weatherpruf

Different world an hour southeast of you....nothing on the ground, big ice patch in front of my sump pump outlet that the town has to spread salt on lest it cover the whole roadway, and not enough ice on the water even if there were a few pathetic fish left under it ( my one local hole was bulldozed after the hurricane to stop bank erosion and cut down on flooding; no attempt was made to save any of the fish or turtles ). We had about two days of snow cover. And so we move on, waiting for the dry cold to lift and hope for an oddball snow event.

Not much of a storm around here IIRC; around 6-7 inches. Think it was mostly east. Was this the one the Euro held onto long after the other models dropped off? Still, in a year like this, 6-7 inches is just fine. I think this is way early to be getting excited over, but there's nothing else going on ( other than a possible war in Europe ....)

Yup. Not so much in Middlesex County though. Dry air killed one storm, another was largely south of us. Sleet did in the 2017 event. Things have to be just right for us to jackpot here; and sometimes they are, just not in recent years.

Ok so it is possible, but how probable? I remember the Jan 87 storm; it was no blockbuster but highly disruptive due to timing. And for the times, it actually was a blockbuster, even if amounts weren't that high. Feb 2006, I thought we had some transient blocking?

How can we get a big snow without blocking? I'm no met or even close, but it seems to me from all I have read here over the years, that is critical....

Because a bit south of you it usually is slop to nothing; the big March of 2018 delivered very little down my way, except for one storm, and a nice April surprise. But these are so fleeting and are gone in days; I remember in March 2019 having a couple small events back to back and they were gone in days. Kinda not worth the bother of cleaning up, and I've noticed many of my neighbors don't even bother to clean their snow anymore; if it's less than 6 inches, they leave it sit. It's usually gone soon. So what we have here is mainly a cold soggy March with some wet snow thrown in for extra misery. I don't expect warmth, but there was a time in the 80's when March weather was tamer and we would have a full month of fishing in by April, back when there used to be winter flounder around ( and you could keep more than 2 ). I mean it rarely snowed IIRC. But things change, and sometime in the early 90's we started seeing March snows again for awhile, then they retreated and we started to see them again in the aughts. With the climate changing, who knows how much longer we'll see March snows; research indicates that NJ in particular has seen its temps rise more than some other states in recent years.

Some years its just the way it goes. I was surprised at the one event we got earlier in this region, and while I'm never shocked to see snow against all odds ( it is winter after all ) I will not be surprised if that remains our only significant event this year ( going with history; snowless Dec in New Brunswick NJ area often correlates with below average snowfall for remainder of the winter, though in 2016 we did get a January whopper ). We'll see. Clock is ticking.

You know when we are starting to talk about gardening the winter is shot......though friends in the south are starting their plants indoors already ( despite the wintry weather there ). I'm probably sticking to nursery plants this year. Too much work to grow from seed.

One of my gripes around these parts is not the snow and cold ( which we don't get a ton of ) but the persistent cloudy, cool, wet weather that seems to hang around from Nov to mid May. This makes even mild winters seem way too long; and then, we go right to hot and humid. So we really only see nice weather in Sept and Oct, but in recent years these months have been plagued with tropical systems that make things like ocean fishing impossible. Each year now I have to delay my garden because we get cold snaps right up til June, something I never remembered as a kid. I waited til very late this year and still had to deal with a late cold snap; things like eggplants and peppers don't recover from that. At least the season lasts a little longer in the fall these days.

Thought you'd be more excited about the event tomorrow by now, but not much interest in it on these boards. What am I missing, it looked good this morning from what I could see.

ugh. Nasty windswept rain with power outages. hope it's wrong.

From what I see here it looks to be a lot of rain in CNJ as well. Have lost interest in this one as it isn't our kind of setup. I would assume any snow that does fall here will be washed away. We'll see.

We had icing in Woodbridge the other day in the morning; it eased up later but for awhile it was hazardous and the guy remodeling our bathroom almost injured himself on the porch stairs, where I didn't put salt. Doesn't look like a non-event from the maps I've seen, though probably not one we'll have to worry about once it warms up in this neck of the woods. Sleep late I guess. Where ya gonna go these days anyway?

No just don't. You might have to stay home and monitor your own power outage. You don't want to come home to a rotten refrigerator.

Well thanks be to God it isn't right? I mean my mom was from the midwest. She did not miss worrying about tornados.....

Are we ok in Northern Middlesex County? I mean we use Mt Holly but Upton is like down the street in Rahway....

it is the worst allergy season I have ever had.....and it started extremely early. Pollen counts in NJ are HIGH. I'm on THREE different, no FOUR allergy medicines.

That storm produced nada in my area. Didn't know it hit Ocean county at all; but a ride north from here into union co and I saw snow OTG. April7 2003 did produce here, and famously April 82; and April 1 2018. But, I am confident and would bet the farm we are done for this year.

Almost anyone can make that prediction in March around here and be correct. It's the outlier you have to be on guard for in March....even early April.

That 98 storm was only a bare dusting in my area...

"It was one of those March nights when winter seems to resume its sway and disperses its last storms and snowfalls with a vengeance..." Tolstoy, War and Peace.....

Yep. I remember reading a memoir by a woman whose husband moved them all to Maine. She had to drive up with the kids in April from MD, and she rain into a snowstorm in ME; she writes that she didn't know it at the time, but April is still a winter month in upper ME. She left the guy. In NYC and points southeast, snows above 10 inches are not common in March. But then, they really weren't that common at any time in years past; someone posted here, an 8 inch storm in the mid-70's and the traffic report in the city, like 8 inches was a really big deal. Prior to 1978, it was!

I can't remember the last time March wasn't a mess, even if temps were mild, it was wet and rainy.

Didn't get the 4/96 one here, though areas just a few miles away from me did. April 82 remains the gold standard.

March storms usually find a way to not work out in my region. Even in 2018, only one of them delivered here. Seen it happen, but never really anything impressive. 3-6 of wet stuff ( more like 2-4 ) is the usual event. with a few exceptions over the last few decades. I get harped on here every March after a decent winter ( or just when it looks like a big one will hit ) and only one time, March 2018, the last storm, did I see a decent storm. But it is what it is, and even the 93 superstorm was a bit of a letdown here with all the mixing; if not for the icy coating, it would have just been a decent 10 inch storm. So a decent 3-6 event here is all bonus, and I don't expect much more in March. And the rare 3-6 in April is always a bonus, even if gone in a day....