December 2023

[weatherwiz]

2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most of the CC doomsdayers when it comes to winter don’t have a very good knowledge of historical variability. You mentioned the 1930s-1950s and that was actually a pretty brutal period too in New England for snow lovers…the early 1950s were actually unmatched for a LONG time in terms of warmth and low snow...esp in NNE.

It doesn’t require rejecting CC to understand that natural variability works on top of it. We’ve had these discussion in here before many times but you can only lead the horse to water….

I think I posted some maps on how the northern plains/N Rockies were the fastest warming region in winter for a few decades in the late 20th century…now those areas have actually had an negative trend (cooling) since the 1990s in winter while the northeast and SE Canada have had the strongest warming trend during that time. Temporal and spacial difference are going to happen and it wouldn’t be surprising to see another period of colder/snowier winters in the NE after this recent period of warmer/less snowy winters. 
 

Maybe this year will help turn the tables since El Niño can help shake up the Pacific pattern. 

Are you aware of any correlation which exist between precipitation and snowfall? I know there is the correlation where if we (we meaning north of NYC) have above-average precipitation during the winter, we tend to have above-average snowfall). 

But these historical periods where snowfall was below-average, was majority of precipitation falling as snow or rain? Or were these below-average snowfall periods equated with just inactive times. 

[J Paul Gordon]

So when has the climate NOT been changing? We are in a warming spell. A significant amount of it is human driven, some is probably a natural thing. In my grandson's lifetime we'll probably be moaning about the pinwheels and fields of glass scaring the countryside and using fusion, hydrogen, and who knows what else to drive our vehicles and supply our power. No one can be absolutely sure how long it will take the oceans to absorb the excess CO2 and when we'll enter a natural cooling spell. The long and short of it is that the ice will someday come back (most likely a lot of lifetimes from now) and then it will melt and sea levels will rise, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. The climate keeps changing and the weather is fickle. Let's enjoy the show.

Would I like to see some real 2015 like snow stretched over an entire winter? You bet! But I'm not going to whine about a beautiful 50F day with the low winter sun and long shadows under a perfectly blue sky. Maybe I'm just getting old and with a limited number of years to go, everday is good enough.

Let's hear it for Christmas, white or green, and its message of hope born in the least expected place and least convenient time.

[brooklynwx99]

GEPS looks pretty great. hopefully we can get a wavebreak to move that ridge closer to Greenland but this is still more than enough. heights over AK have recovered and colder than average air has filtered in alongside AN precip

makes sense given the retrogression of the AK trough as the +EAMT loses effect

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

Are you aware of any correlation which exist between precipitation and snowfall? I know there is the correlation where if we (we meaning north of NYC) have above-average precipitation during the winter, we tend to have above-average snowfall). 

But these historical periods where snowfall was below-average, was majority of precipitation falling as snow or rain? Or were these below-average snowfall periods equated with just inactive times. 

Most of our brutal snow winters have been dry too but that isn’t always the case. 
 

But just to show…here’s the 5 lowest snow winters for Boston since 2000

 

 

 

 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

11 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It absolutely kills me . Then when it does snow later in winter it’s already melting by 10 AM. as Tip warms his ass cheeks on the sunny car seat. 

Well, January is coldest climo so it’s good for snow retention but yes, once you hit February, the pack is going to go down in full Sun, even if it’s 30° for a high.  As a kid that would drive me crazy.

[weatherwiz]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most of our brutal snow winters have been dry too but that isn’t always the case. 
 

But just to show…here’s the 5 lowest snow winters for Boston since 2000

 

 

 

 

sometimes I find the precip maps quite intriguing and not sure how much skepticism to place. I mean look at the PAC NW there...predominately below-average and a decent amount and then you have a small area that is extremely above-average. Must be just some weak fronts into the PAC NW and majority of precip east of the Cascades with significant downslope going on west.

[michsnowfreak]

8 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most of the CC doomsdayers when it comes to winter don’t have a very good knowledge of historical variability. You mentioned the 1930s-1950s and that was actually a pretty brutal period too in New England for snow lovers…the early 1950s were actually unmatched for a LONG time in terms of warmth and low snow...esp in NNE.

