January Banter 2020

[mappy]

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I posted in the wrong thread last night. Mea culpa.

ha, you were not the first, or even the last to post banter in that thread. just doing your duty  

[mappy]

Also, can we avoid giant emoticons flipping people off, thanks in advance. @jaydreb

[CAPE]

3 minutes ago, mappy said:

Also, can we avoid giant emoticons flipping people off, thanks in advance. @jaydreb

He was flipping off the MJO forecast.

Pretty appropriate response.

[mappy]

1 minute ago, C.A.P.E. said:

He was flipping off the MJO forecast.

Pretty appropriate response.

sorry, gotta keep things a little PG. he can find another way to express his displeasure

[MN Transplant]

40 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If an mjo plot could talk....caption this 

It is either the Homer retreating into the bush gif, or grandpa Simpson seeing Bart at the entry of the burlesque club.  Probably the latter.

[psuhoffman]

39 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If an mjo plot could talk....caption this 

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, mappy said:

sorry, gotta keep things a little PG. he can find another way to express his displeasure

I think you missed the context, but ok.

Why PG anyway? We have 13 year olds up in here?

[psuhoffman]

10 minutes ago, mappy said:

Also, can we avoid giant emoticons flipping people off, thanks in advance. @jaydreb

my fault..I set that one up posting that MJO plot clearly telling our winter to bleep off... and asking people to caption it...  That was kind of exactly what I was thinking too

[CAPE]

5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

my fault..I set that one up posting that MJO plot clearly telling our winter to bleep off... and asking people to caption it...  That was kind of exactly what I was thinking too

lol I was looking for one of those F U memes when he posted that.

[nw baltimore wx]

43 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

If an mjo plot could talk....caption this 

[Sparky]

2 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

Okay, well it was definitely a 1 in 30 year type cold. Didn't crack freezing for a very long stretch. I don't remember the exact numbers. I remember it being snowless though. Then the pattern changed and we rained.

Cold doesn't always=snow.

 

You are likely thinking about the last week of Dec. 2017 into the first week of Jan. 2018.  IMBY I recorded 6 days with highs below 20 ... 5 of them occurred between Jan 1 -7.  One was on New Years Eve.  I remained below freezing from Dec. 26 through Jan.8 which was an incredible stretch of below freezing weather.  My lowest high temp was on Jan. 5 with a high of 13...Jan. 6 made it to 14......After the 8th things moderated and Jan. 2018 ended up +1.8F overall.

[jaydreb]

11 minutes ago, mappy said:

sorry, gotta keep things a little PG. he can find another way to express his displeasure

OK, sorry.  I was trying to caption what the MJO plot was saying to us but will tone it down.  

[Sparky]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

He exaggerated the cold but his point is true. In 2017/18 we had a period from Dec 26-Jan 15 well below normal temps and away from the immediate coast it did very few any good wrt snow. It’s was a very dry period. I was below freezing that entire 3 week stretch and had like 4” from 3 minor events to show for it.  And that isn’t the only such period. We have had other extended cold dry stretches. Since we aren’t a cold location that’s not common but it’s not a crazy anomaly. And we have had a lot of warm wet patterns that didn’t produce any snow. 

Truth is we need cold AND precip to get snow. They are equally important. From a long distance yes cold seems a better play because cold dry is numerically less likely than warm. But once a pattern is staring us in the face and it’s obvious it’s a dry suppressed one the whole “at least it’s cold” thing doesn’t bring me any comfort. 

Now some like cold. That’s totally ok. But if you like snow and don’t care about the thermometer than there are certain pattern markers we need within a cold look to get snow. 

 

It didn't stretch to Jan. 15.  We had temps in the upper 50s from Jan. 11 - 13th.  40s on the 9th and 10th.

