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January Medium/Long Range: A snowy January ahead?


mappy
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The coldest I've ever experienced in my 63+ years is -38F - in N. Dakota.  Everyone carried two sets of car keys because they had to leave their cars running when going somewhere or they'd never get them to start again in the cold.  Was normal to see a parking lot full of cars and trucks running while everyone had dinner.  Temperatures that cold do strange things to metal and mechanical machinery.  We were lucky our Beechcraft started again when it was time to depart, after thawing out with a preheater for several hours.  Don't ever care to repeat it. 

Growing up in Ohio,  one year we didn't get above freezing the entire month of Jan. (don't remember the year, think it was Jan 77 when DC got hit hard).  The frost line went down 5 feet that year, which cracked foundations and caused mayhem with water mains.  One of the worse jobs I've ever witnessed was those poor guys down in the bottom of trenches repairing busted water mains in -20+F weather.  They had to thaw the frozen ground with blow torches and slowly skim away the thawed ground with backhoes and jackhammers to reach the busted pipes.  Will never forget the look on their faces...  

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5 minutes ago, RDM said:

The coldest I've ever experienced in my 63+ years is -38F - in N. Dakota.  Everyone carried two sets of car keys because they had to leave their cars running when going somewhere or they'd never get them to start again in the cold.  Was normal to see a parking lot full of cars and trucks running while everyone had dinner.  Temperatures that cold do strange things to metal and mechanical machinery.  We were lucky our Beechcraft started again when it was time to depart, after thawing out with a preheater for several hours.  Don't ever care to repeat it. 

Growing up in Ohio,  one year we didn't get above freezing the entire month of Jan. (don't remember the year, think it was Jan 77 when DC got hit hard).  The frost line went down 5 feet that year, which cracked foundations and caused mayhem with water mains.  One of the worse jobs I've ever witnessed was those poor guys down in the bottom of trenches repairing busted water mains in -20+F weather.  They had to thaw the frozen ground with blow torches and slowly skim away the thawed ground with backhoes and jackhammers to reach the busted pipes.  Will never forget the look on their faces...  

I grew up about 40 miles northeast of Waterloo.  1977 was the coolest January in the history of Waterloo, Iowa. The average daily high temperature was 11.7 °F, and the average low was -11.9 °F.

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9 minutes ago, Ji said:

is there any HECS potential in the next go around or are we looking at 8-12 inch deals again?

There is a reason 90% of our HECS storms come in a true el nino year.  There is a component missing here to get those kinds of widespread 20" totals no matter how "nino ish" the pattern might be.  We've had one fluke cold enso HECS in the last 50 years.  There could always be a fluke again, it happens, but realistically our high end potential in any non nino year is typically MECS.  

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This could obv change, but I see a cutter around the 18th that ushers in another shot of cold air and confluence, and depending on how the shortwaves break apart over the epo ridge determines what comes around the 20th.


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2 minutes ago, Heisy said:


This could obv change, but I see a cutter around the 18th that ushers in another shot of cold air and confluence, and depending on how the shortwaves break apart over the epo ridge determines what comes around the 20th.


.

If something amplifies around the 18th there is a risk of a cutter there...but its very possible nothing does and we just get a frontal passage.  

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1 hour ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

You missed the point. The BN has verified in the LR, sure. The much BN arctic blasts have not.

I know, I was assuming that was a negative comment and my counterpoint is given the issues we are having with suppression would you really want it colder?

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10 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

There is a reason 90% of our HECS storms come in a true el nino year.  There is a component missing here to get those kinds of widespread 20" totals no matter how "nino ish" the pattern might be.  We've had one fluke cold enso HECS in the last 50 years.  There could always be a fluke again, it happens, but realistically our high end potential in any non nino year is typically MECS.  

Which one was that?

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3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Local coop near here reported 36” but I’ve been told my locals it was even more than that. 

I lived about a mile from where PSU now lives.  Had to commute to the Metro to go to working Baltimore.  I remember snow drifts along rt. 30 that were almost as tall as the telephone/power lines where the snow blew from the open fields.  

