What went wrong

[psuhoffman]

16 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

DC has now had the worst 4 year snowless stretch in the history of record keeping. Can we make it official?

This is not "normal". We are not "due for a bad year".

 

But you are ignoring climate change. If you look at the trends it is normal now. Go back and look at the patterns the last 100 years. The good years aren’t changing wrt frequency or totals but the bad years are getting worse. 50 years ago a bad year was 10”. Now most bad years struggle to get to 5 or 7” and the frequency of below 5” winters is going up.  Since 2000 (not including this year yet) we have had 13 non nino years. In those years 12/13 were below avg and the median snowfall is 7.5”. Furthermore 5 were below 5”. The new normal for non nino years is for most to be pretty awful. Because that is a new phenomenon that is getting worse everytime we get a bad run (which are common even in the old climate to get 3-5 year bad periods only now the bad years are worse) we will likely challenge the “worst period ever” thing you are clinging too.  But is it “not normal” when it’s been happening and trending this way for 20+ years now?

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

But you are ignoring climate change. If you look at the trends it is normal now. Go back and look at the patterns the last 100 years. The good years aren’t changing wrt frequency or totals but the bad years are getting worse. 50 years ago a bad year was 10”. Now most bad years struggle to get to 5 or 7” and the frequency of below 5” winters is going up.  Since 2000 (not including this year yet) we have had 13 non nino years. In those years 12/13 were below avg and the median snowfall is 7.5”. Furthermore 5 were below 5”. The new normal for non nino years is for most to be pretty awful. Because that is a new phenomenon that is getting worse everytime we get a bad run (which are common even in the old climate to get 3-5 year bad periods only now the bad years are worse) we will likely challenge the “worst period ever” thing you are clinging too.  But is it “not normal” when it’s been happening and trending this way for 20+ years now?

Can you put this in the form of a poem? Thanks!

[CAPE]

Get creative psu. You owe us a poem.

In an attempt to make yet another pointless Tenman thread epic, it has been hijacked.

We are generally keeping the "what went wrong" theme however.

[psuhoffman]

There was a man in Delaware who loved snow 

I told him dude you got to go

Somewhere up north 

I would find henceforth 

For the sake of your sanity

oh and lay off the Hannity 

The population density might be crappier

but you will be much happier 

In a place where the nao

isnt needed to get snow 

so for the love of god GO

 

[CAPE]

Just now, psuhoffman said:

There was a man in Delaware who loved snow 

I told him dude you got to go

Somewhere up north 

I would find henceforth 

For the sake of your sanity

oh and lay off the Hannity 

The population density might be crappier

but you will be much happier 

In a place where the nao

isnt needed to get snow 

so for the love of god GO

 

[psuhoffman]

@C.A.P.E.

Tenman and this thread is absurd

Weve known for months this winter was a turd

numerous posters said without a lot of luck

how bad this season was going to suck

he complains we don’t use analogs 

obviously he didn’t read the long range blogs

a central pac ridge +AO is crap

once that set in we knew it was a wrap

but he is still trying to figure what went wrong

Long after the rest of us moved on 

but I’m sure he won’t listen to me 

And blame it on a government conspiracy. 

[psuhoffman]

15 hours ago, WEATHER53 said:

Truth hurts especially when a cellar dwelling chump  like you  is powerless to do anything themselves. As always, when you cant contribute nor refute then personally attack the poster.

You could make it harder to attack you if you didn’t post absurd nonsense. You recently criticized us for not using analogs when the long range and seasonal thread is filled with analog discussions. I made a post months ago showing the analogs to this year and how awful they were. And many others said similar. Just because you didn’t read it...which is fine but then to criticize a thread you obviously don’t bother to actually read makes you look bad.

You make rants about NWP (like it hadn’t improved in the last 20 years) that are easily disproven as false.  You make up crazy conspiracy theories that insult the integrity of some of our best professionals in here who would have to be part of that conspiracy, ignoring the insult to logic that is your theory.

Then you start this thread acting like there was and is no way to know what went wrong when we have been discussing that for weeks now and this exact type season has happened before and we do and have known “what went wrong”. 

Sorry but you make yourself an easy target. 

[dallen7908]

The climate change tangent got me thinking of nordic skiing and a sign I saw this past January. 

Hopefully "forever" won't end sooner than the Doucettes' hope

[Jebman]

On 2/27/2020 at 4:24 PM, psuhoffman said:

Unfavorable pac forcing combined with a strong PV. 

Years where there was a significant pattern flip from warm to cold during winter

1958,1960,1966,1972,1987,1993,1999,2000,2005,2007,2014,2016,2018.  

