michsnowfreak

We have had a lot of days since late November with a light amount of snow on the ground, but our peak depth (on multiple days in Jan) was only 4" so far. Last winter was obviously a well discussed mild train wreck, but during the brief spell of deep winter last January we got up to 7" snow depth.

Roads were very slick. The ground is still so cold and frozen. Our snowcover had melted a few days ago, other than some piles.

DTW saw 0.8" today, bringing the season total to 15.1". Snowfall has been observed on 32 of the past 35 days.

Massive change in the weeklies in terms of temps. Much colder look.

I'm fine with that if we get a nice snowpack ahead of it

Nice band of moderate snow moved through this morning. Short but sweet. 0.8" of powder. Now at 15.6" on the season. It'll melt tmrw but looks like there's potential moving forward.

Feb 1/2, 2015 was one of my favorite storms ever. 16.7" at DTW.

The Twitter searches for "find me a tweet that goes with what I want" have really gotten obnoxious and cluttering in this thread.

Rain to snow last night caused a dusting of snow and icy sidewalks to start Feb. With some flurries this morning it has now snowed on 31 of the past 34 days.

DTW finished January with 1.26" precip, 8.9" snow, and a mean temp of 23.0°, which is 2.8° colder than avg. Max/min 46°/-3°. I was very close, with 1.28" precip and 9.2" snow. Despite the overall zzz pattern, snowfall was observed on all but 3 days this January. 4 of the past 5 Januarys have failed to hit 50°.

Spartman often has the deep south in mind when posting lol. February definitely not a certain dumpster fire. Plenty of potential and a much more active pattern than January.

The narrow band of heavy snow that hovered right over dmcs hood had massive flakes. Here the rain did change to snow for a few hours before ending but it was not heavy. We picked up 0.2" but the bigger story was flash freeze. Everything became an ice rink.

A met posted this in the new england forum but it's very worth repeating in here as we move into February: Yeah this is the type of pattern that is about as bad as it gets for model guidance in the medium/long range. Very high gradient with fast flow and an emphasis on what is going on in the fast flow coming out of the arctic regions which even in the age of satellite data is poor coverage up there. I’d expect lots of big shifts. Something that may look good at 6-7 days out could easily be congrats Montreal at verification…and vice versa.

Snowfall the last 3 winters (not counting this one) has been well below avg at CMH. The last 6"+ snowfall at DTW was Mar 3, 2023. Like I said, a few years of below avg snowfall is nothing after the period we went through, but it still grates on my nerves and I hope a good storm is to come this winter. IF Detroit doesnt see a 6"+ storm this winter (largest last winter 4.6", largest so far this winter 3.7") it will be the first time since 1998 that we have seen back-to-back winters without one. # of 6+ storms per winter since 2000 2000-01: 1 2001-02: 1 2002-03: 2 2003-04: 0 2004-05: 3 2005-06: 2 2006-07: 1 2007-08: 3 2008-09: 3 2009-10: 2 2010-11: 3 2011-12: 0 2012-13: 2 2013-14: 6 2014-15: 1 2015-16: 1 2016-17: 1 2017-18: 2 2018-19: 0 2019-20: 2 2020-21: 1 2021-22: 2 2022-23: 2 2023-24: 0

This is pretty close to correct. For the entire winter of 2023-24 & thru Jan 30th of the winter of 2024-25. The winter of 2023-24 saw 23.4", which is 21.6" below avg, and thru Jan 30th of this winter, the total of 14.1" is 10.2" below avg to date. Of course we all have no idea how the rest of this snow season will play out, with nearly half to go. But I knew at some point we would pay for the excess snowfall. Doesnt make it any part of enjoyable, but you knew it had to happen at some point. In fact, the 1991-2020 averages are the snowiest of any 30-year period (45.0") due to so many snowy winters. The longterm avg is around 41". The running 10 year avg snowfall of 40.9" is right around the longterm avg.

lol well i dont want the garbage, but it is what it is.

I agree 100%. I dont care how many more models there are, how many improvements have been made etc etc, but I have been following the weather models for about 25 years and at the end of the day, predicting weather for mby is NO better/easier now than 25 years ago. Someone will rush to the defense of, well, this and this and this is why things went wrong. But we hear that nearly every season, every year. The end result is the same. The way this winter has played out through January is not even CLOSE to what was forecast. If anything, its about as opposite as you can get. As an example, here is what a typical forecast for January (heavily Nina factored) was in the Fall. Precip above to well above avg, snowfall avg to above avg, temps avg to above but with wild swings. Multiple storms/thaws producing some heavy snow but not sustained snowcover. Instead we get precip well below avg, snowfall below avg, temps below avg and sustained (albeit light) snowcover.

Gross day out. A cold, dry, white January ends on a mild, wet, bare (except for piles) note.

If you scroll down. You will see 2m first and then surface. They are always different. https://charts.ecmwf.int/?facets={"Product type"%3A[]%2C"Parameters"%3A[]%2C"Type"%3A[]%2C"Range"%3A["Extended (42 days)"]}

Is there a scale for colors and departures? Also, why do the 2m and surface temp maps differ so much? I always considered them one in the same.

Heres a fun one for the Chicago peeps. Those dustbowl winters of the 1930s were full of bare ground then the occasional big blizzard. In the winter of 1930-31, Chicago did not exceed 1-inch snow depth ALL season long...until a 16-inch snowstorm hit March 7-8.

At 45F as of 2pm, today will easily be the warmest day of January at DTW. Snow depth is down to a T at 7am, the first T depth at 7am since Jan 10th. The last day with 0 depth was Jan 2nd.

Of those top least, 1961-62 (the 1st) is the only one that seems sketch, the other ones were all known to be low snow winters in much of the region. The only thing I can say about 1961-62 is that it was a very low snow season thru Jan here, but then a snowy Feb saved it (at Detroit, 15.7" of the seasons 28.1" fell in Feb). I suppose its possible that Hamilton shared in the slow Dec/Jan but then missed out on the snowy Feb, but id think some M data is more likely.

Well, any given year a futility record is unlikely. Meaning the all time lowest snowfall, because it a 1 in 100-150 shot (depending on the record length). Top 20 is another story, but usually when I hear someone talk about futility I assume they mean all time #1. And when you live in a place where it snows through April, its hard to discuss that in January not knowing the pattern the next several months. How far back do Hamilton records go? I bookmarked the link because its so hard for me to find Canadian records/data lol. Looking at Detroits snow data, which goes back 145 years, of the top 20, I have experienced 7 of the top 15 snowiest winters on record, and the worst I have experienced is the 16th least snowy. #1 all time snowiest winter (2013-14) #5 snowiest winter (2007-08) #6 snowiest winter (2010-11) #10 snowiest winter (2008-09) #11 snowiest winter (2004-05) #14 snowiest winter (2017-18) #15 snowiest winter (2002-03) ***** #16 least snowy winter (1997-98) #18 least snowy winter (2023-24) #19 least snowy winter (1999-00) #20 least snowy winter (2003-04)

Short lived? Pretty much the entire month of January was cold, save for a few days. The first half of December was cold too. There has definitely NOT been a lack of cold this winter season, nor has their been a surplus of rain, outside of a rainy week in late Dec. Sometimes a cold pattern just does not sync with the storminess we want. In fact, this type of winter was more common 100 years ago than it is now. Likewise, some years that are dominated by a mild pattern luck out with snowstorms every chance you get (see 2022-23 for example, a terrible winter pattern yet multiple nice winter storms). The outlook for Feb per most is very up and down, theres very much potential with our region in the battlezone (if you believe projections/ensembles/etc).