michsnowfreak

A refreshing 56F this morning at DTW, so nice to have fresh air and not AC filling the house during the dog days. This was the 2nd night of July (the other being the 1st) that rural areas of SE MI dipped into the 40s.

Excellent point. If I just categorized winters by min temp rather than mean temp, not only would you see no rise (the period of record regress line is straight as an arrow 1874-present), you would see the average annual winter min temp has gotten colder if you narrow the data set to the past 100 years (at Detroit). Id suspect its even more pronounced in areas west of Lake MI.

Dec 2017, Jan 2019, Feb 2021, Dec 2022, Jan 2024 were all impressive arctic outbreaks despite the domination of mild winters since 2016.

Winter forecasts have always busted...and this includes when the harsher winters were forecast to be mild. Its because forecasts are plentiful, and many have biases one way or the other. Its laughable to lump the 1950s-2000s climate into one Winters of the 1950s and 1990s were very mild in many places while the 1960s and particularly 1970s were the coldest and harshest of all time in spots. Winters for me were much more harsh in the 2000s/2010s than growing up in the 1990s, and id able to use that same sentiment in the 1970s if i grew up in the 1950s.

Interesting...warmer mins are more noticeable in summer than winter here. We still routinely go below zero most winters. Yet in summer, we almost never see 40s in July or August whereas we used to see the occasional night or two (the outlying areas still do..in fact they did last night lol).

"I don't remember" is a dangerous word to use in weather haha . Looking up the actual data can really surprise you. Not an encyclopedia of weather knowledge for Boston as I am for Detroit...and I do know east coast winters have warmed a bit more than here (I've found that fall/winter warming is much slower than spring/summer here)....but when you actually look at data you might be surprised. Using just our memories is how the tales "when I was a kid" start. Since the beginning of climate record there have been eye popping warm months, out-of-season warm temps at any time of year, and multi-year cycles of unusually warm weather. They just happened less frequently back then (how much less depends on location).

Great point about gradual warming. An unusual warm temp at any time of the year is always media fodder for a CC post regardless of what caused said warm temp. There are so many patterns and natural variables in the climate. It's why the average annual temp rise is slow. You will still get plenty of cold days and such, it's just they are being outnumbered by warm.

Still well early, but based on the forecast, looks very doable for Detroit to have no 90F days this July. July historically is our hottest month and sees the most # of 90s, but DTW has not passed 93F in July since 2020.

The AGW talk in the 1990s was out of control. You can talk about the finer details and such, but any suggestion that its new is insane. It hit the mid-70s in parts of new england and parts of the Great Lakes in January 1950....cant blame any one event on AGW either.

I was specifically referring to winter. Keep in mind, any changes in climate over the course of decades will not be even. Winters of the 1930s-50s were easily our most tame on record here. Winters of the 1930s & 50s were warmer than the 2000s or 2010s. But moreso then temps you have the trend of meager snowfall during that timeframe. Add those two factors together, easily a period of winters one would like to forget. Summers were also hot during this timeframe, in fact the # of hot days the 1930s-50s saw werent even touched at Detroit til the 2010s, and we have already regressed a bit in the 2020s (tho only half over). Summer afternoons overall were hotter back then, but nights were cooler. Autumns were similar, springs much cooler.

March was cold but dry here after a snowstorm on the 1st, but Dec-Feb was snowy.

I did not run the numbers against the coldest 30-year normals, aka 1961-90. If I have time I'll run them for Detroit against the cold 1961-90 normals and the mild 1931-60 normals.

I actually referenced this winter earlier in this thread. 2017-18 here was an excellent winter snow-wise, snowcover wise, and also saw the longest sub-20F stretch on record for Detroit. Every month from Nov 2017 thru Apr 2018 was colder than avg except Feb. And even, Feb was memorable for its frequent and deep snow, and was running below avg temp wise through the 18th…then a monster warm spell happened the last 9 days of the month. The 9 days, which averaged around +14F above avg, completely erased Febs temp departure and made it a +3F month, which made the winter as a whole finish only around a degree below avg, whereas winter thru Feb 13th was running a solid 3.5F colder than avg

Similar here. Very snowy winter, temps not too far off avg.

