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January Banter Thread


H2O

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2 minutes ago, BristowWx said:

You always know..not sure how but you just know..we always go from fairly decent to total crap... Never a step down process to failure...I even bought extra beer for Sunday and positioned the tv so I could see the game and outside at same time...this is kind of my fault if this fails

That isn't what he meant.

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37 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

I hear you...and overall for the most part agree with you about the March 2009 event.  There's nothing memorable for me from 2008-09 other than that one storm.  And I "only" got about 5-6" from that, saved mostly by some good bands that went through in the morning after even that looked like it might fail!  But still, impressive for early March and it was something; it was below freezing for two days.  I don't look at that year as a complete fail like 2001-02 or 2011-12, which had under 5" for me each of those years.  2007-08 is up there too though not quite as bad.  2005-06 had that one good event in mid-February, but that was much better farther north and west of the immediate DC area.  I still got on the order of 8-10" where I was at on Capitol Hill.  But the winter sucked otherwise (God-awful warm January!), and it was 60+ degrees the week after the storm.  Again, I look at that as a "meh" winter, saved (sort of) by one event, but not at the level of complete failure or near shut-out like the other years I mentioned.

I suppose I'm trying to say that I'm just hoping for something to make this a "meh", semi-forgettable winter rather than a "wow, that's a record-breaking fail!" one.

My expectations are a bit different because of my climo. I tend to keep it to myself since I know how that comes off. And I love the discussion here and the chance to talk about what I love with others who are equally passionate. And I try to keep my focus D.C./Baltimore centered for the reason that's where most in here are. I hope I do good enough at that. Often when I'm getting a snow event that isn't affecting most I don't even talk about it much if at all. And we do share big storm climo. We've had a ton of 20"+ storms up here but just about every one Baltimore got at least a good snow. Like 8"+. DC is truckier as sometimes even the burbs get snow and DCA doesn't.  General rule is if I want to get crushed I need the cities to at least get some good snow. Most of the real biggies are shared between us. 

That said one of the reasons I moved up here (also love the view and the laid back style but I earn it with a long commute) is that we usually get enough borderline events up here to nickel and dime our way to a decent total even in the bad years. There is way less variability up here then the cities.  I need at least a few snows and some time with the ground white each winter and that's a 90% bet up here.  

I used my own records from the last 11 years plus coop data from northern Carroll county to put together a snow climo going back 123 years. And we get over 20" 83% of the time and over 15" 93%. Only been 3 years in 122 under 10". It's almost unheard of.  My average the last 10 years is actually way over 40" but going back historically it's closer to 38". Most hated 2013 but I scraped my way over 30" that year. Even 2012 I almost broke 20" ended with 19.5. 2009 and 2008 sucked but I got to 18" both years at least. You have to go back to 2002 to find anything close to this bad up here and even that year was a few inches ahead of this year right now. 

Given that, we're getting to the point where for me a mid level event or two won't do much to improve my assessment of this being a total fail. Only a string of moderate snows or a big one could do that. But I know for many just one good snow would  mean a lot and I love to track so that keeps me going.  But if anyone thinks I'm unaware of just how god awful this winter has been trust me I'm very aware and equally frustrated but complaining about the models or lack of snow every day isn't going to make me feel better so I don't bother. 

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