[RevWarReenactor]

5 minutes ago, Sparky said:

You are likely thinking about the last week of Dec. 2017 into the first week of Jan. 2018.  IMBY I recorded 6 days with highs below 20 ... 5 of them occurred between Jan 1 -7.  One was on New Years Eve.  I remained below freezing from Dec. 26 through Jan.8 which was an incredible stretch of below freezing weather.  My lowest high temp was on Jan. 5 with a high of 13...Jan. 6 made it to 14......After the 8th things moderated and Jan. 2018 ended up +1.8F overall.

Yep, that's it, thanks!

It was great if you like high heating bills. But that's about it.

 

[mappy]

9 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

I think you missed the context, but ok.

Why PG anyway? We have 13 year olds up in here?

 

7 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

lol I was looking for one of those F U memes when he posted that.

 

Just now, jaydreb said:

OK, sorry.  I was trying to caption what the MJO plot was saying to us but will tone it down.  

100% sure you can express displeasure without posting a middle finger emoticon. 

[psuhoffman]

14 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

At this point I am content with a chase or two more in upstate NY/Vermont to get my snow and rooting for DC to come in under 3 inches for the season.

Then they will officially have the worst 4 year stretch of snow since recording keeping began and we can no longer say
 

"This is normal".

you should go read the "would these storms even work today" thread.  Some good discussion about how our climo is changing.  Especially the discussion yesterday between myself, Isotherm, and Frd.  

Basically... our winter's are becoming more extreme in both directions.  We are tending to "hit it big" more often when we do get a conducive pattern...but spending more time in bad patterns.  To get cold we almost need an extremely anomalous EPO or NAO pattern anymore.  Anything else and we end up warm.  It's a lot harder for us to luck our way into decent snowfall in a "meh" pattern anymore.  We spend long periods in awful no hope patterns...then hit it really big in years where we get either a dominant EPO or NAO ridge.  

The result is that while our "avg" isnt changing much...how we get that avg is.  We end up with more really bad years... but also more really good years.  For some places far enough north to end up on the right side of the thermal boundary the tendency for more juiced up systems due to the increased baroclinicity from warming in winter is actually increasing their snowfall avg.  But we are right along the edge of where it typically can get cold enough to snow...so for us its not as helpful as we are getting more big snowstorms...but spending more years in total crap patterns and getting almost no snow.  

Since there is likely a limit to how big storms can really get...if the warming continues and we spend more and more time in bad patterns and are able to luck our way to less and less snow in "not ideal" patterns...out avg will likely continue to drop.  

But I guess my point is...that is the normal now.  It's been happening for long enough now and makes sense given the changing climate regime that its not likely a fluke that is going to just turn around.  

So any short period that doesn't include one of our "big years" is likely to be "the worst stretch ever" because 30/50/100 years ago DC had a colder climate and was able to luck its way to a few small to medium snowfalls in a not perfect pattern.  That is becoming harder and harder to do...so we either with a ton of snow in a perfect pattern...or very very little in everything else.  That is the new normal.  

[psuhoffman]

3 minutes ago, Sparky said:

It didn't stretch to Jan. 15.  We had temps in the upper 50s from Jan. 11 - 13th.  40s on the 9th and 10th.

Thanks... that was the stretch I was remembering though, just thought it went to mid month..probably felt longer than it was because it was torture being so freaking cold with no appreciable snow.  

[caviman2201]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

you should go read the "would these storms even work today" thread.  Some good discussion about how our climo is changing.  Especially the discussion yesterday between myself, Isotherm, and Frd.  

Basically... our winter's are becoming more extreme in both directions.  We are tending to "hit it big" more often when we do get a conducive pattern...but spending more time in bad patterns.  To get cold we almost need an extremely anomalous EPO or NAO pattern anymore.  Anything else and we end up warm.  It's a lot harder for us to luck our way into decent snowfall in a "meh" pattern anymore.  We spend long periods in awful no hope patterns...then hit it really big in years where we get either a dominant EPO or NAO ridge.  

