The “is it ever going to snow again” discussion.

[snowfan]

Why was this thread needed when we already have banter, panic room, and futility threads? 

[RevWarReenactor]

2 hours ago, snowfan said:

Why was this thread needed when we already have banter, panic room, and futility threads? 

Banter doesn't discuss weather. No one goes in the panic room or futility threads.

Honestly, there is not a good dedicated weather banter thread. Hence why it ends up in the model discussion threads.

[RevWarReenactor]

Anyway, I finally reached the acceptance stage of my grief. This year I am not even tracking snow for this area. I track for anywhere within a 300 mile drive and book my trip accordingly.

 

Had a great last few days in upstate NY. Drove into some areas that got 7 inches. It was beautiful. Highly recommended. I will go back up there if any of the upcoming storms show promise.

 

 

 

 

[RevWarReenactor]

How did I manage to spell American wrong? Geez. I must have been so excited at seeing my first bit of snow cover for the year.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

We’ll get our first (and only) event this year in the second half of March, amidst all the hand-wringing over sun angle and slop accumulation. Remember this post- I make forecasts YOU can trust. 

[nj2va]

4 hours ago, snowfan said:

Why was this thread needed when we already have banter, panic room, and futility threads? 

Some people just like to hear themselves talk

[psuhoffman]

9 hours ago, snowfan said:

Why was this thread needed when we already have banter, panic room, and futility threads? 

Banter isn’t for weather. The originator of the futility thread requested we not do it there. I created a place to contain this conversation so anyone that doesn’t like it can completely avoid it if they want. Those that want to discuss this can do so without annoying anyone else.    Anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to click on this thread!  

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

8 hours ago, RevWarReenactor said:

How did I manage to spell American wrong? Geez. I must have been so excited at seeing my first bit of snow cover for the year.

Why do you hate America?!  Might have to revoke your Revolutionary War status and pay fealty to the British crown! 

(all in jest here, of course!)

[fujiwara79]

"The law of averages" is a completely man-made construct that has no basis in reality.  So many gamblers have become homeless believing that fallacy.

[WxUSAF]

Fuck you gfs 

 

[Jebman]

On 1/15/2023 at 9:24 AM, RevWarReenactor said:

Anyway, I finally reached the acceptance stage of my grief. This year I am not even tracking snow for this area. I track for anywhere within a 300 mile drive and book my trip accordingly.

 

Had a great last few days in upstate NY. Drove into some areas that got 7 inches. It was beautiful. Highly recommended. I will go back up there if any of the upcoming storms show promise.

 

 

 

 

You want snow? GO WEST, young man, to ALTA SKI RESORT! https://www.alta.com/stories/rolling-in-the-deep

[psuhoffman]

@Maestrobjwa I can't answer your question.  It's hard to say exactly how much the base state has degraded.  It's hard to know what a couple degrees would do.  It's not as simply as "its 42 and rain so it would be 39 and rain".  Changing the equation some could cause the storm to transfer to the coast sooner moving the whole boundary hundreds of miles after.  A storm might not develop at all if its a little colder and the boundary doesn't have enough baroclinic instability to initiate the development.  This isn't the best example of warming hurting our climo though.  We always struggled to get snow from progressive wave patterns.  It takes perfect timing for that to work here.  The problem I have been alluding to is that recently what used to be a better way for us to get snow in marginal temperature regimes has been failing consistently because marginal temp profiles are now just flat torches.  So now we are actually rooting for a pattern that frankly isn't really historically the best way to get a lot of snow here.  But it's also a colder pattern and not a total no hope shutout one so people are rooting for this just to have a chance to get some snow.  That's my take on all this.  

[RevWarReenactor]

Screw mid atlantic winters.

Setting up a chase into either upstate NY or Vermont to hit both the weekend storm and nexts weeks. Snow on snow. So exciting.

I am so over things down here. I can't imagine not having the chase option and having to deal with this.

[psuhoffman]

30 minutes ago, CAPE said:

Tough set up for the lowlands with that high off the coast and marginal airmass. Try to locate a wind barb with a northerly component at any level. 

Yea this isn’t the best example but on the other hand it has been possible to get some snow from a flawed marginal airmass. I saw plenty of them. Most aren’t storms we cite. Some 2.7” slop fest in an otherwise bad period isn’t something most remember usually.  But they filled up our records and made a total shutout year a 8” year or a 5” year a 12” year or a 12” year a 20” year imo. 
 

