michsnowfreak

For whatever reason the 1940s were just terrible for snowfall here, although it was actually colder than either the 1930s or 1950s and despite the meager snowfall, days with snowcover was right around average. The 1930s had a few good snowstorms as well as a few cold, white winters, but for the most part the winters were very "open" (i.e. bare ground). We actually had a very snowy Winter in 1951-52, the first winter to feature well above avg snowfall in 22 years! We were then immediately punished by a very "open", mild Winter in 1952-53 with very meager snowfall. The rest of the '50s were ok, but another very meager snow year in 1957-58 (a year that was good for the east). Out in the plains some of the dust bowl winters were extremely snowless. Basically, it really depends what area you live in for local circumstances but the bottom line is pretty much every area had some very lean times in the mid 20th century.

Gray day with highs in the mid 60s today. hoodie weather for sure. Talk about a front. High at Detroit 66, high at Toledo 86.

Sounds like the 1950s were really bad on the East Coast. They were definitely subpar here, but the 1930s and 1940s were a far worse snow drought. "Winters were worse when I was a kid" has been a line used by old timers for centuries. It just boggles my mind that the "old timers" who grew up between the 1930s-50s could ever say that.

2007-08 thru 2014-15 was an epic stretch overall, despite the one very bad apple of 2011-12.

Same here. The 1950s are the warmest or 2nd warmest winters for the entire period of record for many cities I have looked up in the Eastern half of the country. Snow wise the 50s did better then the 1930s though here. The 1930s actually had a few good snowstorms but most of the winters as a whole we're just not good. 1936-37 is the least snowy Winter on record for Detroit with only 12.9" of snow. That it is also the least snowy Winter on record for Boston with 9.0", and even more interestingly for Boston, 4.4" of that 9.0" came in November. The warmth of the winters of 1931-32 or 1881-82 has actually not even been challenged here.

2007-08 was a prolific snow year in southeast Michigan but we were never able to build-up a snowpack due to those thaws. The battle ground that hoosier spoke of. Season snow fall finished it 71.7" for Detroit, 78.2" here, and near 100" in parts of the northern suburbs. Yet snowpack never exceeded a foot at any time.

I'm on bored with this idea as well. I'd love to start a Winter thread but I did not know if you guys thought it was too soon.

Very true. But it does add a bit of imbalance to weather records imo, especially in an age where every tenth of a degree is scrutinized for warmest (or coldest) placement.

Another interesting new england tidbit I didnt realize...the loathing of the 1980s. I was born in 1983 so my recollection of the 80s is not much, but looking at stats the winters were actually pretty decent here. 1981-82 was great, 1982-83 was awful, then the next 5 winters had above avg snow, and some good cold snaps. Im guessing the 80s were very clipper friendly based on the excess of light to moderate snowfalls but not really a lot of heavy snow falls. The period of Winter's here I would not want to ever relive would be the 1930s through 1950s. The 1940s are by far the worst decade for snow here, but id say the '30s were even worse for overall mild and bare.

I guess I really was in my snow bubble in Jan 2014. I didn't realize that was happening in NNE.

I'm the first person to caution my fellow weenies that temp departures are just one piece of the puzzle. Yes you want cold overall, but cold and dry or warm and snowy are easily attainable. But that combination in that winter that you just described, at your latitude, truly can't make up. The few rains we had that winter only acted to solidify the snowpack.

Oh there's no denying that we have had warm winters too. I wasn't saying anything against that, just talking about the impressive cold snaps we've had recently. Regardless of what city you look at or where their weather station was located at the time, its very interesting to see the plunge from mild winters of the 1950s too cold of the 1960-70s. For many areas that have 140, 150 years of weather records, the warmest winters were in the 1950s and the coldest in the 1970s. The wildness of weather has always been around though, below are some of notoriously warm winters of yesteryear 1875-76 1877-78 1879-80 1881-82 1889-90 1905-06 1918-19 1920-21 1931-32 1948-49 1949-50 1952-53

Head to Denver lol. Heres a forecast you don't see everyday. "Winter storm watch in effect" Today, Sunny and hot with a high around 100.

"Winter storm watch in effect" Today, Sunny and hot with a high around 100. Ohhh Denver lol. There's a forecast you don't see every day.

Did you think this was going to be easy lol? It's only the beginning of months of model mayhem

WOW. At least you still finished with above average snowfall for the season, but I was just always under the impression that everyone in the Northeastern quarter of the country had a great Winter all the way through that year, even though my area with kind of ground zero. The only rain we had all Winter was the previously mentioned rain/ice storm just before Christmas, a little rain during the brief Jan thaw that snowstorms spoke of (that started as snow), a heavy rain Feb 20 that started as thundersnow, and a bit of nuisance light rain ahead of another snowstorm mid March. The winter saw 26 days at Detroit with 1"+ snowfall. 56 days in total saw measurable snow for the season, and when adding in the traces, a total of 92 days saw snow fall.

Missed this post yesterday, but again, it's very interesting to note how many record cold snaps we have seen in recent winters despite DJF mean temperatures holding steady or slightly rising (& JJA temps rising). The December 2017-January 2018 cold snap did set one record low minimum, but it was nothing "extreme", the lowest temperature at Detroit only -6ﾟ. However it did set another unique record. 13 consecutive days without a temperature exceeding 19°.