The result is that while our "avg" isnt changing much...how we get that avg is.  We end up with more really bad years... but also more really good years.  For some places far enough north to end up on the right side of the thermal boundary the tendency for more juiced up systems due to the increased baroclinicity from warming in winter is actually increasing their snowfall avg.  But we are right along the edge of where it typically can get cold enough to snow...so for us its not as helpful as we are getting more big snowstorms...but spending more years in total crap patterns and getting almost no snow.  

Since there is likely a limit to how big storms can really get...if the warming continues and we spend more and more time in bad patterns and are able to luck our way to less and less snow in "not ideal" patterns...out avg will likely continue to drop.  

But I guess my point is...that is the normal now.  It's been happening for long enough now and makes sense given the changing climate regime that its not likely a fluke that is going to just turn around.  

So any short period that doesn't include one of our "big years" is likely to be "the worst stretch ever" because 30/50/100 years ago DC had a colder climate and was able to luck its way to a few small to medium snowfalls in a not perfect pattern.  That is becoming harder and harder to do...so we either with a ton of snow in a perfect pattern...or very very little in everything else.  That is the new normal.  

Maybe I'm dumb, but every chart I've seen depicting CC shows approx a 1 degree C bump globally since ~1980.  Is that tiny amount really enough to cause such a drastic change already?  I'm sure it can't be explained in detail here, but just looking for the Reader's Digest explanation.  To the layperson like myself, 1 degree C warmer over a 40 year span doesn't seem like enough to change our climo drastically.

[psuhoffman]

1 minute ago, caviman2201 said:

Maybe I'm dumb, but every chart I've seen depicting CC shows approx a 1 degree C bump globally since ~1980.  Is that tiny amount really enough to cause such a drastic change already?  I'm sure it can't be explained in detail here, but just looking for the Reader's Digest explanation.  To the layperson like myself, 1 degree C warmer over a 40 year span doesn't seem like enough to change our climo drastically.

For most areas...no, but for areas that are typically right on the southern edge of where it's cold enough to snow often...yes.  That 1C is about 2F plus the effect is not uniform in all locations.  There has been an even greater warming due to urban heat island effects in urban areas.  So go back and look at all the historical snowfalls before 1990 where the temperature at DCA was around 33-34 degrees and kiss those goodbye.  Then look at all the snowfalls where the temperature was 30-32 degrees and cut those totals way down because now it would be 33-34 and really super wet low ratio snowfalls.  On top of that sometimes the effect of a couple degree warming can be more drastic right along the thermal boundary because there is a critical mass where a storm will take a further north track where if you sample the entire continent the temperatures are only 1-2 degrees warmer than a similar pattern 50 years ago...but the track of the storm is 100 miles further north and so in our specific area the rain snow line shifted more than you would think just from a 1-2 degree change.  

So in short... places where it was very cold in winter in some cases have become more snowy.  For warm places and cold places it wont matter that much.  But for places like DC that were often right on the razors edge for snowfall...yes it matters a lot.  

[CAPE]

4 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Thanks... that was the stretch I was remembering though, just thought it went to mid month..probably felt longer than it was because it was torture being so freaking cold with no appreciable snow.  

Did have the original 'bomb cyclone' during that period though. I know it sucked for I-95 and west, but that was my favorite chase to date, at the beach. Legit blizzard there. Ended up with about 6" at my house and it stuck around for 5 days before significant melting. 

[psuhoffman]

Just now, C.A.P.E. said:

Did have the original 'bomb cyclone' during that period though. I know it sucked for I-95 and west, but that was my favorite chase to date, at the beach. Legit blizzard there. Ended up with about 6" at my house and it stuck around for 5 days before significant melting. 

It was agonizing up here...I did have a clipper put down about 2.5" at the start of the pattern...but it was dry and the next day we got high winds that blew all the snow into the woods.  Then we got nothing but incredibly minor snowfalls the rest of the pattern...so I spend a long period with frigid cold...uncomfortable to go out cold...high heating bill, and no snow on my lawn to show for it.  One of the more frustrating periods in the last decade to me.  