There is no one example that’s proof. But I think the accumulation is. The fact we’ve had several “everything went 100% perfectly and it still was just too warm” examples recently. The Super Bowl storm in 2021 was the worst. Prime climo.  Wasn’t a horrible airmass. I mean it was but it shouldn’t have been it was a mix of cp and Mp not pure pac. Storm took a perfect track. And 95 just got rain.  Over the years we are consistently underperforming the analogs too. 
 

This year our top analogs to various patterns have been bad. But not total shutout bad. At various times 1985, 1998, 1954, 1991 and 2005/6 were top analogs.  But the periods each of those years cited produced some snow. Nothing epic but a lot of 1-3” type snows near the analog dates. Even 98 didn’t snow in DC but it did in the area.  Up here has 15” by now in 1998. IAD had like 5” by now. Yes the analogs say this year should be bad. But not this bad. What used to be low snow patterns are now no snow patterns. That’s what the analogs keep saying recently. 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

It's just too warm!  I barely even need anything other than a light jacket anymore.  My gloves and hat rarely make it out the door.  It's undeniable.

[CAPE]

8 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Yea this isn’t the best example but on the other hand it has been possible to get some snow from a flawed marginal airmass. I saw plenty of them. Most aren’t storms we cite. Some 2.7” slop fest in an otherwise bad period isn’t something most remember usually.  But they filled up our records and made a total shutout year a 8” year or a 5” year a 12” year or a 12” year a 20” year imo. 
 

There is no one example that’s proof. But I think the accumulation is. The fact we’ve had several “everything went 100% perfectly and it still was just too warm” examples recently. The Super Bowl storm in 2021 was the worst. Prime climo.  Wasn’t a horrible airmass. I mean it was but it shouldn’t have been it was a mix of cp and Mp not pure pac. Storm took a perfect track. And 95 just got rain.  Over the years we are consistently underperforming the analogs too. 
 

This year our top analogs to various patterns have been bad. But not total shutout bad. At various times 1985, 1998, 1954, 1991 and 2005/6 were top analogs.  But the periods each of those years cited produced some snow. Nothing epic but a lot of 1-3” type snows near the analog dates. Even 98 didn’t snow in DC but it did in the area.  Up here has 15” by now in 1998. IAD had like 5” by now. Yes the analogs say this year should be bad. But not this bad. What used to be low snow patterns are now no snow patterns. That’s what the analogs keep saying recently. 

I get it but is has snowed in recent winters with marginal airmasses. We still need some semblance of a favorable look to our north in those cases to encourage a good track, along with a decently strong low. March 2018 is an example- good setup, decent cold in place. The winter of 20-21 (where the the temp never got below 20), the few light to moderate events here that were snow featured temps right around freezing or slightly above, but the synoptic setup was pretty good, and at least one of those was quite dynamic with banding and heavy snow that cooled the marginal surface. In this case the actual cold air/thermal boundary is still to our west/northwest and there isn't a reliable mechanism for confluence up top to get a meaningful high in a good spot for CAD. Transient lows moving through the 50-50 space in a progressive flow regime are just a crapshoot. So we mostly get ridging out in front with a weak high sliding off. That has rarely worked(here) without an antecedent Arctic airmass.

[psuhoffman]

49 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I get it but is has snowed in recent winters with marginal airmasses. We still need some semblance of a favorable look to our north in those cases to encourage a good track, along with a decently strong low. March 2018 is an example- good setup, decent cold in place. The winter of 20-21 (where the the temp never got below 20), the few light to moderate events here that were snow featured temps right around freezing or slightly above, but the synoptic setup was pretty good, and at least one of those was quite dynamic with banding and heavy snow that cooled the marginal surface. In this case the actual cold air/thermal boundary is still to our west/northwest and there isn't a reliable mechanism for confluence up top to get a meaningful high in a good spot for CAD. Transient lows moving through the 50-50 space in a progressive flow regime are just a crapshoot. So we mostly get ridging out in front with a weak high sliding off. That has rarely worked(here) without an antecedent Arctic airmass.

I suspect we aren’t actually far apart here just focused on different things. I know it can still snow in a good pattern with a good antecedent airmass and a good individual synoptic setup.  I don’t think we’re losing big storms. A setup that would have been a mecs or hecs will probably still produce the same result Imo.  A setup that would have been a cold smoke wave will still snow. We agree on that. 
 