There are plenty of flips from cold to warm also.  But by New Years the combo of a strong phase 5/6 mjo wave in conjunction with a strong PV coupling with the tpv hinted that this year was at risk to be a total dud. That combo is the leading cause of our total wasted years. This result isn’t a big surprise.  

 

Don't forget that anomalous Greater Antilles Ridge! Its been so warm down here in central TX, that I am ALREADY pretty much used to low 60s dewpoints already, even mid 60s dewpoints! It was doing that many times in Jan and Feb!

Central Texas is VERY VERY different from Northern Virginia, lol. Lot less rain, too. I killed off many plants last summer from overwatering them, because of my Washingtonian climatological mindset lmao!

[aldie 22]

The biggest thing that went wrong is that it didn't snow

[MacChump]

too much corn dust

[RevWarReenactor]

On ‎3‎/‎1‎/‎2020 at 11:24 AM, psuhoffman said:

But you are ignoring climate change. If you look at the trends it is normal now. Go back and look at the patterns the last 100 years. The good years aren’t changing wrt frequency or totals but the bad years are getting worse. 50 years ago a bad year was 10”. Now most bad years struggle to get to 5 or 7” and the frequency of below 5” winters is going up.  Since 2000 (not including this year yet) we have had 13 non nino years. In those years 12/13 were below avg and the median snowfall is 7.5”. Furthermore 5 were below 5”. The new normal for non nino years is for most to be pretty awful. Because that is a new phenomenon that is getting worse everytime we get a bad run (which are common even in the old climate to get 3-5 year bad periods only now the bad years are worse) we will likely challenge the “worst period ever” thing you are clinging too.  But is it “not normal” when it’s been happening and trending this way for 20+ years now?

I don't deny climate change has a hand in it, but looking at stats I am not sure there is enough there for you to make the argument that climate change has made what we are experiencing now "normal". Having one of the worst winters on record is not normal, nor is it fully the result of climate change. We literally had a fraction of an inch total. Philly went the entire month of Feb without any snow, that has never happened. I guess I just don't understand why you have an anti snow bias and try to paint snowless winters as normal. If we got 50 inches of snow this year, you'd be calling it essentially a once in a lifetime experience. So you should also be calling a winter where Philly got .3 inches of snow, essentially a once in a lifetime event. Because that's what it is.

There simply isn't enough people on here saying how horrible this winter was and when people do, its dismissed as "complaints" or "no actually this is normal".

Its not. Plain and simple.

[CAPE]

Roses are red. violets are blue

There is no such thing as normal

Especially when it comes to you

[psuhoffman]

5 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

I don't deny climate change has a hand in it, but looking at stats I am not sure there is enough there for you to make the argument that climate change has made what we are experiencing now "normal". Having one of the worst winters on record is not normal, nor is it fully the result of climate change. We literally had a fraction of an inch total. Philly went the entire month of Feb without any snow, that has never happened. I guess I just don't understand why you have an anti snow bias and try to paint snowless winters as normal. If we got 50 inches of snow this year, you'd be calling it essentially a once in a lifetime experience. So you should also be calling a winter where Philly got .3 inches of snow, essentially a once in a lifetime event. Because that's what it is.

There simply isn't enough people on here saying how horrible this winter was and when people do, its dismissed as "complaints" or "no actually this is normal".

Its not. Plain and simple.

As @C.A.P.E. said there is no "normal" for us.  Statistically normal is usually anything within a standard deviation.  I don't remember exactly what it came out too but I ran the numbers once and one standard deviation wrt snowfall here is useless.  Because our snowfall year to year is so varied it was something like anything between 1 and 40".  We have no "normal" snowfall distribution...we don't live somewhere that has a typical expected snowfall each year.  We can get 1" and 40" with about equal probabilities...and everything in between.  

WRT this current 4 year run...look if it makes you feel better to cling to the idea that it isnt normal and is the worst spit in our eye of mother nature fine.  I have no idea what that would make you feel any better.  But if you keep expecting things to be better than recent history and trends suggest its likely to be year to year...you are just going to keep being frustrated and disappointed most years.  

I have no idea if this is a more temporary climate cycle (some of it probably is wrt NAO) or a more permanent shift due to warming (some of it likely is) but the bottom line is there has been an observable change.  Nino years havent changed much.  We still average about 25" in a nino since 2000.  That was about the same before that.  Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino.  But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap.  We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year.  The other 12 were all some variation of garbage.  That didn't used to be the case.  Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past.  Not so anymore.  On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing.  

When you combine those FACTS it makes what is happening now totally expected and inevitable.  I don't know if this trend will continue but until it changes we should expect similar results.  Some good years surrounded by long stretches of really really bad is the new normal.  It's been that way and trending worse for over 20 years now.  For some reason you seem to want to set your expectations based on how things USED TO BE 50 years ago instead of what the evidence suggests is a reasonable expectation in our current climate cycle.  

