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January 2023 Mid-Long Range Disco


nj2va
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1 minute ago, WesternFringe said:

You are kind of proving my point by looking so intensively at the last 30 years as if they represent the data set on whole.  A running 10 to 20 year data set?  It is almost like you want to massage your numbers to show a point.  What is wrong with 136 yrs of  data points unless it doesn’t show what you want it to show? Lol

The problem has nothing to with the number of years/sample size.  The issue is you aren't looking at what I am talking about.  I am talking about how DC is getting more single digit snowfall seasons than before and you are looking at a mean which can be skewed by a minority of seasons to hide that phenomenon.  We are two ships passing in the night.  Neither of us is refuting the other...we are simply focusing on two completely different phenomenons. 

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25 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

We can suck with annual snowfall.  And we can suck with almost no snowfall some years.  But no one has shown me statistically that we are sucking more than we used to suck.  We have always sucked.  Prove me wrong, with stats.  Tired of hearing the negative Nancies.

I grew up in upstate NY where we averaged 65+”

ETA:  love Bob Chill, bc he is always grounded

I'll take the challenge.  My choices would make a stats professor cringe, but they crudely get the point across.

Using daily data from DCA (downloaded from the Utah St. site), I calculated calendar year snowfall totals.  I know the monthly and winter totals are available at LWX's site, but the use of daily snowfall lets us look a little more in depth.  We actually have 139 years of data, which divides nicely into 4 quartiles of 35, 35, 35, 34.

Across the board, the stats have fallen off.  

Calendar Year Average Median Years w/4" days Years with 6" days
1884-1918 22.8 23.4 29 14
1919-1953 16.3 14.9 27 16
1954-1988 18.5 14.7 25 14
1989-2022 13.3 10.5 17 12

And if you take a 5-yr running mean, and apply a basic trendline to that, woof.  The trend is less steep if you remove the pre-airport location data (~1950), but it is still there.  

Picture1.thumb.png.572332a805b2978fe2893d99758dc35f.png

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5 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The problem has nothing to with the number of years/sample size.  The issue is you aren't looking at what I am talking about.  I am talking about how DC is getting more single digit snowfall seasons than before and you are looking at a mean which can be skewed by a minority of seasons to hide that phenomenon.  We are two ships passing in the night.  Neither of us is refuting the other...we are simply focusing on two completely different phenomenons. 

You haven’t shown me data that single digit DCA snowfall is new a phenomenon that didn’t exist before close to 1888.  I am all ears.

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4 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

I'll take the challenge.  My choices would make a stats professor cringe, but they crudely get the point across.

Using daily data from DCA (downloaded from the Utah St. site), I calculated calendar year snowfall totals.  I know the monthly and winter totals are available at LWX's site, but the use of daily snowfall lets us look a little more in depth.  We actually have 139 years of data, which divides nicely into 4 quartiles of 35, 35, 35, 34.

Across the board, the stats have fallen off.  

Calendar Year Average Median Years w/4" days Years with 6" days
1884-1918 22.8 23.4 29 14
1919-1953 16.3 14.9 27 16
1954-1988 18.5 14.7 25 14
1989-2022 13.3 10.5 17 12

And if you take a 5-yr running mean, and apply a basic trendline to that, woof.  The trend is less steep if you remove the pre-airport location data (~1950), but it is still there.  

Picture1.thumb.png.572332a805b2978fe2893d99758dc35f.png

9525E45E-31DA-4A96-A440-E4CA0C33BF8D.png.74ad34acda562656a0b00a8adaea9ab7.png

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3 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

I'll take the challenge.  My choices would make a stats professor cringe, but they crudely get the point across.

Using daily data from DCA (downloaded from the Utah St. site), I calculated calendar year snowfall totals.  I know the monthly and winter totals are available at LWX's site, but the use of daily snowfall lets us look a little more in depth.  We actually have 139 years of data, which divides nicely into 4 quartiles of 35, 35, 35, 34.

Across the board, the stats have fallen off.  

Calendar Year Average Median Years w/4" days Years with 6" days
1884-1918 22.8 23.4 29 14
1919-1953 16.3 14.9 27 16
1954-1988 18.5 14.7 25 14
1989-2022 13.3 10.5 17 12

And if you take a 5-yr running mean, and apply a basic trendline to that, woof.  The trend is less steep if you remove the pre-airport location data (~1950), but it is still there.  

