roardog

He’s been saying if his ideas are right it should warm up after that and lead to a warm May nationally and a hot summer.

It wasn’t available on our cable until the late 80s. It must have been before 1988 though because I remember they had a special program weekdays at 8pm that summer called drought watch or something dramatic like that because of the hot and dry summer that was happening. It’s funny how that was 37 years ago and I can still remember the opening was some dramatic music with dry cracked ground. lol

The local forecasts were generated from something the cable company had to buy I believe. So it took a long time around here to even upgrade from the 3000 to the 4000. I think it was well into the 1990s before that happened. Back then, we still had a small local cable company that probably didn’t have the resources to upgrade that stuff as readily.

There was a Weatherstar 3000 before that. The 3000 was the one they had when we first got The Weather Channel in the ‘80s. I think that’s the one when there was a severe thunderstorm warning that it covered the whole screen with scrolling text so you couldn’t actually see a radar. lol

These days, we all have access to the latest model forecasts. We can see trends or changes before the official forecast changes. I remember back in the day you knew a decent storm was possible in the coming days from either the met on your local news or from watching The Weather Channel. Then when the Winter Storm Watch was issued it was exciting because that was the next step toward seeing a big storm. Then you had to wait about 12 hours for the next update. How times have changed. lol

It was a little below normal. It just felt colder because the last two winters were ridiculously warm.

This is where luck comes in though. I get that the chance of phasing decreases with the strong jet but areas to your south had decent snow this winter. A little bit of a SE ridge or just any nuance in January could have brought that snow to NYC instead of Philadelphia/DC.

It was basically Nina Feb climo vs an unusually negative AO. I feel like without the strongly -AO, the pattern could have ended up being a blowtorch for the entire eastern half of the country. The -AO really helped to keep the cold in southern Canada and the northern US.

But isn’t it also unusual to have a -5 AO in a Nina February?

Yes there was a strong SE ridge for a while in February but what about December and January? When the mid Atlantic was getting warning criteria snow, I’m sure the snow lovers in NYC and Boston were hoping for a SE ridge. The SE ridge this winter only occurred for a small fraction of the winter. It was a +PNA winter overall. I mean, the pattern this winter was completely different than what we’ve had overall the last decade. Sometimes snowfall just comes down to luck.

I know you like to talk about how the SE ridge is killing winter in NYC and the northeast in general and it was in recent years because we had troughs digging into Mexico every winter but I don't think there was even a SE ridge in the means this past winter. The Lake effect areas got slammed this winter because the arctic air came in fast in late November/early December after a very warm fall and warm previous two winters which really helped to keep the lakes unusually warm with the warmer waters even getting a little deeper which caused ice formation to be delayed despite below average air temperatures. None of that had anything to do with a SE ridge. As a matter of fact, not having a SE ridge is what helped cause the prolific lake effect season as there was fairly continuous NW flow bringing Canadian and or arctic air over the region.

It’s kind of like the people that have been saying -PDO and associated -PNA pattern is the new normal due to the warmer Oceans. So what happens this past winter? We have a +PNA winter and the PDO has gone much less negative. Could this be the start of a flip to more +PDO and more +PNA patterns? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

The PDO looks strongly positive there. I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.

It’s funny how much warmer it has been there than over here. Maybe because the airmass had to travel over one extra lake(Lake Huron) to get to you? While we never had any clear and calm nights to really crash the temperatures, we did have some nights below zero with wind which doesn’t really happen too often here.

I could see a situation where the PDO continues to rise overall and we end up with a warm neutral winter followed by a Nino the following winter similar to the 2013-2016 timeframe, just not to that extreme. I wouldn't expect a super Nino in 26-27.

Don’t worry. It’ll be warm in Florida. lol

Let’s watch the storm for the middle of next week and see if it trends SE and weaker. There’s always complaints about how a storm that is modeled to produce rain never trends SE. Right now as modeled it would probably get to 60F or higher here with a decent rain. It will probably trend SE and weaker and give me 36F and rain. lol

At least it’s going to be March later this week so you know daily snow melting season is just about here. That’s better than when you lose a good snowpack in like mid January.

That’s crazy. We are still running almost 4 degrees below average for February here after -2.3 degrees in January and only .6 degrees above average for December.

Once you get to March, snow retention becomes almost impossible for any extended period of time for most of this sub forum. So an active pattern with wild temperature swings and contrasts is what March is really about and what to hope for IMO.

Yeah. How many days with snow on the ground doesn't mean anything. We had a lot of days with snow on the ground in a winter like 07-08 but it was because it was a stormy and mild winter. The snow kept melting but more would fall when it cooled down again. I could see that situation playing out a lot in Ohio. I mean, it's never been "normal" for southern Michigan to keep snow on the ground for an entire winter, there's no way it's "normal" for Ohio.

Considering we just had a super Nino last winter, I can’t believe we would have another strong Nino this soon.

That would be nice here because it would be a wet pattern too. We went into winter very dry and could use a wet spring.

This was a much, much colder winter nationally than we’ve seen in awhile. Almost the entire country was below normal for January. Maybe now we can get less of the obnoxious posts about how there will never be a cold winter month again.

I think it was 2017 when there was a day in mid May that had some heavy snow showers around that even managed to whiten the ground for a few minutes.