February 2026 Medium/ Long Range Discussion: 150K Salary Needed to Post

[Ji]

Ensembles are snowy

[TSSN+]

4 minutes ago, Ji said:

Ensembles are snowy

Been snowy most of winter. Where’s the snow? 

[Maestrobjwa]

40 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

we will continue to see short term cycles of less and more snow but over top of that is the long term decline. Each up will be less up and each down will be more down and eventually Baltimore will have a winter climate similar to what Raleigh used to have where snowfall is an extreme anomaly and not something you expect in any given winter. 

Well let's hope Raleigh climo is still a few decades away...I'm not ready for 55⁰ to be normal in the winter, lol Although...shoot: If that happens the suppression shouldn't be a problem anymore! We oughta be able to get a blizzard the way NC did in that scenario, right? Or the dang December 2018 storm oughta be able to get up here instead of there!

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

I shut it down because the bias of the individual will overshadow science way too often. That is a given. You see things a way very many times based on what you expect. Sadly, this is the reality of many studies now, even when trying to be honest the bias will impact the outcome more than pure science and that.. That becomes contentious very quickly.. But there are plenty of studies now that clearly show the bias impacting the outcome.. Or the money doing the same. And that.. That is what muddies the waters causes debates.. Warming is clear, though even the extent has been questionable due to noted adjustments that people have done. I will not get into seeing people fired and reassigned after hoaxes were exposed to secure money all the way back to the ozone scare era.. I was working as an intern and saw it.. And it makes me sad because real scientific studies have been so corrupted. OK.. And that is the stuff that has no room in thia forum.. Sorry.. Just a hot topic due to money, power greed, and corruption that has f'd up scientific reliability in this polarized and and angry world

This is true of the cause of the warming. But a discussion of the effects of the warming on snowfall does not have to include that unless someone just wants to be belligerent.  
 

it’s ~2f warmer now than 1970.  3f since 1950.  Those are facts.  We don’t need to bring what’s causing it into it.  A discussion regarding how it’s impacting our snow doesn’t require us to agree on why it’s warmer just the reality that it is.  And anyone who is going to be belligerent enough to deny it’s warmer, as if thermometers are subjective, well if someone came in here and said we can’t discuss precipitation because liquid isn’t real we wouldn’t listen or let them alter our behavior.  I choose to treat anyone who wants to act crazy and pretend it’s not warmer the same way.  I don’t alter my behavior to placate crazy people.   Again this isn’t about why it’s warmer.  Snowstorms don’t care why!  This is just about the effects of that undeniable factual warming!  

 

[RevWarReenactor]

6 minutes ago, TSSN+ said:

Been snowy most of winter. Where’s the snow? 

Ding ding ding. I’ve actually never once seen long range ensembles that show snow pan out. Literally not once. Unless they show no snow. Then they are accurate. Not a panic room post. Just a reality. 

[Stradivarious]

About 10,000 years ago there was a wall of ice 2 miles high starting in central pennsylvania to the arctic. . Wrap your head around that, i can’t, and 10,000 years was not that long ago. Major climate change happens, and we know it is cyclical. it happens over and over..we are discussing and angsting over what amounts to noise…and it is natural noise…there is no “correct climate” it is always undergoing immense change, and it can’t be stopped,…anymore that you can stop the wind….

i hope it snows a lot. it can be so relaxing if you don’t have to work in it. But mother nature is going to do what it wants to do…

i enjoy lurking here, have been since Wright……but it surprises me  always that these discussions take place with no acknowlegement of the grand tapestry of real climate change that happens naturally.

 

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, RevWarReenactor said:

Ding ding ding. I’ve actually never once seen long range ensembles that show snow pan out. Literally not once. Unless they show no snow. Then they are accurate. Not a panic room post. Just a reality. 

The ensemble means have a snowy bias. I’ve discussed why before.  Part of it is skewed results from big snow outlier members. The median right now which is a better indicator is only 1” for DC and about 2” for Baltimore and you. That’s a much more accurate indicator of what the model thinks the chances of snow are.   You could also look at the probability output and see you only have a 40% of 3” over the next 15 days. So it’s saying you have a 60% of NOT getting any significant snow!  
 

But everyone pots the colorful mean maps because they always show more snow because a handful of unlikely 20” members of the ensemble skew the snow higher!  
 

There are other issues too but I’ll leave it there. However…you still want the snow output to be good. Because yea you just said it. When thay be bad we NEVER snow!  It’s no hope!  When they do show snow it doesn’t mean we will snow it just means we have a shot.  I’d say today’s EPS would say about a 30-40% chance of some snow depending on where you are for the majority of the area.  So that means it likely WONT snow. But it’s better than having no fucking chance. 
 

I swear to god how are some people on here for 20 years and still haven’t learned how to use a tool or how probabilities work!  

[Ji]

Been snowy most of winter. Where’s the snow? 

On the ground?

[VBweather]

2 hours ago, bncho said:

CO2 levels around 1800 were approximately 280ppm. That number has raised to 420ppm, an increase of 50%! It's not about the small percentage that's in the atmosphere. It's more about the drastic increase!

