It's time to grade Winter 2025-26(now that it's actually over)

[wxmeddler]

B

[Eskimo Joe]

3 hours ago, wxmeddler said:

B

Agreed. We missed the last storm, which prevented many from exceeding climo snowfall. But we had several decent cold waves and the first warning level snowfall for many in several years. 

[Weather Will]

Temps: A: reminded me of a 1970s winter.  Sustained cold kept the snow we had on the ground for a record breaking amount of time.

Snow: B+: only about 16 inches total but since it stayed on the ground a long time I bumped it up.  

Overall grade: A-.

[Bob Chill]

Easy A- grade here

Climo is lower in my hood but over 14" is climo+ and having a 2 week period of complete snowcrete cover is quite rare. 

Accum snow in each month DJFM + plenty of cold temps made it a door to door winter appeal. Again, pretty rare. 

Had snow on snow during the snowcrete stretch and that's always a nice bonus in any winter. 

Only reason I can't go A is I couldn't manage a 4"+ single storm. There's plenty of history down this way with bigger storms in the 6-18" range. Just missed that on the Carolina big storm as areas just 30 miles to my south picked up 6" or more. Had that event produced (I got 2.5"), it would have been an easy A grade. A+ (imho) requires a double digit snow even along with all the other important factors

[Poodleusier]

Going with a D in Frederick.  Only saving grace was the Snowcrete storm and the extended cold afterwards.  Been a very disappointing streak of winters up here.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

OK in all seriousness I'd have to give it a B or B+.  Yeah, we missed out on more snow which was indeed frustrating, but it's hard to top the 2 straight weeks below freezing, deep winter.  And "snowcrete" was pretty cool, 5-6" snow with 2" sleet on top that turned into a solid layer that went nowhere for a long time.  I could literally walk on top of it without pushing into the snow.  And though we missed the big snow for February, I still got 3-4" when it fell at a good clip for awhile in the evening.  Not to mention, the amazing turnaround with 80 degrees one day followed by half an inch or so of snow the next day in early March.

[RIC_WX]

Solid B for me.

Rationale?

Generally below climo snow west of the beltway, despite impressive stretches of cold.  
 

The holiday period was arguably the longest sustained AN period of the entire winter, and while it wasn’t as long or as mild as seasons past, the timing was horrible.  I would happily trade a good holiday period for mild most other times, I travel too much for work and this is the one time of year I am mostly around and not too busy to enjoy what’s happening around me.  A lot of the cold and snow we did receive in early December, January and February was wasted for me, I was simply not around to enjoy it.

This makes 5 winters of having a place at DCL, time speeding up is another peril of middle age (kids, take note, there are many). There have been few big storms during this period, historically speaking even warm, east based ninos are known to produce here and I am looking forward to the potential next winter even if it is much milder.