Picture1.thumb.png.572332a805b2978fe2893d99758dc35f.png

So low amounts of single digit snowfall  are common.  Got it.

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Even without doing any math...all ya gotta do is eyeball the snow totals from 1940 onward. Prior to the 90s, you'd never see anymore than 1 or 2 single digit snowfalls at BWI in a decade. But then ya get to the 90s...you have 4. The 00s you had 4. And the 2010s you had 4! So yeah...feels like we've been suffering from this for awhile...with a memory skewed by the big snows, lol

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8 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

I'll take the challenge.  My choices would make a stats professor cringe, but they crudely get the point across.

Using daily data from DCA (downloaded from the Utah St. site), I calculated calendar year snowfall totals.  I know the monthly and winter totals are available at LWX's site, but the use of daily snowfall lets us look a little more in depth.  We actually have 139 years of data, which divides nicely into 4 quartiles of 35, 35, 35, 34.

Across the board, the stats have fallen off.  

Calendar Year Average Median Years w/4" days Years with 6" days
1884-1918 22.8 23.4 29 14
1919-1953 16.3 14.9 27 16
1954-1988 18.5 14.7 25 14
1989-2022 13.3 10.5 17 12

And if you take a 5-yr running mean, and apply a basic trendline to that, woof.  The trend is less steep if you remove the pre-airport location data (~1950), but it is still there.  

Picture1.thumb.png.572332a805b2978fe2893d99758dc35f.png

For us Baltimore folks...do ya have one for BWI?

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10 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

You haven’t shown me data that single digit DCA snowfall is new a phenomenon that didn’t exist before close to 1888.  I am all ears.

Seriously?   All you have to do is look at the DC snowfall data.  From 1888 to 2000 a single digit snowfall season was fairly rare, then suddenly they are happening more often than not.  You want me to waste time throwing that into chart just to prove what you can see from a 10 second look at the data? 

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9 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Seriously?   All you have to do is look at the DC snowfall data.  From 1888 to 2000 a single digit snowfall season was fairly rare, then suddenly they are happening more often than not.  You want me to waste time throwing that into chart just to prove what you can see from a 10 second look at the chart? 

I'm sure there's some denial here...and I totally get it. Nobody here likes to see these stats....but I mean, you can't dispute the incremental drop in average. Like I said, we had 3 consecutive decades have 4 single digit snow seasons...I mean that's the simplest way to see it. I mean yeah it's depressing, but what can ya do?

All the more reason to enjoy the heck out of the big ones (and DON'T complain when we get them)

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24 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

The problem has nothing to with the number of years/sample size.  The issue is you aren't looking at what I am talking about.  I am talking about how DC is getting more single digit snowfall seasons than before and you are looking at a mean which can be skewed by a minority of seasons to hide that phenomenon.  We are two ships passing in the night.  Neither of us is refuting the other...we are simply focusing on two completely different phenomenons. 

I guess, man.  You can keep talking about how 2 and 3 and 4 don’t represent a data  set that averages 22, but that doesn’t make it true.

The mean, or average, of 135 data points, is generalizable.  And represents the population as a whole.  Generally speaking, 

ETA:  we are getting more snow per year than when compared to the 1980s

etaa: it doesn’t matter whether you like it or agreee, DCA is getting more annual snow now then they were in 1984

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3 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

I guess, man.  You can keep talking about how 2 and 3 and 4 don’t represent a data  set that averages 22, but that doesn’t make it true.

The mean, or average, of 135 data points, is generalizable.  And represents the population as a whole.  Generally speaking, 

ETA:  we are getting more snow per year than when compared to the 1960s

I'm confused.  The 1960s were excellent for snowfall.  Remember that these are calendar years, not winter.

1960 33.0
1961 34.1
1962 28.7
1963 11.6
1964 27.9
1965 16.6
1966 44.3
1967 34.2
1968 8.2
1969 15.9

 

2013 4.4
2014 30.5
2015 18.3
2016 22.2
2017 5.3
2018 7.3
2019 15.9
2020 0.2
2021 5.4
2022 13.2

 

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2 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

I'm confused.  The 1960s were excellent for snowfall.  Remember that these are calendar years, not winter.

