GaWx

KSAV had 19 for yesterday’s low, which was a new record, beating the old record of 23. This ties with the 19s in Dec ‘22, Jan ‘18, and Jan ‘14 for the coldest since Jan ‘11’s 18. To put this into even better perspective, the coldest there since 1990 is only a little lower, 17! The last Feb with it this cold was 1996. Only 8 other Febs since 1874 have had a low colder than 19 meaning this is ~95 percentile for a coldest Feb low! Today’s low there was 23. @buckeyefan1please pin this. Thanks!

The CLT low was 10F as of 7:15AM. So unlikely it made it to 9F though not impossible since that’s still a little before sunrise. The 10F was enough to tie the record for the day.

12Z Euro

Hey Tim, Thanks for asking. Yes I did and it was a very nice hit of 0.75” (most winters have none). For more details if interested:

This is the SE and to me the threat of a large area of 1”+ outside the mountains is significant though it’s not currently a threat of something “major”. How many of these occur each winter on average? Not many. And it has the chance to be rather impactful. That fits my definition of “significant”. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have near the potential of the historic storm of this past weekend and also probably not the potential of the prior storm. In addition, this one isn’t threatening nearly as large an area (nowhere near me, for example). But it still could be significant wherever it hits if and when it does.

Thread started:

Well, what do you know?! The model consensus is increasingly honing in on the threat of a significant snowstorm for Feb 4-5th. As of now, this threat is by far the highest in VA and NC. No rest for the weary! @buckeyefan1please pin this. Thank you.

New thread time for upcoming threat? It’s already beginning to dominate this thread, it isn’t far off, and why not bet the streak as every other threat so far has ended up verifying?

What’s your feeling about Feb temp anomalies in the E US? BN, NN, or AN? The first week is cold. There’s no getting by that. So, BN will have a great headstart regardless of the duration and intensity of the expected subsequent warmup. About all indices point to a significant pattern change (warmer) during week 2 as of now. So, it’s seemingly inevitable. But how mild and for how long. NG market is worried it could be quite significant as it is now at a session low of an amazing -18%! edit 8:28AM: I can’t even recall the last day NG dropped as much. I think it has and probably more but I don’t know when off the top of my head. I’ll try to find out. Of course, it remains to be seen how low it will be when it closes for the session as there could always be an intra session deadcat bounce. Meanwhile, evidently Phil saw his shadow meaning 6 more weeks of winter. But even that couldn’t give NG a bounce lol.

WxBell is cold in the E in general and downright very cold in the NE for Feb. Eric Webb has also had cold E US thoughts for quite awhile though I haven’t seen an actual Feb map from him. Any opinions?

Those who are sick of the cold E US pattern and thus want it to end ASAP and stay away (definitely not me) must love the much warmer E US vs how it looked late last week on the models for mid-Feb. Due to much warmer models for the E US weeks 2-3 vs how they looked Friday, natural gas opened as sharply down as I can ever recall it doing (-15%!). I hope BAM isn’t too upset lol. When you realize how much warmer the EPS is vs Fri, you’d realize one of the reasons: Fri 12Z EPS HDD (lower left purple): week 2 gradually warmed only to normal HDD Today’s 12Z EPS HDD (lower left purple): week 2 now plunges to significantly below normal HDD/warmer than normal causing the HDD for Feb 8-13 to drop sharply from 148 to 124. In addition, today’s Euro Weeklies for week 3 (2/16-22) are significantly warmer in the E US vs Fri’s run: Friday (1/30/26) Euro Weeklies temps for 2/16-22: Today’s (2/1/26) Euro Weeklies temps for 2/16-22:

I measured 0.75” on a table last night after it stopped, and it was similar for the average on leaves and grass. This was just enough to make it look like a beautiful white carpet on the grassy areas. The last burst (during 10-11PM) was a real nice icing on the cake as before it was ~0.5” on that same table as of 8PM. I feel fortunate to have gotten this much as just a few miles south it accumulated much less. So, this makes it official that SAV got measurable snow in 2 consecutive calendar years for the first time since way back in 1917-8 (0.1” on 12/30/1917 and 0.5” on 1/2/1918…so those were only 3 days apart). Interestingly though, since then SAV has had 2 measurable snows in the same winter twice (1976-7 and 1985-6) and also has had measurable in consecutive winters one time (both in 1989). @donsutherland1

In the Arctic (>80N), 1/2026 comes in very slightly colder than 1/1977: 2026: 1977:

1. I estimate that the January 2026 PNA will calculate to +0.5. 2. Jan NAO calculated to be negative. This combined with the Dec -NAO and the progged first half of Feb’s -NAO means the first sub -0.25 DJF NAO is just about assured for a winter without it being weak sunspotwise since 1978-9!

It looks like the last band to affect the SAV area is coming in now from the NW to SE on the S side of the very strong upper low. This looks kind of juicy! I took more measurements in advance of this band on a table and measured 0.5”.

