It was a Flop... February 2024 Disco. Thread

[NorEastermass128]

Putting up a goose egg (or damn near) in one of the four winter months does not help your cause of hitting climo SF. Fact. Let’s move on from this debate.  I know this period sucks, but man…every winter. 

[Damage In Tolland]

5 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Pretty much how it works up there, And its 7 day lag for here, So if they furnace you can expect a cold shot here generally a week later.

I’ve watched that correlation for many many ( Trump) years.. it’s tried and true. And they have been frigid over the last 7-10 days . So you can pretty forecast AN thru about Feb 10. If they warm .. and they’re supposed to .. we may do some winter Feb 15 on 

[WinterWolf]

6 minutes ago, NorEastermass128 said:

Putting up a goose egg (or damn near) in one of the four winter months does not help your cause of hitting climo SF. Fact. Let’s move on from this debate.  I know this period sucks, but man…every winter. 

Agreed. So Moving on let’s hope we can do better for the second half of winter. It’d Be hard for some to do any worse…so there’s that. I’m at 11” on the year…let’s see where we end up by the last flakes. 

[dendrite]

At least the useless cold shot is trending warmer. Maybe I can have my first winter without a below 0F temp.

[qg_omega]

6 minutes ago, dendrite said:

At least the useless cold shot is trending warmer. Maybe I can have my first winter without a below 0F temp.

From this

To this and we aren’t done trending, LOL, horrific.  Just end this “winter”

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, cleetussnow said:

That won’t verify.

I hope not, we don’t want to go into summer with that type of hit to aquifers. 

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, AstronomyEnjoyer said:

While this thread is sorta on the topic of seasonal snowfall totals, does anyone know or have a map of New England with similar fidelity to this ALY one? This is the first season I'm actually documenting my snowfall total and I'm trying to get a better idea of what my average is. Sorry, know this is off topic.

BTV has one on their website. 

[George001]

41 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

No I’m not Kevin. I average about 50”…and I’ve done it before. Nobody is saying it’s easy, but it’s not impossible, there’s proof that it’s happened.  It sucks, and it ain’t fun, but we’ve recovered from no snow in December before.  So that’s all I’m gonna say on this.  

And lol about November snow too….the average for most of SNE in November is pathetically low. 

You can recover from a bad Dec, but i would bet that if you looked at the winters that we got skunked in DEC, it’s a strong BN snow signal. The biggest reason is due to the fact that an average winter from Jan-Mar after a shitty Dec will result in below normal snow. I suspect that years with no Dec snow would correlate with below normal Jan snow as well, but I would need to analyze the data to know for sure. It makes sense intuitively, the culprit behind a pattern that is so putrid that it leads to 0 snow in Dec can often be blamed on a lack of cold air. Going from a horrible well AN temp pattern to a colder and snowier pattern is a process that takes time. It is not uncommon at all for extreme patterns (well AN or BN temps, extremely wet or dry patterns) seem to set in for 2+ months. 
 

[kazimirkai]

5 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

Speaking of snowfall averages, whether it be monthly or seasonal, it is very possible our perception of "average is skewed". I would like to use a climo site as a test but again THE DATABASE SUCKS. But I bet looking at BOS snowfall record (on a monthly/seasonal basis) you would find a wide variation. Just adding up all those numbers and dividing by the number of years may not be totally accurate. We've certainly had some monster months and monster seasons which may be outliers. To get a truce idea of the average this stuff would have to be calculated with outliers removed. 

That type of statistical analysis shouldn't be too hard with some basic python code and relevent NCEI data. You could probably even get chatgpt to write everything for you.

[kazimirkai]

3 hours ago, wxsniss said:

For any newcomers looking for great summaries of climate data including monthly / seasonal snowfall:

http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/

Quick eyeball: 1957-58 had one of the best turnaround of snowfalls for KBOS: 6.7" Nov-Jan, then 38" Feb-April. I'm curious what teleconnectors were at play in the switch if anyone knows.

Also, not a formal statistical analysis, but the most prominent trend is just all the higher maxima beginning 1992-93 (incidentally, the year I arrived in Boston, skewing my expectations forever ):

Seasonal snowfall for KBOS:

 

 

How to you get it to plot the outputs?

