Eduardo

Yeah this period is painful, but still nothing like the late 80s and late 90s ones.

Moderate snow on Roosevelt Island with a coating on all non-paved surfaces. I wish we weren’t gonna flip!

I always saw them as more of a crapshoot since, in the event of one, you face the risk of shunting all of the cold to the other side of the pole. That’s why I always cringe when there’s SSW talk in the beginning of the winter. You chance burning up valuable climo periods. On the flip side though, when we get toward the waning days of the winter, why not roll the dice on the possibility of some bonus winter wx?

This is basically how I’ve been thinking about the pattern for the past few days. Hopefully it sticks around a bit into Feb before we are probably done outside of some lucky Niña March slop.

Puts in perspective how, for us retention snobs, having 13-14 and 14-15 back to back was something of a dream come true. Sign me up for that anytime! BTW, I too was living on the south shore at the time and recall that, even when snow depth fell under 1”, there still were plenty of cement-like patches and piles dotting the landscape. I don’t think the ground was completely bare for most of January and February.

Lakes and Hudson Bay have to be freezing over some by this point though, no? If yes, then a discharge similar to last week’s would probably be a touch colder in terms of sensible weather, right?

Yeah I was just a kid, but IIRC, 93-94 and 95-96 were really the only cold 90s winters, no? 92-93 had the December and March storms, but isn’t remembered for being cold.

It’s close. I was around for and loved both 95-96 and 02-03. Even though 95-96 was snowier, the retention snob in me likes 14-15 slightly more than both of them. It was true “deep winter.” We really were spoiled for awhile beginning in 02-03. I knew it at the time though and never took it for granted.

Yeah I agree. Definitely some loose resemblance, though that was an especially epic year for snow and cold. One of my personal fav’s—the top one for me being ‘14-15.

You risk cutters in that pattern, but I wouldn’t call it a “cutter pattern.” It’s like a diet 13-14 look. You can score decent events when waves ride the arctic boundary dragged down by a cutter, in fact!

You risk tainting at the coast, but in this type of pattern, it’s worth chancing to bump some precip up against the cold air. I still think we score one warning-level criteria event before we mild up on Feb. Also a chance we sneak something in March when wavelengths shorten…not uncommon in Niña years.

I’ll second this! My wife thinks I’m a total nutjob but—while I’d definitely prefer it be accompanied by snow—I absolutely love any and all cold during this time of year. To me, there’s something invigorating about it and, yes, it makes the weather ‘breaking’ in the spring all the more satisfying.

Not sure that’ll verify, but that’s kind of a ‘13-14’ish look, no? I find it hard to believe that we don’t score at least one warning-criteria event if the cold stays nearby.

Some diamonds in the rough for sure. I wasn’t around yet, but the stats make the “rough” part of that seem pretty…rough, no?

It’s hurting us some, but not “the most” IMO. The PAC is killing us “the most.” As Chris (@bluewave) said, some relaxation of the raging PAC jet might actually have allowed us to harness the ATL-side block to our advantage. This has been the PAC story for a few years now though. FWIW, my amateur view continues to be that we might get enough of a temporary respite from it to score something this winter and that it’ll cycle downward some over the next few winters. The worst is behind us, in other words.