It doesn’t require rejecting CC to understand that natural variability works on top of it. We’ve had these discussion in here before many times but you can only lead the horse to water….

I think I posted some maps on how the northern plains/N Rockies were the fastest warming region in winter for a few decades in the late 20th century…now those areas have actually had an negative trend (cooling) since the 1990s in winter while the northeast and SE Canada have had the strongest warming trend during that time. Temporal and spacial difference are going to happen and it wouldn’t be surprising to see another period of colder/snowier winters in the NE after this recent period of warmer/less snowy winters. 
 

Maybe this year will help turn the tables since El Niño can help shake up the Pacific pattern. 

Excellent post and I agree with everything you said. I mean, I know every stat imaginable for Detroit, but with xmacis it's SO easy to run stats for anywhere. I noted to one of my nyc friends that they had 6 consecutive winters in the 1950s with snowfall in the teens inches. An interesting trend I noticed here in those 3 decades (1930s-50s) is whenever you got a decent winter you were absolutely punished the following year with a nightmare.

The 1931-32 winter was so warm and rainy that grass was growing, dandelions blooming, and trees budding in January. Only in March did winter pop in. (1881-82 and 1889-90 were other winters with well documented winter flowers blooming in MI due to warmth). 1936-37 is Detroits least snowy winter on record (12.9") and I believe it is Bostons as well. 1940s winters here were mundane as hell (tho not as warm as the 1930s or 50s). In the mild winter of 1948-49, almost all of the winters putrid 13.8" total snow fell in a 10-day period in late Jan/early Feb. 1952-53 holds the distinction of being the only winter on record Detroit didn't see a 3"+ snowdepth. And 1957-58 (a favorite of yours) was a winter of pennies here, mercilessly clawing it's way to an 18" season total, but holds the distinction of being the winter with the smallest "biggest storm" of the season at only 2.1". 

 

I mean I could go on, but you get the point. If ANY of the above happened today, i don't think I need to tell you were 100% of the blame would be placed. Hint- it wouldn't be the weather pattern. 

[Damage In Tolland]

1 minute ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Well, January is coldest climo so it’s good for snow retention but yes, once you hit February, the pack is going to go down in full Sun, even if it’s 30° for a high.  As a kid that would drive me crazy.

It drives me crazy as an adult lol

[WinterWolf]

16 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It absolutely kills me . Then when it does snow later in winter it’s already melting by 10 AM. as Tip warms his ass cheeks on the sunny car seat. 

Two months before that starts even beginning to happen. So Relax…changes are a foot,  and just in time for peak climo it appears.   January and February are great winter months in SNE….we’re gonna do ok. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 minute ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It drives me crazy as an adult lol

That’s why I don’t have a snow stake in my yard. I’d rather not watch it go down.

[WinterWolf]

12 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Excellent post and I agree with everything you said. I mean, I know every stat imaginable for Detroit, but with xmacis it's SO easy to run stats for anywhere. I noted to one of my nyc friends that they had 6 consecutive winters in the 1950s with snowfall in the teens inches. An interesting trend I noticed here in those 3 decades (1930s-50s) is whenever you got a decent winter you were absolutely punished the following year with a nightmare.

The 1931-32 winter was so warm and rainy that grass was growing, dandelions blooming, and trees budding in January. Only in March did winter pop in. (1881-82 and 1889-90 were other winters with well documented winter flowers blooming in MI due to warmth). 1936-37 is Detroits least snowy winter on record (12.9") and I believe it is Bostons as well. 1940s winters here were mundane as hell (tho not as warm as the 1930s or 50s). In the mild winter of 1948-49, almost all of the winters putrid 13.8" total snow fell in a 10-day period in late Jan/early Feb. 1952-53 holds the distinction of being the only winter on record Detroit didn't see a 3"+ snowdepth. And 1957-58 (a favorite of yours) was a winter of pennies here, mercilessly clawing it's way to an 18" season total, but holds the distinction of being the winter with the smallest "biggest storm" of the season at only 2.1". 

 

I mean I could go on, but you get the point. If ANY of the above happened today, i don't think I need to tell you were 100% of the blame would be placed. Hint- it wouldn't be the weather pattern. 