Without CO2 (assuming plants weren't affected), Earth would probably be WAY too cold for the current multicellular organisms to survive save for a few species. Despite how little CO2 makes up the atmosphere it leaves a big impact! 

You didn’t answer my question. What percent? What decimal? It’s 0.04%. That’s 0.0004. A 50% increase is 0.0006. That’s literally nothing. Drop the CO2 argument. Its negligible.  Things go up and down. Just answer me this then: what’s the correct average temperature of the earth? So we can aim for it.  

[psuhoffman]

13 minutes ago, Stradivarious said:

About 10,000 years ago there was a wall of ice 2 miles high starting in central pennsylvania to the arctic. . Wrap your head around that, i can’t, and 10,000 years was not that long ago. Major climate change happens, and we know it is cyclical. it happens over and over..we are discussing and angsting over what amounts to noise…and it is natural noise…there is no “correct climate” it is always undergoing immense change, and it can’t be stopped,…anymore that you can stop the wind….

i hope it snows a lot. it can be so relaxing if you don’t have to work in it. But mother nature is going to do what it wants to do…

i enjoy lurking here, have been since Wright……but it surprises me  always that these discussions take place with no acknowlegement of the grand tapestry of real climate change that happens naturally.

 

JFC

no one cites snowstorms from the god damn ice age. This is irrelevant to this discussion.  Everyone has a sense of what they consider our climo and normal based on modern recorded history. When we say it’s getting warmer everyone knows we mean in the last 100 years not comparing to 10,000 BC. This is gaslighting of the highest order. 

[psuhoffman]

4 minutes ago, VBweather said:

You didn’t answer my question. What percent? What decimal? It’s 0.04%. That’s 0.0004. A 50% increase is 0.0006. That’s literally nothing. Drop the CO2 argument. Its negligible.  Things go up and down. Just answer me this then: what’s the correct average temperature of the earth? So we can aim for it.  

Don’t take the bait just ignore this jackass. Please. 

[psuhoffman]

@Cobalt you’re 100% but please delete and just ignore that jackass. He is baiting you. And worse when he gets you to engage in the more political aspects then suddenly someone finds a mod and cries and then the whole thing gets shut down. It’s the same game. He is baiting you. Delete and move on. Anyone dumb enough to believe what he said isn’t worth your time and is too stupid to understand the science you’re using to prove your point anyways. 

[frd]

14 minutes ago, Ji said:

On the ground?

But, thats the same snow from three weeks ago. 

No snow the last three weeks, but the impressive cold allowed for records to be broken in many areas for measurable snow cover.  

  

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, frd said:

But, thats the same snow from three weeks ago. 

No snow the last three weeks, but the impressive cold allowed for records to be broken in many areas for measurable snow cover. . 

  

I got 1” last week lol 

[IronTy]

Glass half full.  If it gets warm enough and we're in this La Nina base state all the time then all those southern sliders we complain about now will have us direct in their crosshair.  We'll be so back.  If we're lucky maybe we can get to the same climate as Jacksonville since they seem to get more snow than us.  Personally I'm waiting for the Pacific to flip from its warm state before I declare it impossible to get snow around here anymore.  If that doesn't work then it's over.  

[Maestrobjwa]

13 minutes ago, Ji said:

On the ground?

Read my mind, lol And the snowy ensembles for that storm were right...only reason it wasn't a blockbuster was from a specific wave interaction they couldn't possibly see that far out. 

I for one have enjoyed the glacier (despite the inconveniences). And I'll always remember this winter for that!

[baltosquid]

Coming from an astronomy education, lol. Our very sun is so much different than it otherwise would be because of trace metal elements. Small things absolutely can have outsize consequences. But back to weather, I mean, part of this particular naivety is because we measure temp in a narrow range for daily purposes. Think instead in absolute terms: Kelvin. The change in temp is less than half a percent… or just around, off the dome and converting I am talking roughly… but the warming effects are still undeniable. Ecosystems are fragile. Our scales are attuned to that, not the absolutes. So when you consider small CO2 changes in the absolute and ALSO the temperature changes in the absolute, misinformation about scale is plainly exposed.

[SnowenOutThere]

7 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@Cobalt you’re 100% but please delete and just ignore that jackass. He is baiting you. And worse when he gets you to engage in the more political aspects then suddenly someone finds a mod and cries and then the whole thing gets shut down. It’s the same game. He is baiting you. Delete and move on. Anyone dumb enough to believe what he said isn’t worth your time and is too stupid to understand the science you’re using to prove your point anyways. 

Yk it’s bait when we have people who’s never post in here normally saying shit. Not quite sure why we even tolerate them at all frankly 

[Stradivarious]

ah, and i highly respect you… Psuhoffman,but a lot of people are not aware of the immense natural swings in climate.

What i am pointing out is that the debate, world wide, treats the warming that has happened in the last 100 years, like it had never happened before. that the global warming is a crises, and the world will not survive…people are literally not having kids because the world will not support life in 30 years..they think.  