What I’m talking about is what used to be a bad pattern that might produce 2” (or sometimes even more) from a flawed setup is now often a total shutout.  We used to get a lot of small to sometimes moderate snows from a crappy pattern/airmass but a lucky fluke good synoptic setup within that larger crap pattern.  
 

Let me illustrate what I mean. One of the best examples of what I’m talking about Imo was a storm in 1997. All of North America was flooded with MP +5 or more anomaly air.  But a temporary Hudson high caused a system from the SW to slide across under instead of cutting like every other wave in that pattern and we got a 3-6” snowstorm across the area.   I think it was 3” at DCA and 6” at IAD. 
 

Look at that h5 for the week leading up to that snow.  The airmass was garbage. It was 60 and 50 a couple days before and 40ish the day after even with snow cover.  The snow fell at 32-34 degrees.  What I’m saying is there is no way on gods green earth that pattern produces a 3-6” snowstorm anymore. That look now isn’t just hostile it’s a downright torch and we would by way too warm.  And people would be saying “but the antecedent airmass was warm and the pattern isn’t good”. But that didn’t used to be an automatic death-knell to snow. We used to be able to get SOME snow from a bad pattern if we got lucky. That’s the best example because we remember a 6” snow. What was more common was a 1-3” slop event.  And getting those in bad patterns was why Baltimore used to rarely have a single digit snow season and now they happen 50% of the time. Or why Baltimore used to have a 50/50 shot at 20” and now it’s like a 20% chance. 
 

Our good patterns are still good. But our bad patterns are now no hope shit the blinds forget about it torches!  

[psuhoffman]

40 minutes ago, jayyy said:

My area and your area? Or Baltimore and DC? Because I feel like there’s a massive difference between our areas and the metro 95 corridor when it comes to December snow. I may be mistaken, but even in NYC, the immediate coast / 95 corridor struggles in December versus places 30-50+ miles inland. Can recall a good number of December storms where we got snow / mix in the lower Hudson valley (2-4/3-6” type storms) and they’d get rain SE of the NYS thruway (87/287 tends to be the fall line up there) Can also recall a few biggies where we saw a foot and they saw zilch. The Atlantic is just such a snow-killer that early on in the season.

Even if all things line up correctly, getting a 2-4” storm or two in December still feels like a tough battle. Being near the coast is just a tough place to be for December snowfall. It’s just so hard to avoid that SE component, especially during storms that track close to the coast. The few metro December snows I remember in NYC were either clippers that dragged the boundary way south by tracking off the central NJ coast or coastal scrapers, which took a more offshore track but close enough to throw precip back into the area.

I'll just post the data for Baltimore and you can decide for yourself.

This is snowfall before Jan 1 by season and a linear prediction line showing based on the data how much snow is most likely each year.  The drop is pretty evident.  

The raw numbers are this...

Over the whole period of record Baltimore averaged 4.1" before Jan 1

BUT....

over the last 30 years its 2.6"

Over the last 15 years its 2.3"

Over the last 10 years its 1.1"

Over the last 5 years its 0.72"

That seems pretty alarming to me!!!  

So I guess the questions is....are you talking about right now in the very recent last 10 years or so past...then YES its almost impossible to get snow around DC and Baltimore before January.  But saying that and acting like "well that's why it didn't snow in a good pattern in Dec NOT warming" doesn't jive because IMO the warming is why...because it didn't used to be hard to get snow before January.  Actually it used to be way more common to get snow than not to get snow before January.  Only recently has it become some herculean task to get early winter snowfall.  The numbers for DC are even more extreme btw.  

[Maestrobjwa]

@psuhoffman Your last post...are you saying the arctic (the cold air source) just ain't cold? Lol

[paulythegun]

On 1/18/2023 at 12:23 PM, psuhoffman said:

@Maestrobjwa I can't answer your question.  It's hard to say exactly how much the base state has degraded.  It's hard to know what a couple degrees would do.  It's not as simply as "its 42 and rain so it would be 39 and rain".  Changing the equation some could cause the storm to transfer to the coast sooner moving the whole boundary hundreds of miles after.  A storm might not develop at all if its a little colder and the boundary doesn't have enough baroclinic instability to initiate the development.  This isn't the best example of warming hurting our climo though.  We always struggled to get snow from progressive wave patterns.  It takes perfect timing for that to work here.  The problem I have been alluding to is that recently what used to be a better way for us to get snow in marginal temperature regimes has been failing consistently because marginal temp profiles are now just flat torches.  So now we are actually rooting for a pattern that frankly isn't really historically the best way to get a lot of snow here.  But it's also a colder pattern and not a total no hope shutout one so people are rooting for this just to have a chance to get some snow.  That's my take on all this.  