 

[mappy]

hey guys, lets all be nice and get along. there have been some reports regarding this thread. TIA

[Maestrobjwa]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino.  But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap.  We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year.  The other 12 were all some variation of garbage.  That didn't used to be the case.  Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past.  Not so anymore.  On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing. 

If we are now at the point where neutral ensos are no longer 50/50 and more likely to be bad than good, and we can only score in ninos...that's a sad reality. Seeing as we may only get like what...1-2 ninos per decade? That would mean we'd only hit above average 2 out of 10 years. Man I hope that's not the reality we're looking at...(and why does it seem like ninas happen more times in a decade than ninos?)

[psuhoffman]

Too much bitter for some 

[RevWarReenactor]

5 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

As @C.A.P.E. said there is no "normal" for us.  Statistically normal is usually anything within a standard deviation.  I don't remember exactly what it came out too but I ran the numbers once and one standard deviation wrt snowfall here is useless.  Because our snowfall year to year is so varied it was something like anything between 1 and 40".  We have no "normal" snowfall distribution...we don't live somewhere that has a typical expected snowfall each year.  We can get 1" and 40" with about equal probabilities...and everything in between.  

WRT this current 4 year run...look if it makes you feel better to cling to the idea that it isnt normal and is the worst spit in our eye of mother nature fine.  I have no idea what that would make you feel any better.  But if you keep expecting things to be better than recent history and trends suggest its likely to be year to year...you are just going to keep being frustrated and disappointed most years.  

I have no idea if this is a more temporary climate cycle (some of it probably is wrt NAO) or a more permanent shift due to warming (some of it likely is) but the bottom line is there has been an observable change.  Nino years havent changed much.  We still average about 25" in a nino since 2000.  That was about the same before that.  Our chances of an above avg snow year are still good in a nino.  But since 2000 EVERYTHING else has been crap.  We have only had one good snowfall year since 2000 in a non nino year.  The other 12 were all some variation of garbage.  That didn't used to be the case.  Enso neutral years used to produce above avg snowfall years much more frequently in the past.  Not so anymore.  On top of that years with a crappy pattern are trending downwards in snowfall results likely due to warming eliminating some of the marginal fluke snowfalls that would get a year like 1989 or 1992 or 2002 to 5" instead of 1" or nothing.  

When you combine those FACTS it makes what is happening now totally expected and inevitable.  I don't know if this trend will continue but until it changes we should expect similar results.  Some good years surrounded by long stretches of really really bad is the new normal.  It's been that way and trending worse for over 20 years now.  For some reason you seem to want to set your expectations based on how things USED TO BE 50 years ago instead of what the evidence suggests is a reasonable expectation in our current climate cycle.  

 

 

I'd be curious to know which years since 2000, weren't NINO. Chances are there are some years where we did get snow. I find it hard to believe there isn't. I swear there was a NINA year where we got destroyed. 2002-2003??

Snow is an emotional thing for me, but its not about being mad at the atmosphere, its more about being mad at the mental gynmatics being done to try to justify a year where we got a fraction of an inch of snow as "normal". Even factoring in that years can be hit or miss here, even factoring in climate change, this stretch is not normal. It is a fluke not to luck into something. We got nothing this year. Literally nothing. Without question the worst year in my 38 years on this earth. Historically bad. Not normal. Thats really all I ask.

Crappy patterns can and often do produce results. Last year as an example. Actually pretty much any year. This year's pattern was horrendous, and it snowed 400 miles south of here. North Carolina, in a horrendous pattern;  got 5 inches of snow. Proof we can still luck into snow in a bad pattern, and often do. So I am not really even sure it was a pattern problem or a climate change issue. Its just historically horrible.

 

[psuhoffman]

20 minutes ago, RevWarReenactor said:

 

I'd be curious to know which years since 2000, weren't NINO. Chances are there are some years where we did get snow. I find it hard to believe there isn't. I swear there was a NINA year where we got destroyed. 2002-2003??

Snow is an emotional thing for me, but its not about being mad at the atmosphere, its more about being mad at the mental gynmatics being done to try to justify a year where we got a fraction of an inch of snow as "normal". Even factoring in that years can be hit or miss here, even factoring in climate change, this stretch is not normal. It is a fluke not to luck into something. We got nothing this year. Literally nothing. Without question the worst year in my 38 years on this earth. Historically bad. Not normal. Thats really all I ask.