 

To me its like arguing over a cup of sand on the ocean city maryland beach. It’s not gaslighting at all. you would have a point about that if there was no beach. All i am saying is people need to step back once in a while and put that cup of sand at the beach in its proper perspective. i don’t see that happen anywhere, Except me…i’m not baiting… not into politics. i am into geology though.. and all sciences.

i have done my part, back to lurking, and thank you for your insights over the last few decades.

[baltosquid]

Things that should happen over thousands of years happening over 100 (and really the bulk of it is a much shorter length of time) is bad and different than cyclical things…

[Fozz]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Not globally but the rate of increase does continue to accelerate.  What’s happened that caused the sudden post 2016 decline in snowfall was a pattern change to a hostile pacific much of the time which has made the 2f matter more because we’re stuck in a warm regime most of the time where even when we do get snow threats we need Them to work with marginal temps and those marginal temps are now warmer. 
 

Some of this will get better when a better long term cycle emerges. But make no mistake we’re bleeding snow even in those. For example the last time we timed up a favorable Atlantic and pacific in the 2000s Baltimore only averaged 21” during that period. Better yea but only slightly above what the 30 year mean was anyways. At the same time NYC and Boston were averaging 150-175% of normal!  That should have been us!  And in the 1960s when a similar pattern happened it was us.  But it’s warming so the core of the snowfall shifted north. And we got scraps on the southern edge of the max snowfall anomalies despite a perfect pattern cycle.  That’s going to keep happening and get worse. 
 

we will continue to see short term cycles of less and more snow but over top of that is the long term decline. Each up will be less up and each down will be more down and eventually Baltimore will have a winter climate similar to what Raleigh used to have where snowfall is an extreme anomaly and not something you expect in any given winter. 

I’ve been wondering ever since I was a preteen in 2002 what would become of Baltimore’s snow climo with global warming, and the top of my mind was the awful winter of 2001-02 which would’ve still been awful even by 2020s standards.

And even then I was thinking that if global warming proceeds the way that things were going, then Raleigh’s climo would be our endpoint.

Of course, the early 00s was still a bit early to write off winter, but I doubt the upcoming generations that grow up in this region will experience at least one decent snowfall nearly every winter like we did as kids.

The world is already at +1.3 to +1.4°C compared to the pre-industrial baseline. We are likely headed to something close to +2.5°C, so we’re on track to double the warming we’ve already had, but the impacts will probably be worse this time around.

I do think the climate might stabilize late in the century at that higher baseline once cleaner energy sources take over, but the damage will be done, and my best guess is for what that means for Baltimore is a winter climo like late 20th century Raleigh.

[WxUSAF]

Can we stop the CC discussion now?

[Maestrobjwa]

24 minutes ago, IronTy said:

Glass half full.  If it gets warm enough and we're in this La Nina base state all the time then all those southern sliders we complain about now will have us direct in their crosshair.  We'll be so back.  If we're lucky maybe we can get to the same climate as Jacksonville since they seem to get more snow than us.  Personally I'm waiting for the Pacific to flip from its warm state before I declare it impossible to get snow around here anymore.  If that doesn't work then it's over.  

This! @psuhoffman Not sure if your sae my other post, but I was asking about the samw thing: If we're headed for Raleigh climo then suppression would not longer be an issue, right? If the boundary is going further and further north...we should end up getting more southern sliders to hit us, right? Dec 2018 oughta be a hit in that scenario, lol

[SnowenOutThere]

My final point on this is this equation. Feel free to ignore it, discard it, call it wrong or whatever else. Just think through what it might be saying IF its true (which for the record it is and is in a textbook from a hundred years ago!)

[Fozz]

8 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

This! @psuhoffman Not sure if your sae my other post, but I was asking about the samw thing: If we're headed for Raleigh climo then suppression would not longer be an issue, right? If the boundary is going further and further north...we should end up getting more southern sliders to hit us, right? 

Raleigh averages 4.5”. BWI averages 17”.

Any southern sliders that hit Raleigh are few and far between. And they know that.

[Fozz]

10 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Can we stop the CC discussion now?

Climate directly relates to weather and I think we should be allowed to talk about it here. Especially what it means for the weather we can expect going forward.

[Maestrobjwa]

1 minute ago, Fozz said:

Raleigh averages 4.5” (30 year moving average).

Any southern sliders that hit them are few and far between. And they know that.

Yeah I guess I'm referring more to what NOVA and eve SOVA down Chill's way get. Those waves that are plenty cold enough but get suppressed just so to miss us. Further north boundary...further north snow?  

[WxUSAF]

2 minutes ago, Fozz said:

Climate directly relates to weather and I think we should be allowed to talk about it here. Especially what it means for the weather we can expect going forward.

Plenty of other threads than the long range thread. Hiding posts from here on out.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, Fozz said:

Climate directly relates to weather and I think we should be allowed to talk about it here. Especially what it means for the weather we can expect going forward.

Yeah but you know why we aren't allowed to...people will not behave themselves and things will quickly devolve. Ya already see it in some of these responses. I think the reason for the rule is a conduct issue as opposed to a science one!

[LeesburgWx]

Didn’t know I was opening the political and earth history thread. What does the GFS say 15 days from now?