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2-part question....When is our next heat wave and how much snow will we get on December 5th?


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Yeah, Sep 10.

I doubt we'll get another "official" heat wave. We might have a string of warm days in early Oct.

That was my thinking, but I wanted to see when DCA's last usual 90F day was...if it was late Sept then I might have given it a more realistic shot at another heat wave (though still not a high chance). But we can almost guarantee that the pattern will not support big + anomalies through the end of September...so now, by the time we might get a big enough ridge pattern back in the east, it would probably be just too late in the season to get a bunch of 90F days if any.

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December 5th - Snow to Rain....4-8" for MRB/HGR, 1-3" for JYO/FDK, 1-2" for FFX/MOCO....T-1" for DC/Alex/Arl/PG

IAD - 2.2"

BWI - 0.4"

DCA - 0.2"

If this happens, you will take a big step toward the Hall of Fame for Snowcasters. I have the historical snow records only for DC, but of the 126 December 5ths for which we have snow records there, there has been measurable snow only ten times (8%).

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If this happens, you will take a big step toward the Hall of Fame for Snowcasters. I have the historical snow records only for DC, but of the 126 December 5ths for which we have snow records there, there has been measurable snow only ten times (8%).

Trend is your friend...hasn't it snowed in DC recently on December 5th in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009?

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yes...plus we got a cartopper on 12/6/2008 during that cold snap...so pretty close to 12/5 that year as well

Wow, good memory. I actually totally forgot about that event. It gave us a coating to an inch up here too but I had totally forgotten about it until you brought it up. That one scraped us overnight/early morning of the 7th.

We also squandered a decent pattern in the Northeast in 2010 around the 5th...good NAO block and mean trough over the east, but we never were able to get a good shortwave to amplify into the trough.

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Trend is your friend...hasn't it snowed in DC recently on December 5th in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009?

I love coincidences, but what is the meteorological basis for believing that something has changed with respect to December 5th in DC? I note that, had we been doing this type of analysis in the mid 1960's, we likely would have focused not on December 5th, but rather on December 11th. It snowed that day in DC in 1957 (0.6 inches), 1958 (trace), 1960 (6.8 inches), 1962 (1.8 inches), and 1963 (trace). Since then, however, there has been no measurable snow in DC on that day, and even a trace has fallen only in 1973, 1986, 1988, 1992, and 2004.

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We're going to get a trace during a cold snap in late-November, but nothing more until nearer to the New Year. So, as much as I hate to say it, I guess that means 0.0" on December 5.

I don't see a true heat wave, but I think we'll get toasty (pushing into the mid-80s) in mid- to late-October.

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As far as heat goes, we'll see how long the cool pattern can last and how amplified it gets over the next couple weeks. Some models are taking the nao down to -2 territory and it has been recently being underforecast. This time of year it's starting to mean something again. PNA forecast is all over the place but some models want to spike it pretty nicely towards late month. Once this pattern breaks I would have to think we're in for a nice warmup. I'll go with Oct 11th - 16th coming in @ +8.

I have a hunch that Dec is going to be a big bustola in the snow department. I'll go with a T for the month and it will come as post frontal flakes after some rain.

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As far as heat goes, we'll see how long the cool pattern can last and how amplified it gets over the next couple weeks. Some models are taking the nao down to -2 territory and it has been recently being underforecast. This time of year it's starting to mean something again. PNA forecast is all over the place but some models want to spike it pretty nicely towards late month. Once this pattern breaks I would have to think we're in for a nice warmup. I'll go with Oct 11th - 16th coming in @ +8.

I have a hunch that Dec is going to be a big bustola in the snow department. I'll go with a T for the month and it will come as post frontal flakes after some rain.

Pretty much how I feel, Bob. But I guess predicting little to no snow in December for DC isn't much of a stretch!

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As far as heat goes, we'll see how long the cool pattern can last and how amplified it gets over the next couple weeks. Some models are taking the nao down to -2 territory and it has been recently being underforecast. This time of year it's starting to mean something again. PNA forecast is all over the place but some models want to spike it pretty nicely towards late month. Once this pattern breaks I would have to think we're in for a nice warmup. I'll go with Oct 11th - 16th coming in @ +8.

I have a hunch that Dec is going to be a big bustola in the snow department. I'll go with a T for the month and it will come as post frontal flakes after some rain.

We'll waste the -nao now. Would rather it was positive at this point, and stayed that way through October/early November.

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