Now that’s a great post!  Well said my friend.  And thank you for the perspective…some folks don’t understand much of this. 

[michsnowfreak]

3 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Now that’s a great post!  Well said my friend.  And thank you for the perspective…folks don’t understand much of this. 

You are very welcome! I've always been fascinated by climate data, the good and the bad. Obviously I'm a winter weather lover, but I have just as much fascination with the terrible winters as the good ones. Because it makes you wonder, geez what happened? Another great thing is I have looked up all of these things in the newspaper. I subscribe to the digital archives for the Detroit Free Press, so I can look at any newspaper since 1837. it's fascinating to see how weather events were covered back in the day. Just like now, anomalous events were certainly covered. The big difference however, is phrases like "where's winter?", "open winter", "winter heatwave" were seen plenty, but you never saw "climate change" as the blame for individual events. 

 

Check out this satirical article from the March 4, 1954 Detroit Free Press. It was published the day after a snowstorm hit following a mild winter.

 

[ORH_wxman]

12 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

 

 

I mean I could go on, but you get the point. If ANY of the above happened today, i don't think I need to tell you were 100% of the blame would be placed. Hint- it wouldn't be the weather pattern. 

Yeah this part I quoted here is what drives me nuts. A warmer climate does start to load the dice against you for cold/snow…especially in very marginal snow climates like the mid-Atlantic or southern states from southern plains to TN valley but from the GL to New England it’s going to be a LOT noisier and the increased moisture may actually help with increasing snowfall even if temps aren’t as cold because you had more wiggle room to begin with. 
 

Attribution studies are inherently very difficult and even the ones that find attribution often get misrepresented in press releases and media…like I’ll see a headline that says “Boston winters may average less than half of their current snow by 2050”, but then I open the link to the paper (if they even bother to link it in the article which has become more and more rare) and I’ll see that it’s only the RCP 8.5 scenario that shows this which is the scenario that isn’t even realistic anymore (or barely a remote scenario if we dropped all green energy and went to coal everywhere)…so yeah, technically that is correct, but why is it a leading headline since it’s not going to happen like that? 
 

More realistic attribution studies usually might find a correlation but it’s low. Something like “this pattern may occur 1 out of 50 years instead of 1 out of 100 back in the 20th century”…but often that gets phrased as “this is twice as likely!”…while mathematically correct, that phrasing is intended to make a very rare event sound common instead of just slightly less rare. 

[WinterWolf]

10 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

You are very welcome! I've always been fascinated by climate data, the good and the bad. Obviously I'm a winter weather lover, but I have just as much fascination with the terrible winters as the good ones. Because it makes you wonder, geez what happened? Another great thing is I have looked up all of these things in the newspaper. I subscribe to the digital archives for the Detroit Free Press, so I can look at any newspaper since 1837. it's fascinating to see how weather events were covered back in the day. Just like now, anomalous events were certainly covered. The big difference however, is phrases like "where's winter?", "open winter", "winter heatwave" were seen plenty, but you never saw "climate change" as the blame for individual events. 

 

Check out this satirical article from the March 4, 1954 Detroit Free Press. It was published the day after a snowstorm hit following a mild winter.

 

Good stuff. Love it. Thanks for sharing pal. 

[michsnowfreak]

21 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah this part I quoted here is what drives me nuts. A warmer climate does start to load the dice against you for cold/snow…especially in very marginal snow climates like the mid-Atlantic or southern states from southern plains to TN valley but from the GL to New England it’s going to be a LOT noisier and the increased moisture may actually help with increasing snowfall even if temps aren’t as cold because you had more wiggle room to begin with. 
 

Attribution studies are inherently very difficult and even the ones that find attribution often get misrepresented in press releases and media…like I’ll see a headline that says “Boston winters may average less than half of their current snow by 2050”, but then I open the link to the paper (if they even bother to link it in the article which has become more and more rare) and I’ll see that it’s only the RCP 8.5 scenario that shows this which is the scenario that isn’t even realistic anymore (or barely a remote scenario if we dropped all green energy and went to coal everywhere)…so yeah, technically that is correct, but why is it a leading headline since it’s not going to happen like that? 
 