Heavy dusting here to this point with light snow still falling and a very windy 28. It’s so cool watching it blow around in the strong winds, especially coming off the roof, because of it being fluffy. Looking at the leaves/grass, some is as deep as 1/2”. But some is closer to 1/4”. So, taking the average gives me 3/8”. So, maybe call it 0.3-0.4”. The pavement is still just wet. Keep in mind that our average annual is only 0.2” and that we get no measurable snow in the vast majority of winters. This is the first time for SAV to have measurable snow in two straight calendar years since 1917-1918, which was actually only 3 days apart (0.1” on 12/30/1917 and 0.5” on 1/2/1918). I’ll add that SAV has since had consecutive winters with measurable snow, but the two snows were both in 1989 (Feb and Dec). Also, SAV has since had two measurable snows in the same winter twice. *Edited for correction and additions @donsutherland1since I think of him as a wx historian and want to make sure he sees my correction by adding 1917-18

According to @Stormchaserchuck1the lag is shorter later in winter. Should be within ~2 weeks I think. And lasts usually 2-3 weeks++. But it may already be cold then anyway independent of this likely reversal.

Today’s Euro Weeklies has it outrightly predicting a reversal 2/12-15: @40/70 Benchmarkthe guru on this!

Separate. But now I wonder if he meant to say E based Nino.

Do you mean the QBO will be west (+)? For the sub -20 December QBOs at 30 mb (i.e., very strong E QBO), what was the following Dec’s QBO? 1965: -21; 1966: +13 1974: -23; 1975: +11 2005: -25; 2006: +6 2014: -25; 2015: +11 2021: -22; 2022: +12 2023: -23; 2024: +13 2025: -27; 2026: ? So, for all 7 Decembers with a sub -20 QBO, all of the subsequent Decembers were +6 to +13, which is intuitive based on the normal cycle length. Thus, I see almost no way next winter will have anything near an east QBO. But, again, did you mean west (+) QBO? If you really meant E (-), on what are you basing that? Are you aware of the history that I’m posting here? https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data

NYC now up to 22” season to date vs 15” avg and the most as of this point since 2015-6! It’s been one heck of a season so far, based mainly on 3 significant snows. If they get avg the rest of the way, they’d have a total of 35”. Fwiw, my prediction for the season total, which was made after the 1st storm last month and is my only prediction made for this, is 40”.

I’m not saying I’m buying the gfs since it’s a poor model and has tended to overdo qpf and snow, but fwiw this shows FAY with one of their biggest snows on record with 12-15” in the area! Wow, that would be crippling. Also, in case this were to somehow verify closely: when was the last times the entire NC got 5”+ from one storm? Not to be forgotten, this gives me ~0.3”, a rare event down here!

Icon heaviest snow in NC just N of Fayetteville and NE with big hits those locations. It also gives me a rare for this area 0.5” though I’ll believe that when I see it!

I finally got to my analysis of Baltimore temp anomalies during Feb La Niña phase 1 since 1975 and I even added the results for the surrounding phases 8 and 2. Before I get to those, I also looked at La Niña Febs in general there, which averaged mild (intuitive). That shouldn’t be forgotten when looking at each phase. So, that’s going to make it hard for any Niña phase to be cold in Feb. There have been 20 La Niña Febs since 1975. The coldest anomaly was only -2 (2022) with next coldest of -1 (2021, 2006, and 1996). In contrast, the warmest was +8 (2023 and 2017) followed by +7 (1976) and +5 (2018, 2012, and 1984). The 20 complete Niña Febs averaged +2.3. So, any Feb Niña phase that’s NN would be relatively cold. ————— Here are the results for phases 8, 1, and 2 at Baltimore: Phase 8: 17 periods MB 0 B 6 N 4 A 3 MA 4 Avg: +44/61 days = +0.7 So, phase 8 was NN, which is 1.6 colder than the +2.3 average of all Feb Niña days. So phase 8 has been relatively cold. I suspect that this may come out as the coldest Niña Feb phase but I’d need a lot of time to go through the #s of the remaining phases to confirm that. The only phase with a decent chance to be colder than 8 is phase 3. So, that would be the next phase I’d calculate if I get time. ————— Phase 1: 16 periods MB 3 B 2 N 4 A 2 MA 5 Avg: +134 /52 days = +2.6 So, though it averaged a bit mild, that +2.6 was very close to the overall +2.3 avg for all Niña Feb days. ————— Phase 2: 18 periods MB 1 B 1 N 6 A 4 MA 6 Avg: +296/68 days = +4.4 —————— So, in summary for phases 8, 1, and 2: phase 2 is easily the true mild phase in all senses as its +4.4 is 2.1 warmer than even the +2.3 overall avg for all Niña Feb days. Phase 1 is in the middle with its +2.6 and phase 8 is the coldest with only +0.7.

It looks like the weekend winter storm is favoring a weak, possibly inside the circle phase 8 at this time based on the GEFS/EPS/JMA consensus.