[kazimirkai]

2 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

That period from late 50s to 1970 was so consistent compared to the chaos now.

Yeah the most evident trend is definitely an increase in volatility

[George001]

The pattern this winter is an extreme one. I know there is a lot of talk about how the pattern has changed, but if you take a more broad view of the temp and precip profiles, it’s been pretty consistent. It has been very warm and extremely wet in New England. This winter so far has been one of the highest QPF winters on record, the issue is most of that QPF has been rain. The sample size is way too small to make conclusions, but 3/5 of the wettest Dec-Jans on record for Worcester were El Niños, and 2 of them were borderline super events (57-58 and this year). I know meaningful statistical analysis on a sample size of 5 isn’t something you can do, but I just found it kind of interesting. 

[George001]

You know…. A deep understanding of meteorology, data science skills, AI, ML, software development skills, and some element of intuition (the art side of forecasting) are all really useful tools to have in a forecasters toolbox. Ive seen some truly incredible some of the things that have been done on this board using a variety of these tools. I can’t think of anyone who has mastered all of them though, that’s why collaboration and a commitment to leaning is so important. One of my favorite things about weather is how complex and unpredictable it is. It’s fascinating how Mother Nature is able to consistently and easily make so many brilliant minds look so goddamn stupid. It’s really an art in that sense, no matter who you are, what your background is, etc, those who dabble in trying to predict the weather WILL end up with egg on their faces at some point.
 

It’s just the nature of the beast, anyone who makes a correct forecast and thinks they have it all figured out….. will be proven wrong. Those who believe they are the smartest person in the room and take great pride in their sense of “superiority” will not grow beyond a certain point. Those who assign their self worth to how “good” or “bad they are at forecasting the weather are missing the beauty of Mother Nature. The greatest minds in the world, they all stood on the shoulders of giants. There is no shame in drawing from others to forecast, and there is no shame in being horribly wrong and looking like an idiot sometimes. Instead of competing with others, those who dabble in the dark arts of trying to predict the unpredictable beast that is mother nature should embrace the chaos. There is no reason to be afraid of getting egg on your face, accept that it will happen and laugh about it later on. There is no place for ego. 

[tavwtby]

4 hours ago, wxsniss said:

For any newcomers looking for great summaries of climate data including monthly / seasonal snowfall:

http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/

Quick eyeball: 1957-58 had one of the best turnaround of snowfalls for KBOS: 6.7" Nov-Jan, then 38" Feb-April. I'm curious what teleconnectors were at play in the switch if anyone knows.

Also, not a formal statistical analysis, but the most prominent trend is just all the higher maxima beginning 1992-93 (incidentally, the year I arrived in Boston, skewing my expectations forever ):

Seasonal snowfall for KBOS:

 

 

if you go through most of the years, at least for my closest stations, the majority of the snowfall happened from late January to April 1st, the great winters did have a good Dec/Jan... and even some Nov snows, but just at the dozen or so I've looked at, I'd say 70% of the season snowfall happened after 2/1... not saying that'll happen here, but it is a trend... now I've got another project to do, seeing how much fell post 1/31 as a percentage of season snowfall.... that'll be interesting

[wxsniss]

4 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

That period from late 50s to 1970 was so consistent compared to the chaos now.

Yeah that does stand out.

I'm no climate scientist, but my lay impression is this is way too small a sampling to make any conclusions on changing climate in SNE. At least based on seasonal snowfall totals alone. I've seen the increased volatility of past 30 years attributed to a changing climate, but 100 years is a blip in time. 

Here's a pretty tight correlation in that timeframe: Kraft ownership of Pats ---> seizure activity of seasonal snowfall totals in SNE

[wxsniss]

1 hour ago, kazimirkai said:

How to you get it to plot the outputs?

Select "Seasonal Ranking", Variable = "Snowfall", and Output check Graph

[HIPPYVALLEY]

Relative to normal, most ensembles, are pretty much a continent wide, semi-furnace thru mid month.  It's going to take some needle threading to get measurable snow for SNE the next 2 weeks.  It's what we've got going on, so may as well settle in to that vibe.  Hopefully we get something to pop next week. 

