2017-2018 Fall/Winter Banter, Whining, Complaining Thread

[BuffaloWeather]

Anyone want to plan a trip to France? 

[luckyweather]

Anyone want to plan a trip to France? 

Heck yeah! This would have been the winter for it. I saw that pic too - the French Alps have just been getting hammered, Val Thorens and Val d’Isere, although they’ve also been suffering the consequence of that - much worse than usual avalanche conditions.

[Hoosier]

On 1/23/2018 at 10:34 PM, NWLinnCountyIA said:

Apparently storm chaser Joel Taylor passed away. Another blow to the chaser community, so sad.

Reports are that it is suspected OD.  Sad.

[Geoboy645]

I was just looking at my weather station data for the last 6 months and I found that since the beginning of August we have had a whopping 9.28 in. That definitely puts in perspective how dry we have been for the last 6 months or so.

[RogueWaves]

On 1/24/2018 at 11:11 AM, BuffaloWeather said:

Anyone want to plan a trip to France? 

I knew all our Nina snow went somewhere! Now we know where

[hawkeye_wx]

TWC's Mike Seidel tweeted this graphic.

[Indystorm]

Well, I had a fender bender from sliding on the ice in Indpls on Wed morning after that glaze of freezing drizzle coated things   One of 350 reported accidents in the city.  Actually it was a slide into three cars that had already collided.  But only broke my right headlight and parking light cover.  Could have been worse and all cars were able to be driven with no injuries.  But I'm now waiting for spring.

[beavis1729]

A trend I've noticed in the our GL/OV sub-forum...but not in other sub-forums...is that everyone has such low expectations for winter.  Why??  Are people really that jaded?

I know our winter climo sucks (and a winter with exactly normal temps & snowfall gets a D- grade IMO)...but when everyone accepts our pathetic climo, it really deflates the mood. 

For example...I see posts over the past couple of days saying that a met calling for 15-20" of snow in the next 6 weeks is "very bullish"...and posts about being excited that 6" of snow looks to occur over the next 10 days.  Really? This is the bare minimum of what should happen during winter; it's not anything to be excited about. 15-20" of snow in a 6-week period is not a big deal.  Sure, it's better than the crap we've had over the past 3 winters...but it's nothing special. 

It is completely unacceptable that there is very little snowpack south of 45N...and it's fooking January.  It's bad enough for this to be true in the 40-42N areas...but even in the lake belts of northern lower MI at 45N, there isn't any snow on the ground.  What the **** is going on?  

Maybe it's just me...but it's annoying that, on a weather forum, people aren't more excited and hopeful about winter, with higher expectations.  At the end of the day, I hate the fact that I'm the only one who complains or hopes for more.  Winter should be a state of mind, not singular events.  In the summer, we expect the weather to behave that way, right? And, 90+% of the time, it generally does.  But in Winter, it's 50% at the very most...and usually lower than that (I define a wintry day as one with a max temp in the 20s or colder, with at least 2" of snow on the ground).

Bah............

[michsnowfreak]

11 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

A trend I've noticed in the our GL/OV sub-forum...but not in other sub-forums...is that everyone has such low expectations for winter.  Why??  Are people really that jaded?

I know our winter climo sucks (and a winter with exactly normal temps & snowfall gets a D- grade IMO)...but when everyone accepts our pathetic climo, it really deflates the mood. 

For example...I see posts over the past couple of days saying that a met calling for 15-20" of snow in the next 6 weeks is "very bullish"...and posts about being excited that 6" of snow looks to occur over the next 10 days.  Really? This is the bare minimum of what should happen during winter; it's not anything to be excited about. 15-20" of snow in a 6-week period is not a big deal.  Sure, it's better than the crap we've had over the past 3 winters...but it's nothing special. 

It is completely unacceptable that there is very little snowpack south of 45N...and it's fooking January.  It's bad enough for this to be true in the 40-42N areas...but even in the lake belts of northern lower MI at 45N, there isn't any snow on the ground.  What the **** is going on?  

Maybe it's just me...but it's annoying that, on a weather forum, people aren't more excited and hopeful about winter, with higher expectations.  At the end of the day, I hate the fact that I'm the only one who complains or hopes for more.  Winter should be a state of mind, not singular events.  In the summer, we expect the weather to behave that way, right? And, 90+% of the time, it generally does.  But in Winter, it's 50% at the very most...and usually lower than that (I define a wintry day as one with a max temp in the 20s or colder, with at least 2" of snow on the ground).