Crappy patterns can and often do produce results. Last year as an example. Actually pretty much any year. This year's pattern was horrendous, and it snowed 400 miles south of here. North Carolina, in a horrendous pattern;  got 5 inches of snow. Proof we can still luck into snow in a bad pattern, and often do. So I am not really even sure it was a pattern problem or a climate change issue. Its just historically horrible.

 

Nino winters using January for the year

2003,2005,2007,2010,2015,2016,2019

nina years

2001,2006,2008,2009,2011,2012,2017,2018

neutral years

2002,2004,2013,2014,2020

Let me explain my rationale. This year has been awful.  It’s not normal.  But it is normal to get a year like this every 8 years or so.  This one ended up even worse then some similar comp years with a similar pattern like 1989, 2002, 2008 but only slightly because each of those years lucked into one storm and this year didn’t. But it ended up similar to some other years like 98, 73 or 52 that also ended up pretty snowless.  But these type years have been trending worse for a while.  2017 was another example where similar comp pattern years in the past might have produced 8” but recently that’s been trending down so the 3” result wasn’t shocking to me.  That this year ended up with almost nothing vs the 3-4” it might have produced in a similar year 30 years ago also doesn’t shock me.  That just seems to be the new normal now.  

But that doesn’t bother me that much because honestly would you feel better if we had eeked  our way to 5” from a couple minor slush events?  You know not, you complained non stop in years like that also.  So who cares if our awful years are 3” instead of 5” or 1” instead of 3” now.  The frequency of our “good winters” actually hasn’t changed and is still about 30%. Those are the only years you and most would be happy with the results anyways. The other 70% is some variation of suck that are mostly warm with little snow and most of that snow is flawed minor events that you toss and those years won’t make you happy whether the final total is 2” or 5” or 8”. 

So im not obsessing over the fact that in our typical run of 4 crap years we get every decade we end up with 27” total instead of the 32” we might have gotten 20 years ago.   That seems to be the expected result of the recent trends. 

Im not saying this is normal. I’m saying there is no normal but that this run doesn’t fall outside of an expected result to balance out the run of luck we had earlier in the decade. I never hear you complaining about how not normal it is when we get a lot of snow. 

[PrinceFrederickWx]

On 2/28/2020 at 6:22 PM, Yeoman said:

Based on a ridiculously small sample size of data considering the history of weather on this planet it's a worthless indicator, and is far more likely a coincidence than anything. 

It’s a bigger sample size than the mostly worthless indices you all track and it has a 100% correlation so far. I called for a shutout back in October in Weather53’s other thread anyway.

[RevWarReenactor]

12 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Nino winters using January for the year

2003,2005,2007,2010,2015,2016,2019

nina years

2001,2006,2008,2009,2011,2012,2017,2018

neutral years

2002,2004,2013,2014,2020

Let me explain my rationale. This year has been awful.  It’s not normal.  But it is normal to get a year like this every 8 years or so.  This one ended up even worse then some similar comp years with a similar pattern like 1989, 2002, 2008 but only slightly because each of those years lucked into one storm and this year didn’t. But it ended up similar to some other years like 98, 73 or 52 that also ended up pretty snowless.  But these type years have been trending worse for a while.  2017 was another example where similar comp pattern years in the past might have produced 8” but recently that’s been trending down so the 3” result wasn’t shocking to me.  That this year ended up with almost nothing vs the 3-4” it might have produced in a similar year 30 years ago also doesn’t shock me.  That just seems to be the new normal now.  

But that doesn’t bother me that much because honestly would you feel better if we had eeked  our way to 5” from a couple minor slush events?  You know not, you complained non stop in years like that also.  So who cares if our awful years are 3” instead of 5” or 1” instead of 3” now.  The frequency of our “good winters” actually hasn’t changed and is still about 30%. Those are the only years you and most would be happy with the results anyways. The other 70% is some variation of suck that are mostly warm with little snow and most of that snow is flawed minor events that you toss and those years won’t make you happy whether the final total is 2” or 5” or 8”. 

So im not obsessing over the fact that in our typical run of 4 crap years we get every decade we end up with 27” total instead of the 32” we might have gotten 20 years ago.   That seems to be the expected result of the recent trends. 

Im not saying this is normal. I’m saying there is no normal but that this run doesn’t fall outside of an expected result to balance out the run of luck we had earlier in the decade. I never hear you complaining about how not normal it is when we get a lot of snow. 

It looks like its been more of a problem in the last decade, and not the last 2 decades.

2006 was alright, 2008 was alright, 2009 was....well.....

2002 was great, 2004 was alright.

 

Its only in the last decade that its really been feast or famine. Is that proof that this is a trend? I don't know. Maybe you are right and we will continue to post less than 5 inch winters in anything other than a NINO winter, but that will be a huge drastic shift in just a decade, where prior to that other non NINOs were fair to decent.

