February to Forget Volume 2 - 2020

[powderfreak]

6 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

When you have to hope for March to deliver to make things up....:  

Has it happened before...sure, but the odds aren't great. 

It's like being 20-games out of a playoff spot with 21-games left...it's over...it sucks but move on. "Hoping" isn't going to make things change 

I totally get the seasonal vibe everyone is quoting as a reason to give it up, but it surprises me every year how many of you have no faith in March as a winter month.  

March at BDL averages pretty much the same snowfall that December does...6-7”.

It isn’t outlandish to think it *might* snow. 

[powderfreak]

6 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Depends on what 100 years. 1900-2000 was probably 1-2 per decade 

You got hit with 1-2 canes every decade?!  Or you mean 1-2 tropical cyclones were in the vicinity each decade?

[kdxken]

While we await the storm :)

This is awesome :

https://www.masslive.com/news/2020/02/westhampton-trail-cam-bobcat-and-coyote-on-the-move.html

 

[ORH_wxman]

9 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I totally get the seasonal vibe everyone is quoting as a reason to give it up, but it surprises me every year how many of you have no faith in March as a winter month.  

March at BDL averages pretty much the same snowfall that December does...6-7”.

It isn’t outlandish to think it *might* snow. 

Seems like wiz lost the point. He started talking about March making up for the entire season of snowfall deficit when the discussion was really about any decent storm at all. 

Yeah, it’s pretty unlikely we get enough snow in late February and March to get back to average snowfall in most areas of SNE. 

But it’s not unlikely that we get another good event...say, high end advisory or better. 

[weatherwiz]

Just now, powderfreak said:

I totally get the seasonal vibe everyone is quoting as a reason to give it up, but it surprises me every year how many of you have no faith in March as a winter month.  

March at BDL averages pretty much the same snowfall that December does...6-7”.

It isn’t outlandish to think it *might* snow. 

But it's more than just the seasonal vibe...it's what's occurred through the season. It would be totally different if the atmospheric state was different and we were just missing events...but that hasn't been the case. The entire hemispheric pattern has been pretty horrific...especially regarding the Arctic and that circulation has not only been strong but it's been dominating. This just isn't going to change overnight or in a week or two. There needs to be significant impact and disruption for changes to occur and there is typically a good 2-4 week lag from when those disruptions occur to the evolution of the pattern. 

All winter long...all winter long has been nothing but "500 looks good in 10 days" "EPS looking good in the long range" "GEFS and EPS agree it's coming" blah blah blah blah

There is a reason why everything is shown at D10 and then the signal just completely disappears inside D5-6...models are always, always way too fast to completely change a pattern and there was never anything which supported the Arctic circulation changing...outside of what ensembles or D10 progs have shown...where there are disruptions occurring at the present that's when you can expect these D7-10 solutions to hold merit. 

I understand the theme is winter, cold, and snow and people don't want to hear things which dispute that...but when facing hard core reality the drawing has been on the board since the end of December/early January how this winter was going to unfold. 

People can do all they want to try and hold out hope that March will deliver...and then try and toss some past years which delivered to make them feel better or as a method to install hope. Even all winter (like what typically happens) those who have been "poo-pooing" winter and any threats get **** on but at the end of the day they've been spot on. 

People who like cold and snow just don't want to hear anything that disputes those possibilities. 

 

[Damage In Tolland]

4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Seems like wiz lost the point. He started talking about March making up for the entire season of snowfall deficit when the discussion was really about any decent storm at all. 

Yeah, it’s pretty unlikely we get enough snow in late February and March to get back to average snowfall in most areas of SNE. 

But it’s not unlikely that we get another good event...say, high end advisory or better. 

Did we get one in Jan or Feb?

[weatherwiz]

18 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Seems like wiz lost the point. He started talking about March making up for the entire season of snowfall deficit when the discussion was really about any decent storm at all. 

Yeah, it’s pretty unlikely we get enough snow in late February and March to get back to average snowfall in most areas of SNE. 

But it’s not unlikely that we get another good event...say, high end advisory or better. 