1960 33.0
1961 34.1
1962 28.7
1963 11.6
1964 27.9
1965 16.6
1966 44.3
1967 34.2
1968 8.2
1969 15.9

 

2013 4.4
2014 30.5
2015 18.3
2016 22.2
2017 5.3
2018 7.3
2019 15.9
2020 0.2
2021 5.4
2022 13.2

 

My analysis was from 1980s, not 1960s.  I edited. 

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4 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

I'm confused.  The 1960s were excellent for snowfall.  Remember that these are calendar years, not winter.

1960 33.0
1961 34.1
1962 28.7
1963 11.6
1964 27.9
1965 16.6
1966 44.3
1967 34.2
1968 8.2
1969 15.9

 

2013 4.4
2014 30.5
2015 18.3
2016 22.2
2017 5.3
2018 7.3
2019 15.9
2020 0.2
2021 5.4
2022 13.2

 

So, less snowfall in 20teens than 1960s.  N = 2

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5 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

This chart might get to what WesternFringe is trying to say.  If you take a centered 9 year running mean, the "worst" periods over that kind of timescale aren't getting worse.  We are still pulling off enough of the 2003s, 2010s, 2014s and 2016s to balance it out.

 

1945518315_dca9yr.thumb.png.d81c3ad9fb2d36b7673db87504587111.png

 

 

Yes, other than panic jumping like Ji, or mansplaining/panicking like PSU, I haven’t seen the data showing we have less snow than the 1880s.  Prove me wrong.

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8 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

This chart might get to what WesternFringe is trying to say.  If you take a centered 9 year running mean, the "worst" periods over that kind of timescale aren't getting worse.  We are still pulling off enough of the 2003s, 2010s, 2014s and 2016s to balance it out.

 

1945518315_dca9yr.thumb.png.d81c3ad9fb2d36b7673db87504587111.png

 

 

It's becoming clear that we're either a "feast or famine" snow climo now. Very few "normal" winters.

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34 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

I guess, man.  You can keep talking about how 2 and 3 and 4 don’t represent a data  set that averages 22, but that doesn’t make it true.

The mean, or average, of 135 data points, is generalizable.  And represents the population as a whole.  Generally speaking, 

ETA:  we are getting more snow per year than when compared to the 1980s

etaa: it doesn’t matter whether you like it or agreee, DCA is getting more annual snow now then they were in 1984

You’re all over the place.

1) Earlier you said “10 years isn’t a big enough sample” and now you’re basing this analysis on 10 years. 
 

2) 1980s avg DC snow 17.1” Median 17.8 with 3 single digit seasons

Most recent 10 years avg DV snow 12.3” median 10.5 with 5 single digit seasons.

By what metric were you saying the 80s were worse???

 

3) If what you mean is you’re comparing 1980s to 2010s then you are still dealing with the 10 year sample size issue, but then my point why I don’t care about the mean cones up.  Yes the 1980s (which you cherry picked because they were a previous snow minimum) mean was slightly lower at 17.1 to 17.2.  But the 2010s were severely skewed by 2010 and 2014.  But the median and single digit snowfalls tell the story.  The median snow in the 2010s was only 13.5” compared to 17.8” in the 1980s.  There were 4 single digit seasons compared to 3 in the 80s.  So even cherry picking the previously worse minimum period and comparing to the 2010s which included 2 extremely anomalous snowy winters…the odds of less snow in any given season were still higher in the 2010s compared to the 1980s which is what I’m talking about.  
 

I don’t care about the rare once in 9 years huge seasons that skew and inflate the mean.  I’m talking about the fact that in any given season the odds of DC getting less snow (or a single digit season to make the concept simple) is going up and that’s a fact no matter how you try to slice up the data.  

 

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10 minutes ago, WesternFringe said:

Yes, other than panic jumping like Ji, or mansplaining/panicking like PSU, I haven’t seen the data showing we have less snow than the 1880s.  Prove me wrong.

That's a bit of a disingenuous statement because we simply don't have full DC-area data for the entire 1880s.  What I can say is that using the daily data, the average for the five-year period from 1885-1889 was 18.3".  That is higher than any 5-year period in present day going back until 1988.  The latest 5-year average is 8.4".

 

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