I must have accidentally looked at 1991-20 normals. But also, I came up with 32.2F at boston for 2017-18. I always do the average by days, not calendar months, since Feb having less days will give it a bias depending on if Feb was cold or mild.

The DJF temp in 2004-05 at BOS was 30.9F. The 1971-00 normals were 31.8F

Since 2000, these are the winters that finished below average temperatures, using whatever normals applied at the time (1971-00, 1981-10, 1991-20) for BOS, DTW, BUF BOSTON 2000-01 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2008-09 2010-11 2013-14 2014-15 (using the current 1991-20 normals you can add 2009-10, 2017-18, 2020-21) DETROIT 2000-01 2002-03 2008-09 2010-11 2013-14 2014-15 2017-18 2021-22 (using the current 1991-20 normals you can add 2003-04, 2004-05, 2007-08) BUFFALO 2000-01 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2013-14 2014-15 2017-18 (no additional winters when using the current 1991-20 normals)

Last summer was very comfortable and void of heat in MI so I figured we were doomed this year. But its not been bad. Outside of that heatwave in mid June, it's been surprisingly pleasant since late June. It was actually Fall-like after Beryl passed.

He has meltdowns if you don't align with his one track mindset. I really thought it was going to be a very hot summer. Been saying that for a while. We lucked out with a below avg summer last year (when I pointed out that the 2023 max of DTW of 90 was the lowest since 1915, CC said a stat like that was making a big deal of nothing or something like that)...plus the anticipated switch from nino to nina. It all screamed hot summer. What we got instead (here) is one heatwave in June. It was the first heatwave in 2 years and miserable, but definitely over hyped. June finished 12th warmest but thanks heavily to low temps, as the avg high was only 21st hottest. July to date is running cooler than average and the avg high temp so far for July is 86th hottest (or 62nd coldest). The summer high temps are what makes or breaks a hot summer, but the low temps in recent years have done the heavy lifting. I could not care less how hot it is in the south or west, just as I could not care less how cold it's been in the UK. I care about what it is in Michigan, and it's better than I expected!

I definitely expected a hotter summer than what we are seeing. Other than that heatwave in June (which was overforecast as is) it hasn't been bad at all. Now it appears that after a few warm, humid days we will see a nice cool down later in the week for some incredible weather during the hottest part of the year.

Ninas often are big on gradients, so the north/south difference is even greater than climo. Southern Michigan already averages more than double annual snowfall than southern Ohio, but it wouldn't be odd at all for a Nina winter to see 125% of avg in S MI with 75% of avg in S OH. I assume the same applies in NE

Cool. Put the Great Lakes on your bucket list. Even in the worst, warmest winters it snows plenty of times. In the good winters, it can snow near daily.

Do you ever travel to see snow?

In a way, more moisture would benefit both regions in different ways. Your area would continue to get those whopper storms with increasing frequency, even if you sacrifice smaller storms. It seems many northeast locations have their biggest storm on record in the past 2 decades, and I see no reason why that doesnt continue. My area would continue to chug along w/ light to moderate snowfalls that get enhanced by the Great Lakes. Some people get so bent out of shape over "how much has this placed warmed or that place warmed" they forget that cold winter climates are still cold winter climates. Below average snow seasons will happen. How can they not? Average is not average if its always above (as it was starting to seem like by 2015). Warmer winters will suck for snowpack but it also seems to increase the frequency of storms with blinding wet snow & thundersnow (as we experienced several times during the last 2 warm winters). As an all-around winter weather weenie, I rarely go into a winter truly worried about snowfall. Its more about how the patterns will cooperate and how much or little cold/ice-covered lakes/snowcovered landscape will I get to enjoy.

More moisture is definitely a good thing for the Great Lakes region. Snowfall continues to do fine even in warm winters (yes last winter sucked snow wise, I'm talking overall)