If we get good winters 30% of the time, than the last 4 years is below average because statistically we were due for a good winter in that period, you could say we were balancing out for the previous years, but we had two other crap winters prior to that in the same decade. I will admit that some of the reason the last 4 years have been crappy is timing of snowfall. Last year actually was decent, but March snowfall was what made it that way. Same with the year before that. But it still doesn't change that the last 4 years are historically bad.

I think you are wrong about my views on snowfall; I can live with years with median snowfall. Again, last year was actually decent for me,  it just all fell as March meltathons. Same with the year prior. The year of the "Blizzard" sucked because it was all loaded into one storm, a storm that dry slotted my area. Timing of snow, combined with below average snowfall in general has made this a very miserable run.

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, RevWarReenactor said:

It looks like its been more of a problem in the last decade, and not the last 2 decades.

2006 was alright, 2008 was alright, 2009 was....well.....

2002 was great, 2004 was alright.

 

Its only in the last decade that its really been feast or famine. Is that proof that this is a trend? I don't know. Maybe you are right and we will continue to post less than 5 inch winters in anything other than a NINO winter, but that will be a huge drastic shift in just a decade, where prior to that other non NINOs were fair to decent.

If we get good winters 30% of the time, than the last 4 years is below average because statistically we were due for a good winter in that period, you could say we were balancing out for the previous years, but we had two other crap winters prior to that in the same decade. I will admit that some of the reason the last 4 years have been crappy is timing of snowfall. Last year actually was decent, but March snowfall was what made it that way. Same with the year before that. But it still doesn't change that the last 4 years are historically bad.

I think you are wrong about my views on snowfall; I can live with years with median snowfall. Again, last year was actually decent for me,  it just all fell as March meltathons. Same with the year prior. The year of the "Blizzard" sucked because it was all loaded into one storm, a storm that dry slotted my area. Timing of snow, combined with below average snowfall in general has made this a very miserable run.

First of all I hope you don't find this antagonistic.  I don't find any of this to be hostile.  We have different opinions but it's an interesting conversation that is all.  

It has been a crappy run for snow.  I am not happy with the results either.  But I am taking a purely statistics and probabilities side here.  In the last 10 years DCA had 4 years above average.  That still holds with the long term "normal" frequency.  Those years can sometimes come in chunks with long periods in between...that has always been the case.  There is a very random distribution to our big snowfall years.  You have to look at the frequency over longer periods of time when you have that kind of distribution to see real trends versus just random noise.  Like a coin flip.  You can get 5 heads in a row...and think that is a trend...but if you step back and look over 20 or 30 flips you are more likely to see it even out towards the 50/50 probability.  Over the long term the odds of a big snowfall year is about 30% and we will have runs of good or bad within but over the longer term it usually ends up evening out to about that 30% chance.  

 I am not trying to say its been a good run for snow.  Its been crappy.  But the problem is we live somewhere that crappy is kind of the normal base state most of the time.  I am just accepting that reality.  Not saying you should be happy about it.  

WRT your take on different years...and how snow comes.  Again you feel how you feel...no changing that, but what you describe...late snowfalls (or even mid winter ones) that melt right away...or turn to rain and get washed away...or imperfect storms that dry slot us...that describes A LOT of our snow.  If you start to toss years that got to a decent result but did it with "flawed" storms you end up making our already crappy climo even worse.  For instance if you remove the "good snow years" in DC where most of that snow came from one big storm OR most of that snow came late in the season then you end up tossing "good years" like 1960, 1972, 1983, 2000, 2015, 2016, 2019... take those away and now your probabilities of a "good year" go down to like 20% if not worse.  On top of that a lot of the "mediocre" years become awful if you toss one big storm years...like 2006, or years where most of the snow came from flawed melty storms or late season storms....like 2018.  Do that and now the chances of a total crap season goes up even more.  So I get why you don't "like" those storms as much...I just don't think you get how rare what you "want" really is.  How common has it been for us to get a winter where we get a lot of snow from multiple "cold" storms?  How many of those have happened in the last 30 years?  1996, 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015... is that it?  Am I missing any?  If not that is 5 times in 30 years... that's only 17% of the time.  You only have a 17% chance of getting that in any given year.  I am not saying that isn't what you should want...and I want that too...I just realize how rare that is around here.  

I also think you are mis remembering some years.

2002 DC only had 3.2".  It was 2003 that was great and that was a nino year.

2004 was only 12.5" so it was decent but not a "good" year, especially by your standards.  

2006 DC had 13.6" and most of it came from one storm that was a meltathon right after so doesn't that fall into the type of years you say you don't like?

2008 was only 4.9 all of it came from a clipper in early Dec and then two 1" slush storms.  I highly doubt you really thought that was "decent" at the time.  

