct, all it does is illustrate (yet again) how horrible our winter climo is. It shouldn't make any of us think "oh, we've been lucky in recent decades"; it's just not a reasonable reaction/response. If a student scores 20% on an exam after getting a 0% on a previous one, the 20% score is still an F.

Jan 2025 wasn't really that cold in Chicago, with a monthly average of 22F. The shame is that it could have been a Top 20 cold month if there was snow cover here and upstream. That's the bigger story. If you look at 1951-1980 normals, Jan 2025 was actually a +1F departure...even as it was -3F vs. 1991-2020 normals. That says more about the obnoxious warming (exacerbated by UHI) over the past 40 years than anything else.

The craziest warm/cold temp swing over a short period in Chicago was probably in the 1984-85 winter. It was 69F on 12/28/84, then -27F (all-time record low) 3 weeks later on 1/20/85.

For sure…and it has been just as bad in the Midwest. Here are a couple examples of places that have essentially experienced a snowless winter so far. Data since November 20th, which I consider to be the beginning of winter: - Mason City IA: 1.14” precip (most fell on one mild day in December), 2.7” snow - Omaha, NE: 0.85” precip (most fell on one mild day in December), 1.0” snow It would be nice if we could ever experience a proper winter. The last one was 2014-15. I know it has been similar in much of SNE. It just gets to be ridiculous at some point.