Given that the ocean has absorbed a majority of warming, that's probably where the problem lies, if there is one. In terms of the boundary moving inland - you could see that having a huge impact early in the winter (going forward) before temps cool later in the season.

[Paleocene]

  

10 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

i think the tenor of this subforum will change when CC contributes to two 30"+ winters for BWI in like three years. the band has to snap the other way. wouldn't make sense if it didn't

I hold out hope for this too (and sometimes wonder if CC contributed to 09-10).

But aren't we moving away from that becoming more likely? CC may increase the probability of a boom winter, but doesn't it also decrease the probability of that happening sequentially?

This is why I wish we had a bigger than 130 year dataset for annual snowfall. We have had warm periods before. How anomalous is this one?

 

 

4 hours ago, SomeguyfromTakomaPark said:

It's just too warm!  I barely even need anything other than a light jacket anymore.  My gloves and hat rarely make it out the door.  It's undeniable.

 

I bought myself a fancy north face parka-style jacket last year when it went on clearance. I've worn it on about 3 days this winter during the around xmas cold snap. otherwise i've worn it in Maine, and in upstate NY lol.  

It will continue to live in the closet. At least it won't wear out fast...right?

[brooklynwx99]

53 minutes ago, Paleocene said:

  

I hold out hope for this too (and sometimes wonder if CC contributed to 09-10).

But aren't we moving away from that becoming more likely? CC may increase the probability of a boom winter, but doesn't it also decrease the probability of that happening sequentially?

This is why I wish we had a bigger than 130 year dataset for annual snowfall. We have had warm periods before. How anomalous is this one?

 

 

 

I bought myself a fancy north face parka-style jacket last year when it went on clearance. I've worn it on about 3 days this winter during the around xmas cold snap. otherwise i've worn it in Maine, and in upstate NY lol.  

It will continue to live in the closet. At least it won't wear out fast...right?

the point I'm trying to make is that CC is just as responsible for winters like 2009-10, 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 as it is for winters like this one. would make zero sense to say otherwise. like people are picking and choosing what it's applicable for because it's been a crappy few winters and it's bugging me haha

[Paleocene]

22 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

the point I'm trying to make is that CC is just as responsible for winters like 2009-10, 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 as it is for winters like this one. would make zero sense to say otherwise. like people are picking and choosing what it's applicable for because it's been a crappy few winters and it's bugging me haha

Yes, I agree, those boom winters happened during our much hotter base state too. Sure, the atmosphere and the oceans have warmed more since 2016, and emissions are rocketing upward, but that doesn't change that we have these recent boom years. They may repeat, or they may not. TBD.

Our average annual snowfall is decreasing. Our average annual temperatures are increasing. The chance of a boom snow year (and individual boom storms) have slightly increased; this slight increase is not enough to make up for our loss of average/marginal events. End result = less average snow over time

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

I think climate change is just making the bad periods really bad, and it has led to some really good periods too! 2009-10 through 2015-16 had some really good winters and now we're in the stretch that we're in. the same is holding true to a lesser extent for NYC

just going to have to take the garbage with the gems

But you’re saying exactly what I’m saying only you’re acting like it’s fine and I’m saying I hate it.  Yes I do think CC made years like 2010 and 2014 somewhat better.  But we always had anomalous 30”+ winters a couple times a decade.  If 2014 was 39” instead of 33” due to CC that is not nearly enough to make it worth having to go through years and years of utter no hope shut the blinds patterns now. A few extra inches in what was always going to be a snowy season anyways affects my mood way less than the fact that the other 75% of the time is now utter garbage. 
 

I think most would gladly sacrifice 5-10” off our two good years a decade to have the normal in our aRea the other 8 years go back to 15-20” v this crap where a single digit season is the most likely outcome in those other years which makes up the vast majority of the time!  

[psuhoffman]

2 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

@psuhoffman Your last post...are you saying the arctic (the cold air source) just ain't cold? Lol

We need the cold to have enough depth to resist when waves try to push the boundary north. 
 

let me simplify this. We have always had 3 basic ways to get snow. 
 

