coastalplainsnowman

We've had so many 80s references around here lately I'm about to break out the J Geils album and the Pac Man Fever single. The 80s were great. Sorry, banter. But true.

Totally agree. Having had to get acclimated to even a modest stretch of 30s the past few weeks made a sunny and calm 42 today feel beautiful, as you say.

That's what makes it even more of a shame. The guy had been averaging over 35 HRs / 100 RBIs a year and was already at between 400-450 HRs when he likely started. If memory serves from that BALCO book, he was jealous of all the attention McGuire and Sosa were getting in 1998, yet looking up his 1998 he was 'only' 37/122/.303. Having said that, given that he was getting into his mid 30s, and the fact that he averaged 52 HRs a year from 2000-2004, I don't think it's a stretch to say that it increased his production by 50%. I know that's less than Liberty's number, but the point is that right around the time that his neck disappeared, something sure seemed to have a significant effect.

To your point about one higher than average season affecting the average, would you happen to have the median snowfall for each decade? That would be really interesting to see.

Exactly. I go back to DarkStar's cold/moisture/luck triangle again. We always need things to come together just right anyway. It's like when there's news that eating a certain food increases your chance of getting disease X by 10%. Ok, but the actual odds only went from 1:10,000 to 1:9,000. In other words it's unlikely to happen regardless. And the average temperature in the 2000s and 2010s, when we had a bounty of storms big and small, was higher than in the 80s. I guess I just wanted to take your very succinct, well-stated point and restate it in a convoluted and probably error-filled way.

Total banter topic: I just looked at the date I created my account here and I almost fell over. I cannot believe how fast time flies by.

But it feels like winter. Ground's been covered a decent amount of time with a bit of snow, there was snow around twice in December, ground's been frozen at times, back bays have some ice. I think that's all folks are really saying. The fact that it's warm relative to the previous 30 year averages, or vs the *1870s* when only a few of us were around, may be true. But it still feels like winter, and much better than what we've dealt with much of the last few years. That's all. Separately - I don't see how we square 'throw in the towel forever' with the fact that we've seen it snow pretty nicely to our *south* a few times this year alone. As long as that's still happening, I have to think the ingredients are still around for us to retain our usual small chance of a nice storm or two this winter.

I'm always surprised that a lot of posters here have the preference that if it's not going to snow that they prefer it to be mild. I admit that as I get older I like the idea of the cold more in theory than in actual practice, but still I'll take the cold over mild in January and February, whether its accompanied by snow or not. This goes double for the Thanksgiving to New Year's timeframe. Love the idea of seeing the lakes freeze over, and walking on a frozen lawn. Why? Who knows. But I think part of it is that surprise 60s once March gets here feel 10x better when they follow a cold winter. When the winter is full of damp 55s, March 60s don't hit the same way. Ok, I could have started this thing Dear Diary lol but anyway that's my take.

Check this out. I get the gist of it but not well enough to articulate it (even though most here would probably consider this to be written at a first grade reading level), so here's the link: BTW, I bet if you ask 100 people on the street on what day is the latest sunrise and earliest sunset, 99 out of 100 will say the first day of winter.

I really like that 'snow triangle' that someone's been sharing on here with cold, moisture (I think) and luck, but for significant storms, for those of us near the coast, the triangle should be seriously obtuse (like me sometimes?) with the 'luck' side being the long side. It's always been this way. This is why I don't get when I read things (not yours, just in general) like 'throw in the towel it's so hard to get snow here anymore' (especially when we see places *south* of us jackpotting now and then.) The 'luck' side of that triangle is so big for us in any given year, that even if temps are averaging noticeably higher than 30 years ago, I don't think the impact on getting big storms here is so great, especially when you look at how warm some of those winters were in the 2000-2018 snowy era. Could it mean a megasnowstorm every 20 years instead of every 15? Maybe, but that just means that you went from a 6.7% chance in a given year to a 5% chance. The odds are already very much against it around here, and part of what makes it 93.3% frustrating and 6.7% fun.

Question for @MJO812: You are visited by a genie who offers you back to back 2025 and 2026 Mets World Series championships, but only mild winter rainstorms for 8 consecutive years, OR a 50" blizzard with a two month snowpack, but Mets losing seasons for 8 straight years. Which do you choose?

This is a very good point. I'm not amped up over the topic one way or the other, however thanks to the bountiful storms of the last 20 years, 40" isn't high enough to be an obvious joke. As we all know, we've had actual maps from not too long ago with 24-36" which verified and/or were on the *low* side. If you said 40" in 1990, it would have been an obvious joke. You might as well have said 50 bajiliion inches.

I guess the undermeasurement of snow in Manhattan is not a new phenomenon. Apparently it's been a problem for at least 137 years.

I thought the Upton forecasts for this event were/are noteworthy for the fact that even the 10% chance "high end" forecasts were <1" for all locations in Nassau and Suffolk. I mention it because usually those high end forecast numbers will have some higher 'so you're tellin' me there's a chance' values that the snow optimist can hang their wishes on, but in this case even those weren't hopeful.

Son of a gun, looks like the usual favored spot in Suffolk is making the most of this.