More realistic attribution studies usually might find a correlation but it’s low. Something like “this pattern may occur 1 out of 50 years instead of 1 out of 100 back in the 20th century”…but often that gets phrased as “this is twice as likely!”…while mathematically correct, that phrasing is intended to make a very rare event sound common instead of just slightly less rare. 

Exactly. it's so all relative. and I have to agree, the minor changes will obviously affect the more southern climates (although they still will be able to get occasional snow storms), but it actually may be a help more so than a hindrance to places here in the north. A little bit more moisture can go a long way. In addition to numerous mild winters of yesteryear I discussed above, there were also a handful of winters scattered about in the earlier days of the climate record that had cold temperatures but were very dry and anemic for snowfall. You rarely see that anymore. In fact, there are some stories from winters of the late 1700s and early 1800s, before any official climate records existed, that would tell stories of brutally cold winters in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but with very light snowfall.

Last winter I don't need to tell you was grossly warmer than average. but we still got either side of 40 inches of snow in the Detroit area, in a winter that is far warmer than any progged increase to our avg temp. Because of storm tracks. Another thing slightly warmer winters do is they don't shut the Great Lakes in ice so quickly (how we got so many snowstorms in the ice locked 2013-14 winter is beyond me!) When there is open water, not only do you get Lake effect snow, but every system that crosses the lakes gets a boost from it. Especially here away from the real snow belt, the words "lake enhanced" are music to my ears when any little piece of synoptic energy crosses the lake. Much like the warmer ocean waters can really juice a noreaster for you guys.

Bottom line. climate change exists. But so do unfavorable weather patterns. Don't do mother nature the disservice of always crediting one over the other.

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most of the CC doomsdayers when it comes to winter don’t have a very good knowledge of historical variability. You mentioned the 1930s-1950s and that was actually a pretty brutal period too in New England for snow lovers…the early 1950s were actually unmatched for a LONG time in terms of warmth and low snow...esp in NNE.

It doesn’t require rejecting CC to understand that natural variability works on top of it. We’ve had these discussion in here before many times but you can only lead the horse to water….

I first got interested in snow during the early 1950s.  Not the best time for the NYC region.
   Average snowfall:
1943-44 thru 48-49:  39.2"   The 12/26-27/47 storm might still be NYC's #1 had measurements been done the way 2006 & 2016 were measured.  (Check depth changes.)
1949-50 thru 54-55:  14.2"    Our NNJ home site had no storms of 10"+.
1955-56 thru 60-61:   34.5"   Home site had 7 storms of 18-24" during this period.
 

[WinterWolf]

13 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Exactly. it's so all relative. and I have to agree, the minor changes will obviously affect the more southern climates (although they still will be able to get occasional snow storms), but it actually may be a help more so than a hindrance to places here in the north. A little bit more moisture can go a long way. In addition to numerous mild winters of yesteryear I discussed above, there were also a handful of winters scattered about in the earlier days of the climate record that had cold temperatures but were very dry and anemic for snowfall. You rarely see that anymore. In fact, there are some stories from winters of the late 1700s and early 1800s, before any official climate records existed, that would tell stories of brutally cold winters in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but with very light snowfall.

Last winter I don't need to tell you was grossly warmer than average. but we still got either side of 40 inches of snow in the Detroit area, in a winter that is far warmer than any progged increase to our avg temp. Because of storm tracks. Another thing slightly warmer winters do is they don't shut the Great Lakes in ice so quickly (how we got so many snowstorms in the ice locked 2013-14 winter is beyond me!) When there is open water, not only do you get Lake effect snow, but every system that crosses the lakes gets a boost from it. Especially here away from the real snow belt, the words "lake enhanced" are music to my ears when any little piece of synoptic energy crosses the lake. Much like the warmer ocean waters can really juice a noreaster for you guys.

Bottom line. climate change exists. But so do unfavorable weather patterns. Don't don't do mother nature the disservice of always crediting one over the other.