Bah............

Lol you are not the only one that hopes for more. I'm ALWAYS hoping for more. I too have noticed that for whatever reason our subforum does not seem as snow crazy as the other subforums. Which really doesn't make sense, as most of the other subforums see less snow than us. But everyones expectations and viewpoints are different obviously.  For example, the amount of hot days in the summer has not been impressive many times in recent years. Talk to a summer lover and they're always complaining about the lack of heat. According to you it's hot all the time. Talk to a Winter hater, and they will think Chicago is next to the Arctic Circle. But you consider an average winter a D-, and a historic winter like 2013-14 a decent Winter. 

[beavis1729]

Yep. It’s maddening beyond belief to have to depend on the epo, qbo, ao, enso, etc. lining up right. It should be cold and snowy simply because it’s winter...with the indices simply determining whether it’s blockbuster snow and cold vs. regular snow and cold. 

[WestMichigan]

9 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Yep. It’s maddening beyond belief to have to depend on the epo, qbo, ao, enso, etc. lining up right. It should be cold and snowy simply because it’s winter...with the indices simply determining whether it’s blockbuster snow and cold vs. regular snow and cold. 

Move north if you expect everything in winter to be snow. 

[michsnowfreak]

12 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Yep. It’s maddening beyond belief to have to depend on the epo, qbo, ao, enso, etc. lining up right. It should be cold and snowy simply because it’s winter...with the indices simply determining whether it’s blockbuster snow and cold vs. regular snow and cold. 

At the same time, some of the other forums that have high expectations are really playing with fire. I mean take any midatlantic or East Coast forum outside of New England. You wanna talk about a lot having to go right to get snow! Even their best winters have loads of downtime where nothing is happening. From A Winter lovers perspective I'm absolutely furious that the ground is bare in late January, but also I wasn't complaining when winter hit harder and earlier than it should have (I know Chicago has had much less, and I don't really know what's happening but at least you know that that is not normal, just bad luck).  But even a lot of snow lovers on here were constantly complaining about the bitter cold. I loved that Arctic blast. It was like being in Manitoba, we had a solid 6" base of crunchy snow and it was constantly frigid outside.

 

But I've also noticed that I'm more of a Winter lover who's intrested in the weather, and most people on our subform are hardcore into active weather and that's about it. Oh there's a handful of us that enjoy every aspect of Winter, but I noticed that most don't. My God if I had a dime for every time I heard someone say that they were tired of the nickel and dime type snow and wanted to go big or go home, Id be rich. And living in the Great Lakes I'm well aware that we are the king of nickel and dime snows, which yes that makes for traffic problems but also means that we can see snow flying more than just about anywhere else. We may not get those monsters but typically it's wintery. So the hope is once this week passes we get back into some kind of Winter mode and I will be enjoying what happens rather than looking to gripe about who may have gotten more.

[beavis1729]

8 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

Move north if you expect everything in winter to be snow. 

Of course this is a fair point...but don’t you want the weather to be wintry in winter...considering that you’re on a weather board? Isn’t that reasonable? 

Maybe I just don’t get it. 

The ironic thing about all of this is that our climo is really not too far off from being decent...but it’s such a fine line with little room for error. If our average DJF temp were 5 degrees colder with 60” of annual snowfall instead of 40”, it would be a winter wonderland. 

[hawkeye_wx]

This is our third straight lousy snow season.  At this point I just expect to not get much.  It really does take a specific pattern for this area to get good snow.  Cold and dry and mild and dry are common, mild and wet is next, and cold and wet is the least likely of the four.

[IWXwx]

25 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Of course this is a fair point...but don’t you want the weather to be wintry in winter...considering that you’re on a weather board? Isn’t that reasonable? 

Maybe I just don’t get it. 

The ironic thing about all of this is that our climo is really not too far off from being decent...but it’s such a fine line with little room for error. If our average DJF temp were 5 degrees colder with 60” of annual snowfall instead of 40”, it would be a winter wonderland. 

This.

I am not an optimist, I know that about myself. In fact, my wife says that my glass isn't half empty, it's completely empty with a hole in the bottom of it.