2009 was 7.5" almost all from one storm in March that melted the next day.  So....

You are saying some of those werent that bad but they were every bit as bad as some of the years in the last 10 that you complained constantly that they sucked as they were happening.  They were all way worse than 2018 was in your location and you hated that year when it was actually happening.  I think time has a tendency to edit our memories.  15 years from now maybe all I will remember from this winter is that one good snowstorm I got in January and the day in the snow with my children and it won't seem as bad.  But the numbers don't lie.  

 

 

 

[Eskimo Joe]

We're the Mid Atlantic, that's what went wrong.

[RevWarReenactor]

22 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

First of all I hope you don't find this antagonistic.  I don't find any of this to be hostile.  We have different opinions but it's an interesting conversation that is all.  

It has been a crappy run for snow.  I am not happy with the results either.  But I am taking a purely statistics and probabilities side here.  In the last 10 years DCA had 4 years above average.  That still holds with the long term "normal" frequency.  Those years can sometimes come in chunks with long periods in between...that has always been the case.  There is a very random distribution to our big snowfall years.  You have to look at the frequency over longer periods of time when you have that kind of distribution to see real trends versus just random noise.  Like a coin flip.  You can get 5 heads in a row...and think that is a trend...but if you step back and look over 20 or 30 flips you are more likely to see it even out towards the 50/50 probability.  Over the long term the odds of a big snowfall year is about 30% and we will have runs of good or bad within but over the longer term it usually ends up evening out to about that 30% chance.  

 I am not trying to say its been a good run for snow.  Its been crappy.  But the problem is we live somewhere that crappy is kind of the normal base state most of the time.  I am just accepting that reality.  Not saying you should be happy about it.  

WRT your take on different years...and how snow comes.  Again you feel how you feel...no changing that, but what you describe...late snowfalls (or even mid winter ones) that melt right away...or turn to rain and get washed away...or imperfect storms that dry slot us...that describes A LOT of our snow.  If you start to toss years that got to a decent result but did it with "flawed" storms you end up making our already crappy climo even worse.  For instance if you remove the "good snow years" in DC where most of that snow came from one big storm OR most of that snow came late in the season then you end up tossing "good years" like 1960, 1972, 1983, 2000, 2015, 2016, 2019... take those away and now your probabilities of a "good year" go down to like 20% if not worse.  On top of that a lot of the "mediocre" years become awful if you toss one big storm years...like 2006, or years where most of the snow came from flawed melty storms or late season storms....like 2018.  Do that and now the chances of a total crap season goes up even more.  So I get why you don't "like" those storms as much...I just don't think you get how rare what you "want" really is.  How common has it been for us to get a winter where we get a lot of snow from multiple "cold" storms?  How many of those have happened in the last 30 years?  1996, 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015... is that it?  Am I missing any?  If not that is 5 times in 30 years... that's only 17% of the time.  You only have a 17% chance of getting that in any given year.  I am not saying that isn't what you should want...and I want that too...I just realize how rare that is around here.  

I also think you are mis remembering some years.

2002 DC only had 3.2".  It was 2003 that was great and that was a nino year.

2004 was only 12.5" so it was decent but not a "good" year, especially by your standards.  

2006 DC had 13.6" and most of it came from one storm that was a meltathon right after so doesn't that fall into the type of years you say you don't like?

2008 was only 4.9 all of it came from a clipper in early Dec and then two 1" slush storms.  I highly doubt you really thought that was "decent" at the time.  

2009 was 7.5" almost all from one storm in March that melted the next day.  So....

You are saying some of those werent that bad but they were every bit as bad as some of the years in the last 10 that you complained constantly that they sucked as they were happening.  They were all way worse than 2018 was in your location and you hated that year when it was actually happening.  I think time has a tendency to edit our memories.  15 years from now maybe all I will remember from this winter is that one good snowstorm I got in January and the day in the snow with my children and it won't seem as bad.  But the numbers don't lie.  

 

 

 

 

Okay, thanks, I think I am better understanding things and I appreciate you explaining it.

I think maybe part of the problem here, is that I lived on the Jersey shore until 2010. I always thought DC and Jersey shore were pretty well balanced in terms of what they would expect with snowfall. In fact, I've been told as much. But its seems to be very far from the case. As I stated before, I am about 80 miles west of Atlantic City, which you think would make a difference in snowfall. It doesn't.

So maybe part of this is me trying to adjust to the lie, that the west component makes up for the southern component. It doesn't. Might as well consider myself 120 miles due south of where I once lived.

