beavis1729

That’s an incredible amount of QPF for a northern location during the cold season. Crazy to have a 5’ depth drop to 3’, then back up to 5’ during the same season. I’m guessing 4.5+ months of continuous snow cover that winter, including 3-4 months of foot+? Hopefully there will be another winter like that up there soon. It seems like an impossible distant memory, the way things have gone recently. 1983-84 was a decent winter in the Chicago area, relatively speaking. I was 9 years old, and it’s the first winter I actually remember. Christmas Eve 1983 had the coldest daily average temperature on record, -11/-25 at ORD and a bit colder in the suburbs. 1/30/2019 came close, -10/-23 at ORD.

That’s incredible…definitely a legendary winter of yore.

Wow…I imagine your snowpack lasted forever that season, even if much of the rest of that winter was dry (?). One of the all-time cold winters up there, right?

It dropped to -45F in Hettinger ND, under perfect radiational cooling conditions. This is incredible, considering that it's relatively late in the season. Probably around 50 degrees below normal (?). Weather observations for the past three days for Hettinger, Hettinger Municipal Airport Imperial (Metric) Date Time (mst) Wind (mph) Vis. (mi.) Weather Sky Cond. Temperature (ºF) Relative Humidity Wind Chill (°F) Heat Index (°F) Pressure Precipitation (in) Air Dwpt 6 hour altimeter (in) sea level (mb) 1 hr 3 hr 6 hr Max. Min. 19 07:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.63 1049.3 19 06:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 0% 30.63 1049.2 19 05:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -43.6 0 0% 30.63 1049.3 19 04:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 -36 -45 0% 30.65 1049.5 19 03:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -43.6 0 0% 30.66 1049.8 19 02:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.67 1049.5 19 01:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -41.8 0 0% 30.68 1050.3 19 00:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -38.2 0 0% 30.68 1050.2 18 23:53 Calm 10.00 Fair CLR -40 0 0% 30.68 1050.4

An intense arctic airmass is in place across ND and eastern MT. This would be very impressive in mid-winter, but even more so on Feb 17-19. Coldest since early Feb 1996? Here's the NWS forecast for Crosby, ND in the far NW corner of the state. Temps were in the minus 20s at midnight, so the daily max may end up around -20. That is incredibly rare. Washington's Birthday Sunny and cold, with a steady temperature around -20. Wind chill values as low as -40. North wind 3 to 8 mph. Tonight Partly cloudy, with a low around -45. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. Tuesday Sunny and cold, with a high near -14. Wind chill values as low as -45. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph. Tuesday Night Mostly clear, with a low around -43. Wind chill values as low as -60. Light and variable wind becoming northwest around 5 mph in the evening. Wednesday Sunny and cold, with a high near -5. Southwest wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Wednesday Night Clear, with a low around -26. South wind 6 to 10 mph.

With complete respect, I don’t think this is accurate. Most guidance was hinting at around 0.4” of QPF 36 hours ago with ratios around 15:1, generally leading to 5-8” of snow. Some were showing even more, but I agree with not giving them much weight. Now it’s looking like 0.25” of QPF with 12:1 ratios, around 3” of snow. That’s a huge difference. It’s frustrating that a million things need to come together to get a proper snowfall around here. What happened to clippers?

I think Mason City only has 2.7” on the season, which is arguably even more shocking than the SW Iowa stat since Mason City is near the MN border.

Ha ha...I wish this were true.

I don't understand why you keep arguing about this - we're on the same side. Can't you admit that our climo is horrible, if you're a person (like yourself) who likes snow...and especially snow cover? Just because it has been relatively better in recent decades, doesn't mean it's good. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp? Every winter in Miami gets an F; it's the same concept. In my mind, the last 10 winters have been horrible, because there have been way too many thaws. Doesn't mean that snowfall itself has been horrible, but as everyone knows that's only one aspect to winter. 2013-14 and 2014-15 were the last good winters, and all I keep hearing about is how great they were and that we should never ever complain again...and how we should just be content with the current winter that hasn't had more than a 1" depth all season. Those good winters were 10 years ago...are we going to keep falling back on the nostalgia of them forever and ever?

I have to believe that the observations back then weren't very reliable. How could Detroit only have one 6"+ storm over a 10-year period? If that's actually correct, all it does is illustrate (yet again) how horrible our winter climo is. It shouldn't make any of us think "oh, we've been lucky in recent decades"; it's just not a reasonable reaction/response. If a student scores 20% on an exam after getting a 0% on a previous one, the 20% score is still an F.

Jan 2025 wasn't really that cold in Chicago, with a monthly average of 22F. The shame is that it could have been a Top 20 cold month if there was snow cover here and upstream. That's the bigger story. If you look at 1951-1980 normals, Jan 2025 was actually a +1F departure...even as it was -3F vs. 1991-2020 normals. That says more about the obnoxious warming (exacerbated by UHI) over the past 40 years than anything else.

The craziest warm/cold temp swing over a short period in Chicago was probably in the 1984-85 winter. It was 69F on 12/28/84, then -27F (all-time record low) 3 weeks later on 1/20/85.

For sure…and it has been just as bad in the Midwest. Here are a couple examples of places that have essentially experienced a snowless winter so far. Data since November 20th, which I consider to be the beginning of winter: - Mason City IA: 1.14” precip (most fell on one mild day in December), 2.7” snow - Omaha, NE: 0.85” precip (most fell on one mild day in December), 1.0” snow It would be nice if we could ever experience a proper winter. The last one was 2014-15. I know it has been similar in much of SNE. It just gets to be ridiculous at some point.

It's bad enough this winter in MSP...but I just saw that Mason City IA has 2.7" of snow for the entire season, and Omaha NE has 1.0". There aren't really enough words in the English language to describe how bad this is. Even worse, it applies to a wide swath of geography across the lower 48...basically coast-to-coast north of 40N outside of the lake belts.

Yeah...and the Midwest & northern Plains. Shockingly low snowfall (and even worse on the SDD front) in so many areas so far this season. Anchorage has only had 4.1" of snow since Nov 17th, with an approx +12F departure over that period.