I honestly try to be a realist and the reality of my climo is that I'm going to see less than 3 feet of snow in an entire winter with a large majority of that accumulation coming tenths of an inch or just a couple of inches at a time over the entire winter period, which doesn't satisfy my weenieism. Yes , I do get excited when the pattern looks good and models begin showing something brewing, however my realistic side reminds me that it most likely will turn out to be a stat padder.

I know that a difference between you and me is that you are a true winter lover, meaning you like both snow and cold. I like snow and know that cold is part of the deal, but doesn't excite me like a major winter storm.

[KokomoWX]

Speaking for myself, the past two winters have been at 25% of average for snowfall.  Even before that, there have been a lot of misses.  I think the GHD 2011 storm was the start of a string of heartbreaks.  

Add in the complete model mayhem even 48 hours out and it all just grinds my gears.  Model updates and poor winters have many of us unsure of their biases.  

It's been 11 years since I have had a double-digit snowfall.  I just want something to track and verify and for it to not melt a few days later.  

[michsnowfreak]

If there's 1 thing I notice studying many different sets of climate data over many different areas over the last 140 years or so, is that mother nature always tries to even things out. So for those who had really snowless winters the last 2 years, and say they come to expect it.... what were your prior 5 years like? I believe almost everybody in this subforum, perhaps sans Toronto, is running a snow surplus over the last decade. It will not last forever lol. 

[hawkeye_wx]

34 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

So for those who had really snowless winters the last 2 years, and say they come to expect it.... what were your prior 5 years like?

'07-'08, '08-'09, '09-'10 was the best three-winter stretch in my lifetime(record, well above, well above).  Of the last eight winters, on the other hand, only one has had well above avg snowfall.  Two have been slightly above avg, one right at avg, and four have been well below avg.

[Hoosier]

18 hours ago, Indystorm said:

Well, I had a fender bender from sliding on the ice in Indpls on Wed morning after that glaze of freezing drizzle coated things   One of 350 reported accidents in the city.  Actually it was a slide into three cars that had already collided.  But only broke my right headlight and parking light cover.  Could have been worse and all cars were able to be driven with no injuries.  But I'm now waiting for spring.

Yikes.  Glad things turned out good.

[Hoosier]

1 hour ago, KokomoWX said:

Speaking for myself, the past two winters have been at 25% of average for snowfall.  Even before that, there have been a lot of misses.  I think the GHD 2011 storm was the start of a string of heartbreaks.  

Add in the complete model mayhem even 48 hours out and it all just grinds my gears.  Model updates and poor winters have many of us unsure of their biases.  

It's been 11 years since I have had a double-digit snowfall.  I just want something to track and verify and for it to not melt a few days later.  

What did you get in the March 2013 and January 2014 storms?  I think those were both double digits for LAF but not by a lot.

[Hoosier]

2 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Lol you are not the only one that hopes for more. I'm ALWAYS hoping for more. I too have noticed that for whatever reason our subforum does not seem as snow crazy as the other subforums. Which really doesn't make sense, as most of the other subforums see less snow than us. But everyones expectations and viewpoints are different obviously.  For example, the amount of hot days in the summer has not been impressive many times in recent years. Talk to a summer lover and they're always complaining about the lack of heat. According to you it's hot all the time. Talk to a Winter hater, and they will think Chicago is next to the Arctic Circle. But you consider an average winter a D-, and a historic winter like 2013-14 a decent Winter. 

As far as the east coast forums being more snow crazy, I think part of it may be because of storm type.  There's the mentality of always chasing the big dog and they typically won't have to wait as long as us to get it.  And then in the case of the southeast forum, snow is more of a novelty so they are looking for anything they can get.

[WeathermanB]

Stupidly depressing snowstorm from the CMC ugh 18z! has my location getting like 5.5 inches but Wilmington gets around 20 inches. Sad

cri

depressing

But not hoping for a Jonas on steroids this winter, we've already had a YTD snowfall as of now just around 12''. It was good having 5 inches of snow on the ground for 5 days due to #arcticgeddon. Then #thawageddon came along and stole it from me D:

We don't need a week off of school... most sounds good is 1-2 maybe 3 days off of school.