I think March has potential to be quite warm...if the AO remains as strongly positive as it is...which seems plausible combined with the look of the Pacific...once we start lengthening shortening the wavelengths as we near spring we could roast. I think we'll have to get lucky and time something right with a shot of cold air...that's not going to happen with this end of the week shot so we'll have to wait for the next one...which may not be until sometime next week...which may not even come out to be much if the AO rises like it seems to do 

[powderfreak]

6 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Did we get one in Jan or Feb?

It may never snow again.  You are using the irrational line of thinking I used to use when all snowstorms hit eastern SNE for a few years.  Assuming because BTV went two years without a 6+ event that it would continue to snow more in the Boston suburbs than in NNE.  

We get it, snow is emotional, but Nature loves averages.  Then again, maybe that’s why this is happening...to make up for those big years.  

But Will called out my stupid assumptions then and it’s good he’s calling out yours too, lol.  Just because it didn’t snow for a while doesn’t mean it will continue to not snow.

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I think March has potential to be quite warm...if the AO remains as strongly positive as it is...which seems plausible combined with the look of the Pacific...once we start lengthening the wavelengths as we near spring we could roast. I think we'll have to get lucky and time something right with a shot of cold air...that's not going to happen with this end of the week shot so we'll have to wait for the next one...which may not be until sometime next week...which may not even come out to be much if the AO rises like it seems to do 

The wavelengths shorten as we go into spring. Not lengthen. That’s why we start to lose the correlation with the AO and NAO. 

[ORH_wxman]

8 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Did we get one in Jan or Feb?

What does that have to do with whether it snows in March? You sound like a gambler who bets everything on red because the roulette wheel came up red 8 times in a row. 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

34 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

When you have to hope for March to deliver to make things up....:  

Has it happened before...sure, but the odds aren't great. 

It's like being 20-games out of a playoff spot with 21-games left...it's over...it sucks but move on. "Hoping" isn't going to make things change 

That’s not the point. There is no making it up. You dudes are too emotionally attached to the past. Live in the present. 

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

The wavelengths shorten as we go into spring. Not lengthen. That’s why we start to lose the correlation with the AO and NAO. 

I meant to say shorten...not lengthen. 

If we were in a completely different state I wouldn't be so quick to write off March but I just don't see the changes needed to completely disrupt things. Some winter the PAC completely dominates and when it's an unfavorable PAC we can be screwed big time...this time it's the Arctic. The signal is just too overpowering. 

[powderfreak]

11 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I think March has potential to be quite warm...if the AO remains as strongly positive as it is...which seems plausible combined with the look of the Pacific...once we start lengthening the wavelengths as we near spring we could roast. I think we'll have to get lucky and time something right with a shot of cold air...that's not going to happen with this end of the week shot so we'll have to wait for the next one...which may not be until sometime next week...which may not even come out to be much if the AO rises like it seems to do 

See that provides more context than your first post.  The first one you posted I read more like DIT’s “it hasn’t snowed so therefore it won’t in the future” but you actually back it up here with solid reasoning.  My apologies for assuming you were just knee-jerking it.

[weatherwiz]

Saw this posted on twitter earlier...this is ridiculous. About as strong of a SPV you can get. The only thing that is going to break this down is the transitioning to northern hemisphere summer

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-87.56,48.38,325

[weatherwiz]

Just now, powderfreak said:

See that provides more context than your first post.  The first one you posted I read more like DIT’s “it hasn’t snowed so therefore it won’t in the future” but you actually back it up here with solid reasoning.  My apologies for assuming you were just knee-jerking it.

nahhh you're good haha. 

Believe it or not I'm quite frustrated with this winter too lol...this has been pathetic. I was so pumped as the December start (I want to live through 100'' again). 

we're all angry and taking frustrations out any way possible 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

3 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I meant to say shorten...not lengthen. 

If we were in a completely different state I wouldn't be so quick to write off March but I just don't see the changes needed to completely disrupt things. Some winter the PAC completely dominates and when it's an unfavorable PAC we can be screwed big time...this time it's the Arctic. The signal is just too overpowering. 

It’s more that just the Arctic, you know that, and in March it becomes less impactful/hostile anyway. Unless we see a big SE ridge, I don’t foresee a hot month like 2 folks here keep suggesting.

