Snowstorms

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well If skies clear up tonight, YYZ will likely make it down to 2C (35F) as well.

Yeah it's been a crazy wet summer for us. I got stuck on the 427 yesterday because of the flooding. Though I attribute half the flooding due to poor infrastructure and a lack of improvements over the last few decades. We are now sitting at 34.5" of precip for the year and already above our yearly average of 31.7".

Hoping to hit our 2nd 70 of the year tomorrow, if not, mid next week looks like a safe bet lol.

7th least snowiest on record. Here's the top 10 going back to 1840. Note I used YYZ from 1955-onwards.

Not happening. Just an initial look at the models and upper air pattern would suggest winter is largely over for us. The storm this week was underwhelming and only produced snow further north and east. YYZ will likely finish at 26.3" for the season, well below our 44.5" average. This winter receives an F grade from me. Hopefully this was our last sustained cold too, ready for some warmth and thunderstorms now.

@mississaugasnowWatching the Tues-Thurs storm closely right now. Still a few days out but with the lingering cold air from the high in Quebec, there could be the potential for a messy storm across the GTA. Potential is there for rain, ice pellets, and snow. Might be winter's grand finale.

For us, the two most recent late winter storms would have to be (not including today): Apr 3/4, 2016 - 5.5" Mat 23, 2011 - 5.0" Our climo supports more smaller events (<3") than bigger storms after mid March.

I just measured 6.2" in my backyard. Great storm. This storm will push YYZ ahead of 06-07 and 15-16, which would put it at 6th lowest ever. If we used a combination of Toronto and North York (1840-present) then 2023-24 would be 4th lowest lol. Doesn't matter how we spin it, this winter was a monstrosity for all of us.

@mississaugasnowYYZ has somehow surpassed 09-10 and 52-53 and is now sitting at 4th least snowiest on record. Friday's storm could make the difference if we surpass 06-07 or not. Won't change anything. This was winter was total horseshit. But glad we avoided a futility winter.

2008-09 and 2011-12 were second year La Nina's preceded by much stronger La Nina's the year before. So I don't know if that matters from an analog perspective. 2016-17 hardly lasted for more than 5 months and only bottomed out at -0.7. 2016-17 could be an analog depending on the strength but that's far out anyways.

Great post. There's been a lot of comments about the warmth in the last couple of winters being driven by the -PDO but I don't think so. Just a quick glance at the SST maps can tell you how atypical the current -PDO looks despite a deeply negative anomaly. I believe the period between 1998-2014 was the last time we had a true -PDO phase and it was quite reflective in the Pacific ssts. And we experienced several cold winters in that period especially from 2007-2015. Maybe a strong La Nina may shift those anomalies and also drive down Pacific SST's especially off the coast of Japan and in the WPAC. The warm Atlantic and +AMO don't help us either. A poleward Aleutian ridge if linked with Atlantic blocking can be beneficial for the east too. It may not be a super cold pattern as the EPO would be neutral, but it would be below normal overall. If I'm not mistaken, we saw that in December 2010.

Probably won't last for more than a few days to a week. Models have been advertising a "pattern change" or "cold air" in the medium-long range all winter going back to December and it never came to fruition except for a brief 7-10 day period in mid January. Outside of that, it's been historically warm. I'm not sold on any real pattern change for us right now. Even 2015-16 had more cold periods in JFM than this winter despite an historically warm December. However, early April 2016 was quite cold.

Pretty telling and concerning 7 of the top 10 warmest winters are in the last 27 years and 5 in the last 13 alone. Although a few others did not make the top 10 for Detroit, there's several other warm winters or winters with an abnormally warm month in that 27 year span including 1998-99, 1999-00, 2005-06, 2012-13, 2019-20, and 2020-21. Warmth is one statistic and snow is another. I'm more concerned about the warmth and its severity and longevity during the winter season than whether we end up with above average snow. Because if we continue on this trend, we won't see many snow cover days or may struggle with precip issues with every storm. The period between 2007-2015 was the only real cold period filled with snow/cold that we honestly had since the 90's. And many of the 90's winters were shit too.

At this point, anything will be better than this winter's monstrosity. I'd take a repeat of 98-99. Biggest problem for me is that it was a warm winter too and I'm sick of these constant warm winters. But we had that blizzard in January 1999 that dumped 16-20" in Toronto and cued one of the snowiest 2 week periods ever in Toronto for a total of 46" in just 14 days. Kind of similar to Feb 2015 for you guys.

YYZ only goes back to 1938. Here's the top 10 for Toronto going back to 1840. I used Toronto till the mid 1950s and YYZ thereafter because of the continued industrial revolution skewing anomalies. As of now 1931-32 holds the title for us. I guess you could make an argument that those pre 1955 winters if they happened today with all the UHI, they would be a lot warmer. Therefore, for that time, which is considered to be a much cooler time globally, those winters were incredibly warm vs normal. We lucked out in 1965-66 with 27" in January but snowfall outside of January was abysmal. And 1957-58 was shit here too, snow wise. Temperature wise both winters finished slightly above average but not by much. We finished near average for 1972-73 too, primarily thanks to a snowy November and December where 60% of our winter snow fell in those 2 months. I made a post in the other thread about strong Nino's. Every strong/super Nino since 1982-83 has been an absolute blowtorch across North America. Quite the opposite with other notable strong Nino's like 1972-73, 1965-66, and 1957-58. It seems like 1982-83 was the tipping point. Though aside from the temperature anomalies, one thing remains constant. They were all largely snowless for the entire region. We seem to fair much better and snowier with strong La Nina's. Of the majority of YYZ's top 10 snowiest winters, most are strong Nina's. I'd assume it's the same for Detroit.