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Looks like a wintry weekend upcoming in NNE for my trip. Models have snow in the air Thursday and Friday

[HIPPYVALLEY]

9 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Looks like a wintry weekend upcoming in NNE for my trip. Models have snow in the air Thursday and Friday

Not sure how much they picked up this past storm but we are heading up to N Conway the weekend after.  It will definitely be wintery no matter what.  Cutters with rains to Maine seem to be off the table for a bit.

[TalcottWx]

For context. https://twitter.com/VermonsterWx/status/1752074213257556118?t=boSMV4PymvuI0mlflT0k9w&s=19

[SJonesWX]

11 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You are incorrect, I avg 60” a year here. If I get 0 in Nov/ Dec.. how many years am I going to get 60” in Jan and Feb.. I’ll even include Morch .. very few. 

I am inclined to agree with you, but only if you take November out of your argument. you seriously cannot average more than 1-2" in november, and that amount is generally not going to impact your seasonal total.

Up here I average 70-75", and November averages like 2" a year over the last 20 years. it's non-consequential to your argument, which again I mostly agree with.

losing december sucks ass, no question about it.

[Great Snow 1717]

9 hours ago, George001 said:

The pattern this winter is an extreme one. I know there is a lot of talk about how the pattern has changed, but if you take a more broad view of the temp and precip profiles, it’s been pretty consistent. It has been very warm and extremely wet in New England. This winter so far has been one of the highest QPF winters on record, the issue is most of that QPF has been rain. The sample size is way too small to make conclusions, but 3/5 of the wettest Dec-Jans on record for Worcester were El Niños, and 2 of them were borderline super events (57-58 and this year). I know meaningful statistical analysis on a sample size of 5 isn’t something you can do, but I just found it kind of interesting. 

 

 

exactly!!.....people "bet" against El Nino...

[Prismshine Productions]

Trend a few degrees cooler and that would be a massive strike

Sent from my SM-S146VL using Tapatalk

[CoastalWx]

5 minutes ago, Prismshine Productions said:

Trend a few degrees cooler and that would be a massive strike

Sent from my SM-S146VL using Tapatalk
 

Only 372 hours out

[Modfan2]

2 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Only 372 hours out

Lock it; models have been pretty reliable within that range! 

[Great Snow 1717]

9 minutes ago, Prismshine Productions said:

Trend a few degrees cooler and that would be a massive strike

Sent from my SM-S146VL using Tapatalk
 

..it is the equivalent of looking at the SI Swimsuit Issue and thinking all of the swimsuit models will be stopping by your place for the 4th of July cookout..

[SJonesWX]

i fly back to MHT on 2/12. based on prior years, you can pretty much guarantee some kind of winter event that day.

[UnitedWx]

10 hours ago, George001 said:

You can recover from a bad Dec, but i would bet that if you looked at the winters that we got skunked in DEC, it’s a strong BN snow signal. The biggest reason is due to the fact that an average winter from Jan-Mar after a shitty Dec will result in below normal snow. I suspect that years with no Dec snow would correlate with below normal Jan snow as well, but I would need to analyze the data to know for sure. It makes sense intuitively, the culprit behind a pattern that is so putrid that it leads to 0 snow in Dec can often be blamed on a lack of cold air. Going from a horrible well AN temp pattern to a colder and snowier pattern is a process that takes time. It is not uncommon at all for extreme patterns (well AN or BN temps, extremely wet or dry patterns) seem to set in for 2+ months. 
 

Why do some of you guys think we get prolific snow in December in SNE on average??? Why? It is NOT normal, especially where you are located. Some of THE best winters we've had over the past 40 plus years had very little if any until new years +- a few days. If the winter sucks for your area it generally has nothing to do with December. I try not to weenie people, but my God sometimes its deserved!

[40/70 Benchmark]

@RUNNAWAYICEBERGJust about time to start draft coordination. 

[MJO812]

5 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

@RUNNAWAYICEBERGJust about time to start draft coordination. 

I'm still upset about last draft