I think as far as DC goes, I thought they got more snow. Maybe I was partially tricked by the 2009 season where they got blasted while up at the Jersey shore we watched. Or Jan 2000 where we did well, but DC did better. I thought that southern slider thing benefitted DC often. It doesn't. In fact, in terms of snowfall, nothing seems to benefit us. its too far south, too far north, too warm, too cold. Its rarely ever right. DC is Cape May NJ.

With that said, I will concede that my expectations are wrong, but they are justified in being wrong because of lies that were told about the climo here. Because from the Jersey shore perspective, 2000-2010 wasn't as bad as depicted above. We had misses, we had bad years, but we had storms too. Storms that I had assumed DC also benefitted from. But it didn't As an example in 2006 we got about a foot from that mini Blizzard, DC got 5.9 inches? LOL geez. Even 2001-2002 featured a 4 inch snow in January. DC didn't get that one either. 2006-2007 we had a decent amount of snowfall and a really neat ice storm or two. DC didn't get that either.

The climo isn't the same. Its messing with my thinking. I just need to get out of this area I guess.

 

I am actually okay with imperfect stuff, but the last 4+ years has all been imperfect, which has made things seems worse than they've actually been. Again, last year winter was actually decent. But it was decent in March. No matter how decent that is, it won't feel decent when you virtually shutout January and Feb, something we've been quite good at doing here for quite a few years.

 

[psuhoffman]

@RevWarReenactor they might not have "lied" to you, simply fallen to a common misconception.   West can help wrt snowfall...but only if you get far enough west to enter another climate zone.  The reason west helps is because of the contour of the elevation zones in the mid atlantic.  If you go far enough west you get out of the coastal plain and into the Piedmont.  Go far enough west and you get out of the Piedmont and into the mountains.  With each elevation increase you enter a better climate zone for snowfall.  But within each zone...north/south matters more than east/west.  You can see that with these snowfall maps here...I continued the approximate contours from the NJ map to help show how once you hit the fall line...snowfall totals turn southwest due to the climate zone change...but within the coastal plain the contours run more west to east.  You can see on the Maryland snowfall map how there is a tight gradient along the fall line.  Had you moved 15 miles further northwest THEN you would have seen a dramatic change in your snowfall.  But moving east and west within the coastal plain won't make much difference.  

 

Within each climate zone local meso scale terrain features like ridges and water matter more.  So being right along the immediate coast...like on the barrier islands...will get less snow than 10 miles inland.  But once inland a little snowfall won't usually change much going another 10 miles east or west.  Someone right along the Delaware river will get less snow than someone 250 feet higher up in South Jersey for instance.  Look at where you are on that MD map...you had the misfortune of moving into a local snowfall minimum also...a region that is between the Chesapeake bay and Delaware river...at very low elevation.  Warmth floods up the bay and river.... you have a downsloping wind from every direction...and a wind off water from many directions.  You are in a bad local area also.  When I moved from southern NJ to northern VA I did see an increase in snow...but only because I went from the coastal plain to the Piedmont.  Had I moved somewhere 15 miles further southeast in VA I would have actually gotten less snow than where I used to live southeast of Philly.  Elevation is the reason going west helps...but if you go west and do NOT increase your elevation...you really aren't doing yourself any good.  And if you go west and put yourself into a local snow hole due to terrain features you can even get less.  I get way more snow than places west of me in the valley there.  

Hope this helps explain the real phenomenon you are describing.  

[RevWarReenactor]

2 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

@RevWarReenactor they might not have "lied" to you, simply fallen to a common misconception.   West can help wrt snowfall...but only if you get far enough west to enter another climate zone.  The reason west helps is because of the contour of the elevation zones in the mid atlantic.  If you go far enough west you get out of the coastal plain and into the Piedmont.  Go far enough west and you get out of the Piedmont and into the mountains.  With each elevation increase you enter a better climate zone for snowfall.  But within each zone...north/south matters more than east/west.  You can see that with these snowfall maps here...I continued the approximate contours from the NJ map to help show how once you hit the fall line...snowfall totals turn southwest due to the climate zone change...but within the coastal plain the contours run more west to east.  You can see on the Maryland snowfall map how there is a tight gradient along the fall line.  Had you moved 15 miles further northwest THEN you would have seen a dramatic change in your snowfall.  But moving east and west within the coastal plain won't make much difference.  