[40/70 Benchmark]

7 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I meant to say shorten...not lengthen. 

If we were in a completely different state I wouldn't be so quick to write off March but I just don't see the changes needed to completely disrupt things. Some winter the PAC completely dominates and when it's an unfavorable PAC we can be screwed big time...this time it's the Arctic. The signal is just too overpowering. 

The shortening of the wave legths itself is inherently sufficient to "completely disrupt things". I thought you knew that.

Does it have to mean snow and cold?

No.

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I meant to say shorten...not lengthen. 

If we were in a completely different state I wouldn't be so quick to write off March but I just don't see the changes needed to completely disrupt things. Some winter the PAC completely dominates and when it's an unfavorable PAC we can be screwed big time...this time it's the Arctic. The signal is just too overpowering. 

The AO actually relaxes quite a bit in the next 7-10 days. It doesn’t go negative but is descends toward neutral. That is a pretty big change from near-record positive values. So I don’t really see the parallel to the most recent pattern. 

Theres a lot of spread in the 12-15 day period so it could go back up to big positive values for March...but it might not either. I said before that it looks like a muddled signal and I don’t see anything in the past 6 hours that has changed my mind. 

Also, a positive AO in and of itself doesn’t really mean little or no snow here anyway. Some of our snowiest winters on record had positive AOs. All things equal, we’d rather have it negative for snow, but it’s not a large correlation like it is in the midatlantic region. 

[weatherwiz]

Just now, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

It’s more that just the Arctic, you know that, and in March it becomes less impactful/hostile anyway. Unless we see a big SE ridge, I don’t foresee a hot month like 2 folks here keep suggesting.

It is more than just the Arctic..but overall that's been the main driver of things. 

But I'm not so sure it becomes less impactful/hostile in March...at least when the signal is this strong. I agree that is the case when the signal is more muted or not as defined...but this puppy is a beast...this is a near historic +AO. 

Just now, 40/70 Benchmark said:

The shortening of the wave legths itself is inherently sufficient to "completelt disrupt things". I thought you knew that.

Does it have to mean snow and cold?

No.

I agree...but the shortening of wave lengths probably doesn't really do much to the pattern until what maybe late spring...? (Not totally well-versed on this subject) so not sure that alone would help us out. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

It is more than just the Arctic..but overall that's been the main driver of things. 

But I'm not so sure it becomes less impactful/hostile in March...at least when the signal is this strong. I agree that is the case when the signal is more muted or not as defined...but this puppy is a beast...this is a near historic +AO. 

I agree...but the shortening of wave lengths probably doesn't really do much to the pattern until what maybe late spring...? (Not totally well-versed on this subject) so not sure that alone would help us out. 

No. March...man, you need to do your homework.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Anyway, the AO goes neutral soon, so I'm not sure we are so obsessed with the record positive February reading.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

The AO actually relaxes quite a bit in the next 7-10 days. It doesn’t go negative but is descends toward neutral. That is a pretty big change from near-record positive values. So I don’t really see the parallel to the most recent pattern. 

Theres a lot of spread in the 12-15 day period so it could go back up to big positive values for March...but it might not either. I said before that it looks like a muddled signal and I don’t see anything in the past 6 hours that has changed my mind. 

Also, a positive AO in and of itself doesn’t really mean little or no snow here anyway. Some of our snowiest winters on record had positive AOs. All things equal, we’d rather have it negative for snow, but it’s not a large correlation like it is in the midatlantic region. 

What has me concerned with the AO relaxing are the strength of the westerlies in the lower stratosphere...they're ripping. Perhaps some brief weaknesses in the height field result in a temporary relaxation of the AO, but I think it will just quickly rise again. 

I agree...it's not necessarily the +AO in itself to blame...but I think the placement of the strongest anomalies with the AO are to blame. This coupled with a PAC which I don't think has been entirely helpful either...the BN heights down into the GoA with the +AO has totally killed us. If we were able to get higher heights to poke into AK things could be a bit different. 