One thing I disagree with is that there was a ton of ups and downs in the old days too. The 1940s were pitiful for snow in this area, the worst decade on record. Just boring. There was some cold, but admittedly I had to look up a few of those winters because I didnt think they were cold. 1945-46 was a very short winter due to a very warm March (as was 1944-45 in March). But also in addition to cold, most places saw some incredibly "open winters" back in the day the likes of which we have never experienced (ie 1931-32, 1936-37, 1941-42, 1948-49, 1952-53). As for temps, here are the decadal winter temps for Detroit, Buffalo, and Boston since the 1880s (ie 1880s = 1879-80 thru 1888-89). Xmacis doesnt have Toronto or else I would have done them. DETROIT 1880s- 27.2 1890s- 26.9 1900s- 25.1 1910s- 25.5 1920s- 26.7 1930s- 28.1 1940s- 27.0 1950s- 28.5 1960s- 26.5 1970s- 24.6 1980s- 26.3 1990s- 28.7 2000s- 27.8 2010s- 28.2 BUFFALO 1880s- 25.8 1890s- 27.5 1900s- 25.7 1910s- 26.0 1920s- 26.0 1930s- 27.7 1940s- 26.1 1950s- 28.1 1960s- 25.1 1970s- 24.8 1980s- 26.9 1990s- 28.0 2000s- 27.3 2010s- 27.8 BOSTON 1880s- 28.9 1890s- 30.0 1900s- 29.3 1910s- 30.5 1920s- 30.9 1930s- 31.0 1940s- 29.8 1950s- 32.3 1960s- 30.1 1970s- 31.1 1980s- 31.4 1990s- 32.7 2000s- 32.1 2010s- 33.0

53 at DTW this morning but man did the cold spots radiate. 41 at DTX office White Lake

It was just unreal. I threw a pot of boiling water in the air and it evaporated to steam. I wish I had someone else filming me though so I could have seen it from up farther angle

I wasn't saying anything about global warming, I was talking about severe cold snaps and recent cold winters. I'm not really concerned about getting back to where we were in the early 19th century. I'm not a fan of hot summers but they don't really bother me persay. Increasing summer minimum temperatures and UHI do no favors to weather stats either. Chicago just recorded their hottest summer on record, yet nearby Dubuque, IA only had their 48th hottest. Detroit had their 10th hottest summer this year but 29 years have had more 90+ days than this year. Thats why my point is I'm not so much worried about marginal increases in mean temps, but the extreme weather thats occurred in recent years is impressive. Again, the cold snaps we saw in 2009, 2014, 2015, 2019 were unrivaled locally by any individual cold snap in the colder decades of the 1960s/1970s. then in the mild winters of the 1950s, most years had a hard time even getting below zero! Winter is not warming anywhere near as much as summer. In fact Winter has hardly moved at all in the past 100 years temperature wise yet precipitation and snowfall are increasing. Below is the temperature comparison of Winter and summer from 1874 to present (period of record) and 1920 to present (100 years).

I've heard a lot about 1934. I would imagine the core of the cold was settled over the Northeast. It was a very cold month at Detroit over all, although snowfall was fairly light. Then you go just a little far West to Chicago and while it was still a colder than average month it was nowhere near as cold as here. That January 2014 stat is crazy. How does that combination even happen at such a northern location? How much snow fell there? Detroit set a record in January for 39.1" of snow.

We lost about a foot of snowpack with that brief January thaw but we still had a good 4 to 6" left and then before you know it we pretty much spent the next 2 months with 1 to 2 feet "on the level" but it would have been more if not for the constant wind compacting and drifting it. With the drifts and snowbank's it seemed like a lot more than that. The Winter classic was a lot of fun because it was snowing so nicely. Their particular storm was weird because it literally snowed for about 60 hours straight. A grinder 11" snowstorm. 2010-11, there's another one, how could I forget? That was 1 of my favorite winters until 2013-14. No real extreme cold but just a lot of consistent cold and a lot of snow. 2007-08 was a very interesting Winter in that I can't recall any real cold but it just would not stop snowing. We kept getting thaws so never built a crazy deep pack but we still accuminated between 70 and 100" of snow in Southeast Michigan. 2002-03 2004-05 2007-08 2008-09 2010-11 2013-14 2014-15 2017-18 We've had an impressive stretch of harsh winters, both in the Great Lakes and northeast, so it always surprises me when people freak out when you get a ratter Winter.

Oh wow, so chalk up another recent winter with potent cold.. I didn't even remember that. We must have missed the brunt of that, it was colder than average in mid February 2016 but the lowest temperature at DTW was -1ﾟ. This really is food for thought about the future of cold snaps. Maybe more roller coaster weather is becoming the norm? Not wise for a weather person to look at a mean temperature without looking at all the details.

I remember that Ice storm well because I was driving to a Christmas party and it was very dicey. North of Detroit had freezing rain and by my house I had the old 33-34 and rain. It was one of the few times we saw liquid precipitation from early December until late March that Winter. Funny side note, the cold rain soaked into the snow pack and it actually did end up leaving us with bare spots for Christmas. Still plenty of white, but you could see patches of grass in spots (even though it snowed a dusting on Christmas). The reason I say this was funny is because literally the only days without a solid snowpack from early December until late March were December 23-25. Couldn't make that up lol. And I just brought up February 2015 in my recent my last post! I did not realize the all time record cold extended that far east. And how can I forget 2008-2009? Another solid Winter with well above average snowfall, a long lasting deep snow pack, and yet another year where the Detroit heat island managed to get to -15°. Even though outlying temperatures are always far more impressive, I bring up the numbers from the big cities because it shows just how intense the air mass was. Not saying there were not many impressive cold snaps over the years, but again I can say that these same heat islands went about 40 years mid 20th century without once seeing a temperature as impressive as has been seen FOUR different winters from 2009 to 2019.