 

Within each climate zone local meso scale terrain features like ridges and water matter more.  So being right along the immediate coast...like on the barrier islands...will get less snow than 10 miles inland.  But once inland a little snowfall won't usually change much going another 10 miles east or west.  Someone right along the Delaware river will get less snow than someone 250 feet higher up in South Jersey for instance.  Look at where you are on that MD map...you had the misfortune of moving into a local snowfall minimum also...a region that is between the Chesapeake bay and Delaware river...at very low elevation.  Warmth floods up the bay and river.... you have a downsloping wind from every direction...and a wind off water from many directions.  You are in a bad local area also.  When I moved from southern NJ to northern VA I did see an increase in snow...but only because I went from the coastal plain to the Piedmont.  Had I moved somewhere 15 miles further southeast in VA I would have actually gotten less snow than where I used to live southeast of Philly.  Elevation is the reason going west helps...but if you go west and do NOT increase your elevation...you really aren't doing yourself any good.  And if you go west and put yourself into a local snow hole due to terrain features you can even get less.  I get way more snow than places west of me in the valley there.  

Hope this helps explain the real phenomenon you are describing.  

Thanks for the explanation. I think this kind of explains why my expectations are out of wack.

I actually went from a seasonal average of 24-27 inches, to one of 10-15 inches, at least according to that map,  when this whole time, I thought it was pretty balanced from where I use to live. But its very depressing to see, that its actually a significant difference.

I figured moving west negated the move south, at least some, but it actually doesn't, at all. That is depressing. I figured living 15 miles from a bay wouldn't actually be anywhere near as bad as living 5 miles from an entire ocean. Wrong again.

I guess I just didn't research this enough and I actually did kind of research it from a meteorological perspective before I bought. I figured I am in Northern Delaware, and Delaware gets decent snow, but being in northern Delaware makes no difference. Being 80 miles west of AC makes no difference, being 80 miles northwest of Cape May, again, no difference. I am only 40 miles southwest of Philly and they do good, not NYC good, but Jersey shore good. It doesn't matter.

I didn't factor in elevation having as big of an impact. But in fact, elevation is basically.....everything here. So I guess I only have myself to blame.

But I appreciate the explanation! I guess we kind of cracked the mystery as to why I am so perplexed by this lack of snow. I get the same snowfall as Lewes Delaware, 100 miles due south. LOL

[CAPE]

2 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

Thanks for the explanation. I think this kind of explains why my expectations are out of wack.

I actually went from a seasonal average of 24-27 inches, to one of 10-15 inches, at least according to that map,  when this whole time, I thought it was pretty balanced from where I use to live. But its very depressing to see, that its actually a significant difference.

I figured moving west negated the move south, at least some, but it actually doesn't, at all. That is depressing. I figured living 15 miles from a bay wouldn't actually be anywhere near as bad as living 5 miles from an entire ocean. Wrong again.

I guess I just didn't research this enough and I actually did kind of research it from a meteorological perspective before I bought. I figured I am in Northern Delaware, and Delaware gets decent snow, but being in northern Delaware makes no difference. Being 80 miles west of AC makes no difference, being 80 miles northwest of Cape May, again, no difference. I am only 40 miles southwest of Philly and they do good, not NYC good, but Jersey shore good. It doesn't matter.

I didn't factor in elevation having as big of an impact. But in fact, elevation is basically.....everything here. So I guess I only have myself to blame.

But I appreciate the explanation! I guess we kind of cracked the mystery as to why I am so perplexed by this lack of snow. I get the same snowfall as Lewes Delaware, 100 miles due south. LOL

That MD/DE map has some flaws in it. While interior and upper portions of the Delmarva away from the coast(and not close to either bay) tend to get more snow locally- 18" or so is about right- places right along the coast are too high on that map. More like 10-12" along the immediate coast,  including Lewes. Also that area in NE MD near the bay is exaggerated way too low imo. Easton does not average more snow than Elkton. 

[RevWarReenactor]

3 hours ago, C.A.P.E. said:

That MD/DE map has some flaws in it. While interior and upper portions of the Delmarva away from the coast(and not close to either bay) tend to get more snow locally- 18" or so is about right- places right along the coast are too high on that map. More like 10-12" along the immediate coast,  including Lewes. Also that area in NE MD near the bay is exaggerated way too low imo. Easton does not average more snow than Elkton. 

Thanks. Thats right where I am near that Elkton spot, so thats good to know. I was going to say, I can't imagine the Elk River having that much of an impact....there isn't much to it.

[psuhoffman]

14 minutes ago, RevWarReenactor said:

Thanks. Thats right where I am near that Elkton spot, so thats good to know. I was going to say, I can't imagine the Elk River having that much of an impact....there isn't much to it.

I think the coop they used there is right on the bay so it skews low. 

[RevWarReenactor]

6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

I think the coop they used there is right on the bay so it skews low. 

Okay, thanks. I definitely don't get the full effects of either bay. During one of March metlathons in 2018, Havre De Grace had nothing but white rain, and as I drove northeast up route 40 to my house, we managed 2-3 inches from the same storm. It was completely a bay related issue in HDG.