The SE ridge has been a bit pesky too and helping to push storm track west 

[CapturedNature]

29 minutes ago, kdxken said:

While we await the storm

This is awesome :

https://www.masslive.com/news/2020/02/westhampton-trail-cam-bobcat-and-coyote-on-the-move.html

If you like that sort of thing I post a video every month on what I pickup in my woods on my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXpoSRvXm_A&list=PLisuzvJIODKZqOCRXBDOtILq8KM-vVxnS

I usually get bobcat's and coyote's along with deer and a lot of other small critters.  This month a fisher showed up as well.  It's pretty neat what shows up when people aren't around.

[weatherwiz]

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

No. March...man, you need to do your homework.

??

on wavelengths or the AO/March

3 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Anyway, the AO goes neutral soon, so I'm not sure we are so obsessed with the record positive February reading.

based on forecasts...not so sure that happens given the state of things and if so it's brief 

[Torch Tiger]

14 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

we're all angry and taking frustrations out any way possible 

lol!

[40/70 Benchmark]

21 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

??

on wavelengths or the AO/March

based on forecasts...not so sure that happens given the state of things and if so it's brief 

On wavelengths.

Well, its not staying +5.

[Typhoon Tip]

Jesus… Where the hell have you guys been the last 10 or 20 years

 

This climate can hand out 12 inch lollies like candies from a Pezz dispenser… This isn’t the 1980s. You can get 3, 12” storms and a tweener 6 spot easily across 35 days and still see bare ground in between each one because of melt off  

It’s all Stockholm syndrome loss of objectivity in here nothing else

[Torch Tiger]

its chaos in the SE subforum, and I feel for the SE weenies fancying that long-range NAM

[Fozz]

10 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

I don’t really track temperatures, my primary focus is snowfall, but I do also have snowpack data for our site.

From what I’ve heard, temperatures have been above normal recently as mreaves indicated.  I think Powderfreak said our area was +7 F for January?  He, or others that follow temperatures, may have some other numbers to fill you in here as well if they get the chance.  As long as they don’t drastically affect snowfall/snowpack/snow quality, warmer midwinter temperatures are a plus in my book – that’s especially the case in January around here.  Our average winter temperatures in January are cold enough, and below average is brutal if you’re going to be out on the slopes (or just living everyday life).  I believe November temperatures were below average in this area though.  That’s a good time to have below average temperatures around here, and it was likely a plus in terms of snowfall as I’ll mention below.

I don’t track snowpack in too much detail, but I have our daily depth data since I report it to CoCoRaHS.  Using my current data set, mean snow depth days (SDD) through Feb 17 at our site are 786.4, and currently we’re at 585.0, which is 74.4% of average.  That’s pretty in line with how it’s felt with respect to snowpack.  Although our continuous winter snowpack did start on the early side (November 8^th) this season, probably aided by the below average November temperatures, the depth has felt well below average until just recently when we got that shot from Winter Storm Kade earlier this month.  It took a storm like that, with 17.0” snow/1.86” liquid to get things back to average.  Currently our snowpack depth is reading 15.5”, which is actually just a few inches below average, and it’s generally been hanging around that mark for the past week or so.

I’ve added a plot below that gives one sense of how the season’s snowfall has been around here.  It shows the running deviation in snowfall (± inches) relative to the cumulative seasonal average for our site.  November snowfall here was actually only a few inches above average, but a good chunk of it came so early (7.1” from a storm on 11/7, and then another 5.1” from Winter Storm Caleb on 11/10) that it put us well ahead of average as the positive deviation spike in early November shows in the plot.  December snowfall was slightly below average overall, so you can see that the positive deviation spike hung on, but faded toward the end of the month.  January snowfall was a bit below average, but overall not bad, and you can see that the notable negative deviation spike developed at the end of the month into the start of February.  So far February has sort of been like the other months, keeping things about average overall with just a slight drop below average as of late.  Average snowfall for our site through today is 106.3”, and we’re just a couple of inches behind that.

Wow... thanks so much for the very detailed response. So it seems that snowfall is near normal (I'm assuming this is for Waterbury), while temps have been warm (as with the entire eastern US) and snowpack is slightly below normal. That tells me that the ski season hasn't been so bad around Stowe, especially after that storm around 2/7/2020 (with the full moon shining over the fresh deep snow, the following weekend really was the perfect time to be up there).

[MJO812]

Colder pattern to end February but dry.