Since they changed the name from global warming, to CC; perhaps a better term/change might be Climate Variance?  Or maybe Climate Cycling?  But then that wont carry the negative connotations that some political personnel would want.  Great posts my man. 

[weathafella]

10 minutes ago, tamarack said:

I first got interested in snow during the early 1950s.  Not the best time for the NYC region.
   Average snowfall:
1943-44 thru 48-49:  39.2"   The 12/26-27/47 storm might still be NYC's #1 had measurements been done the way 2006 & 2016 were measured.  (Check depth changes.)
1949-50 thru 54-55:  14.2"    Our NNJ home site had no storms of 10"+.
1955-56 thru 60-61:   34.5"   Home site had 7 storms of 18-24" during this period.
 

We had the same experiences in the same region.  The 3/19/56 event was memorable in the sense that we weren’t yet at adult height (you could argue I’m still not) making the amount of snow seem so much greater.  My dad was a pharmacist and had to get to work in the final hours of the March 56 storm.  My brother and I were still too small to manage shoveling 2 feet.  Dad ruined our ‘51 Mercury but he made it in time to make sure sick people got their needed medicine.

[SnowGoose69]

Meanwhile plenty of cold air exists in the hemisphere...Beijing just got to -6...their previous coldest ever temp in December was -1

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Meanwhile plenty of cold air exists in the hemisphere...Beijing just got to -6...their previous coldest ever temp in December was -1

It’s been non existent in NAMR which is mostly due to Nino.

[CoastalWx]

10 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Since they changed the name from global warming, to CC; perhaps a better term/change might be Climate Variance?  Or maybe Climate Cycling?  But then that wont carry the negative connotations that some political personnel would want.  Great posts my man. 

It varies and changes, but the trend line is up. 

[CoastalWx]

Toasty Christmas on the Euro.

[Typhoon Tip]

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Toasty Christmas on the Euro.

That's one ugly series of dailies between D6 and 10 on that run.  ho man -

[weatherwiz]

While intertwined, the concept of global warming and climate change aren't entirely the same. 

The term global warming essentially just defines the trend in the average temperature of Earth over an extended period. The argument and differentiator is whether global warming is causing or contributing to climate change and how much of this is human induced and how much of this is attributed to just a natural cycle. 

When you look at this science from all the basic concepts, I don't see how it can be argued that a warming climate is causing some degree of climate change. What irks me with this topic though is how much it is argued as whether it's human induced versus natural variability. Yes the Earth was warmer at times throughout the history than it is now and perhaps climate conditions (at least locally) may have been much more intense than now. However, the biggest difference between now and then is there are over 7 billion people on this planet and we're nearing 8 billion. 

Populations have increased considerably along coastal areas and with urban sprawl, populations have increased within regions prone to significant weather episodes. Whether or not much of climate change is related to human induced activity or whether or not much of climate change is related to natural variability...who cares, there are definite ramifications which are impacting people's lives. We should be striving towards a cleaner planet anyways and get rid of fossil fuels. Who wants to breathe in disgusting air. There is nothing like going into the country away from air pollution and smelling fresh air...it does wonders for the soul.

[SnoSki14]

26 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

It varies and changes, but the trend line is up. 

Temperatures are clearly warming but snow trends can vary however there are certain thresholds where that breaks down. 

Right now NYC's climate is getting closer to what Virginia's was while SNE is getting closer to NYC. The decadal warming trends can't be overlooked. 

[moneypitmike]

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

It absolutely kills me . Then when it does snow later in winter it’s already melting by 10 AM. as Tip warms his ass cheeks on the sunny car seat. 

Right there with you.......

[Damage In Tolland]

5 minutes ago, moneypitmike said:

Right there with you.......

There’s a lot of us. They just don’t admit it on here .

[Sey-Mour Snow]

Looks like the pattern will be supportive for snow events by the 27/28th. Until then we maybe get a few snow showers if we are lucky. 

[Go Kart Mozart]

53 minutes ago, SnowGoose69 said:

Meanwhile plenty of cold air exists in the hemisphere...Beijing just got to -6...their previous coldest ever temp in December was -1

Wow, that's an impressive beat down of the old record, and mid-month!

[CoastalWx]

Hrrr says days without power.