1) perfect track and a cold airmass 

2) a wave attacking a cold airmass

3) a lucky perfect track in an otherwise crap pattern 

1 and 3 have been failing lately. 1 because when we do get cold lately it’s just not cold enough. Getting a transient 3 day cold shot doesn’t help. Getting cold when the boundary barely gets south of us behind a wave doesn’t help. For scenario 1 to work we need a broad expensive cold where the boundary gets down to like southern TN to SC before the next wave starts to lift it back north. When the boundary is stalling 50 miles south of us before the wave even starts to pump a southerly flow we’re toast unless it takes a perfect thread the needle track.  We want the rain snow like to start down near Atlanta as the wave just starts to get going. Now how often lately have we ever seen the boundary get that far south? 
 

Scenario 3 is failing becausese it’s been so warm that even if everything in a micro sense goes perfect it’s just too warm. 
 

We’re left with only getting snow lately from scenario 2 which is why we’re struggling. 

[BlizzardNole]

7 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

... One of the best examples of what I’m talking about Imo was a storm in 1997. All of North America was flooded with MP +5 or more anomaly air.  But a temporary Hudson high caused a system from the SW to slide across under instead of cutting like every other wave in that pattern and we got a 3-6” snowstorm across the area.   I think it was 3” at DCA and 6” at IAD. 

...Look at that h5 for the week leading up to that snow.  The airmass was garbage. It was 60 and 50 a couple days before and 40ish the day after even with snow cover.  The snow fell at 32-34 degrees.  ...

I remember that!  I was running errands around MontCo the day before with a short-sleeve shirt on as it was sunny and in the 60s.  When I heard winter storm warning on the radio I laughed thinking no way its snows the next day.  We got 6-7" in Germantown and it was beautiful how it stuck to the trees.

[psuhoffman]

no 

[Stormfly]

Might as well race to the bottom.  Hopefully we have record warmth next month.  Keeps the heating bills down.  I'm OK with that.

Snow lovers are going to have to move.

[psuhoffman]

I know it can still snow with a perfect track AND cold air in place.  The problem is what we don't seem to be able to do is get snow out of either flawed tracks or flawed setups anymore.  Those were never big snowstorms.  I don't think we are losing out of MECS or HECS events really.  They take everything being perfect.  But I do think we are missing out on all the 1-3" or 2-4" and even some 3-6" type flawed marginal events that made up a significant portion of our snow climo in years past and are what made the non really snowy years more bearable.   I wanted to give some specific examples of what I mean. 

Here is one I remember from an otherwise crap year 1992.  I remember this little boundary wave in an otherwise horrible year.  It was only like 2-3" of snow...but things like this are the difference between a complete shutout and a 5-10" season.  Look at the H5 pattern the week of the snowfall. 

 

Talk about pac puke!  Look at the Aleutian ridge and the vortex just off the pacific coast flooding the CONUS with pac puke.   But I picked this for a specific reason.  Not only is this an atrocious h5 pattern on its face, its similar to the problems we've had lately that everyone keeps using to excuse why we are torching and can't get any snow at all...it is also similar to the setup we see coming up with the TPV displaced into Canada.  In this case its not as displaced as guidance projects next week.  Yet the majority of runs still keep the boundary to our north most of the time.  Yes we have seen some hits but still more evidence is against a snow.  Yet look how far south the boundary was suppressed even in this look with that got awful pacific in 1992. Look at the bottom right panel where I highlighted the cold boundary...to our south.  

The snow event happened the next day, you can see the wave organizing in the plains here and a day later it slides by just to our south and gives the area some snow.  Despite a horrible pacific...we snowed.  Yea we didn't snow a lot that winter...it was a horrible winter by the standards of that time... but it did snow...in a pattern that now we just assume is shut the blinds.  

Maybe the boundary does get suppressed that much coming up...but if it doesn't I am tired of hearing how "well its just the pacific is hostile" or this or that... these kinds of flawed setups have worked in the past.  So why are they NEVER working lately...its not that they should all work.  Its just that some should.  We shouldn't get weeks and weeks and weeks of non stop no hope torches from h5 patterns that are crappy but in years past were not total shut out patterns.  Anything other than a great pattern is crap lately.  

 

[psuhoffman]

Here is another example...we got 2 snows during this crap pattern... about 8" up here and about 3-5" in the cities.  

We would be 70 degrees in that now and everyone would be saying "of course it can't snow look at the pacific its awful with a -pan and a raging eastern ridge.