[weatherbo]

Reading this thread brings back so many heartbreaking memories from my Indiana days. I seem to recall just a 6-8 week or so period there where I really felt like it was Winterish.  Also, I lived on the wee fringes of the snow belt in N Indiana, and could literally see the clouds and snow just to my north...brutal.  It was like a constant wound that never healed during the winter.  Then, to spend countless hours and sleepless nights tracking a disturbance across the Pacific ocean for 10 days only to get whiffed north or south was even more painful, and when it did snow, usually there was dry air, ratio issues, borderline temps or something else unforeseen.  Of course, prospects of a 3-5 incher and I was hook, line, and sinker in.  Sooo, the disappointments added up...the 1-2 days following a big bust or huge letdown were the worst for me.  Those days are over!  Snow has been on the ground here for 3 months and there's likely 3 months to go.  That's what I call Winter!

[Jackstraw]

I think one of the things that makes it frustrating, or interesting depending on your optimism of choice, especially here in central IN is the extreme variability of average snowfall totals within a stretch of 50 or 75 miles.  Heck, I've seen 6-8 inches 2 miles north of me and 2 inches 2 miles south of me to nothing 5 miles south from the same system.  It's the price we pay for being in the center of the ally for most winter storm tracks.  Double digit snows aren't the norm for IND yet 50 miles north they happen with almost twice the frequency, although still fairly rare.  I rather enjoy it.  Makes tracking these systems just about as much fun, and frustrating, as tropical systems I've tracked living along the coast in the south for 25 years.  Don't dig frozen tundra or mud, but I'll take 3 or 4 WWA's over nothing lol.  

[BuffaloWeather]

You guys take snow way too seriously. When it starts affecting your life and emotions, you need to see a doctor. 

[Stebo]

1 hour ago, BuffaloWeather said:

You guys take snow way too seriously. When it starts affecting your life and emotions, you need to see a doctor. 

Yeah, I love snow as much as the next guy but if it doesn't happen I enjoy whatever weather that does come. I mean I don't mind what Bo has done, that was smart for him, he is in a perfect location. I would enjoy having a setup like that as well. But people getting upset that IL doesn't have snow on the ground for 140 days of the year, that's a bit irrational.

[cmillzz]

Our climate is colder than it should be really, mainly due to the warm blob/perennial ridge out west along with the Arctic torching like there's no tomorrow. The fact that we even see monthly departures below the 1981-2010 normals is ridiculous in 2018.

[Jackstraw]

The only reason I take snow too seriously, and I mean any snow, enough just to cover the ground, is because I lived in a warmer climate for so long.  My reasoning is if it's gonna be -10 outside there better be some snow on the ground.  Just justifies the arctic blasts to me lol.  Cold bare ground just looks like a nuclear holocaust to me.   

[Stebo]

17 minutes ago, Jackstraw said:

The only reason I take snow too seriously, and I mean any snow, enough just to cover the ground, is because I lived in a warmer climate for so long.  My reasoning is if it's gonna be -10 outside there better be some snow on the ground.  Just justifies the arctic blasts to me lol.  Cold bare ground just looks like a nuclear holocaust to me.   

Oh I agree with this, which is why I root for warm weather in those situations. Bare and warm is miles better than bare and frigid

[michsnowfreak]

10 hours ago, weatherbo said:

Reading this thread brings back so many heartbreaking memories from my Indiana days. I seem to recall just a 6-8 week or so period there where I really felt like it was Winterish.  Also, I lived on the wee fringes of the snow belt in N Indiana, and could literally see the clouds and snow just to my north...brutal.  It was like a constant wound that never healed during the winter.  Then, to spend countless hours and sleepless nights tracking a disturbance across the Pacific ocean for 10 days only to get whiffed north or south was even more painful, and when it did snow, usually there was dry air, ratio issues, borderline temps or something else unforeseen.  Of course, prospects of a 3-5 incher and I was hook, line, and sinker in.  Sooo, the disappointments added up...the 1-2 days following a big bust or huge letdown were the worst for me.  Those days are over!  Snow has been on the ground here for 3 months and there's likely 3 months to go.  That's what I call Winter!

Can't control the weather, its just weird that this is the 2nd year in a row Winter hit hard and early (this year much harder than last) and now we have a big midwinter thaw (this year less torchy). Just yesterday I realized a little snafu in my up North plans as well. Again...Southeast Michigan has done much better than most of the subforum and I always plan a snow trip in February, so my complaints are always in check. So yesterday I was looking at hotels...everything and i mean EVERYTHING is booked. The lack of snowdepth in northern lower and the southern UP has everyone flocking to the  northern UP. It makes it even more amazing that you have SO much on the ground there still when areas just to your south so little. And snowmobilers know it.