[caviman2201]

2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

For most areas...no, but for areas that are typically right on the southern edge of where it's cold enough to snow often...yes.  That 1C is about 2F plus the effect is not uniform in all locations.  There has been an even greater warming due to urban heat island effects in urban areas.  So go back and look at all the historical snowfalls before 1990 where the temperature at DCA was around 33-34 degrees and kiss those goodbye.  Then look at all the snowfalls where the temperature was 30-32 degrees and cut those totals way down because now it would be 33-34 and really super wet low ratio snowfalls.  On top of that sometimes the effect of a couple degree warming can be more drastic right along the thermal boundary because there is a critical mass where a storm will take a further north track where if you sample the entire continent the temperatures are only 1-2 degrees warmer than a similar pattern 50 years ago...but the track of the storm is 100 miles further north and so in our specific area the rain snow line shifted more than you would think just from a 1-2 degree change.  

So in short... places where it was very cold in winter in some cases have become more snowy.  For warm places and cold places it wont matter that much.  But for places like DC that were often right on the razors edge for snowfall...yes it matters a lot.  

Makes total sense - thanks.  Effectively the climo has shifted N/NW by a few miles... which since we were almost always extremely close to or on the R/S line, we're now more often than before S/SE of it.  So BWI's climo is now more like Annapolis's was 40 years ago.  Yours is more like BWI's was 40 years ago.

[CAPE]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

It was agonizing up here...I did have a clipper put down about 2.5" at the start of the pattern...but it was dry and the next day we got high winds that blew all the snow into the woods.  Then we got nothing but incredibly minor snowfalls the rest of the pattern...so I spend a long period with frigid cold...uncomfortable to go out cold...high heating bill, and no snow on my lawn to show for it.  One of the more frustrating periods in the last decade to me.  

I much prefer snow to frigid and dry. That being said, I do like seeing frozen ponds/rivers and in some cases, even the bay. I like hiking out in the cold, on frozen ground. Wouldn't want a 2 week icebox with no precip though.

[CAPE]

13 minutes ago, caviman2201 said:

Makes total sense - thanks.  Effectively the climo has shifted N/NW by a few miles... which since we were almost always extremely close to or on the R/S line, we're now more often than before S/SE of it.  So BWI's climo is now more like Annapolis's was 40 years ago.  Yours is more like BWI's was 40 years ago.

I definitely feel like I live in Salisbury this winter lol.

[mappy]

7 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

I definitely feel like I live in Salisbury this winter lol.

not the worst place to be, Evo is pretty darn good. 

[psuhoffman]

25 minutes ago, caviman2201 said:

Makes total sense - thanks.  Effectively the climo has shifted N/NW by a few miles... which since we were almost always extremely close to or on the R/S line, we're now more often than before S/SE of it.  So BWI's climo is now more like Annapolis's was 40 years ago.  Yours is more like BWI's was 40 years ago.

My elevation combined with being "just far enough north" have prevented my snowfall climo from being impacted much.  Actually the last 10 years have increased my "avg" here some.  As of right now I am still just cold enough to eek my way to a decent total in bad years "usually" and hit really big in the big years.  What it has done is increase the difference between here and places like Baltimore.  If the warming continues it will eventually impact up here also.  

[CAPE]

22 minutes ago, mappy said:

not the worst place to be, Evo is pretty darn good. 

Agreed. Terrible place for snow tho most winters.

[mappy]

1 minute ago, C.A.P.E. said:

Agreed. Terrible place for snow tho most winters.

This is true. My sister/BIL live there, they occasionally do better than me and like to send pics to prove it. 

[North Balti Zen]

Maybe stop naming phantoms?

[wxdude64]

1 hour ago, mappy said:

sorry, gotta keep things a little PG. he can find another way to express his displeasure

Like the bus scene from Slapshot maybe?