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6 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

Local coop near here reported 36” but I’ve been told my locals it was even more than that. 

1996 seems to get alot more love than Jan 2016 but i thought Jan 2016 was the perfect storm. Almost 40 inches in Leesburg

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1 minute ago, Ji said:

1996 seems to get alot more love than Jan 2016 but i thought Jan 2016 was the perfect storm. Almost 40 inches in Leesburg

2016 was better for NW VA. Crazy deform band that set up there. 1996 was better for my area. On the whole they had similar snowfall distributions but 1996 was colder the week after and included 2 more snowfalls right after so that probably feeds into the nostalgia of that period. 

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Just now, Ji said:

1996 seems to get alot more love than Jan 2016 but i thought Jan 2016 was the perfect storm. Almost 40 inches in Leesburg

It was fun but was 63 degrees 48 hours later. That make me vomit. Jan 25, 2000 wasn't the biggest storm I've seen but the intensity of the snow and the darkness that fell across the land during the middle of the day made it wild with 4-5" rates.

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2 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

2016 was better for NW VA. Crazy deform band that set up there. 1996 was better for my area. On the whole they had similar snowfall distributions but 1996 was colder the week after and included 2 more snowfalls right after so that probably feeds into the nostalgia of that period. 

Wasn't there a 2nd storm a couple of days later that dropped 8 inches or so... and everyone was like it was a dusting?

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2 minutes ago, Interstate said:

Wasn't there a 2nd storm a couple of days later that dropped 8 inches or so... and everyone was like it was a dusting?

Unpredicted clipper that dropped an additional 2-5 inches on the Tuesday then 6-10 on Friday.

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1 minute ago, HighStakes said:

Unpredicted clipper that dropped an additional 2-5 inches on the Tuesday then 6-10 on Friday.

And school was closed for two full weeks. I thought the area measurements were low but don’t think we were wiping snow boards every 6 hours? I just measured 27-28” snow depth at the end of the storm

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2 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

And school was closed for two full weeks. I thought the area measurements were low but don’t think we were wiping snow boards every 6 hours? I just measured 27-28” snow depth at the end of the storm

32 in Reisterstown. 30-32 hour storm. Briefly mixed with sleet during a lull Sunday evening then got crushed until early Monday morning. After the Friday SECS/MECS I gad a snow depth between 36-40. Incredible. 

 

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1 hour ago, RDM said:

The coldest I've ever experienced in my 63+ years is -38F - in N. Dakota.  Everyone carried two sets of car keys because they had to leave their cars running when going somewhere or they'd never get them to start again in the cold.  Was normal to see a parking lot full of cars and trucks running while everyone had dinner.  Temperatures that cold do strange things to metal and mechanical machinery.  We were lucky our Beechcraft started again when it was time to depart, after thawing out with a preheater for several hours.  Don't ever care to repeat it. 

Growing up in Ohio,  one year we didn't get above freezing the entire month of Jan. (don't remember the year, think it was Jan 77 when DC got hit hard).  The frost line went down 5 feet that year, which cracked foundations and caused mayhem with water mains.  One of the worse jobs I've ever witnessed was those poor guys down in the bottom of trenches repairing busted water mains in -20+F weather.  They had to thaw the frozen ground with blow torches and slowly skim away the thawed ground with backhoes and jackhammers to reach the busted pipes.  Will never forget the look on their faces...  

In ND there were kids that would let their diesel trucks idle the entire day while at school.  And that might be why we don't have cold days anymore. :D

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4 minutes ago, HighStakes said:

32 in Reisterstown. 30-32 hour storm. Briefly mixed with sleet during a lull Sunday evening then got crushed until early Monday morning. After the Friday SECS/MECS I gad a snow depth between 36-40. Incredible. 

 

I was here for 2016 too but 1996 is king for those reasons. Plus there was that little clipper that dumped 3-5” before the second storm. Had similar snow depths as you did, and it was cold through and through the whole time. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any mixing with sleet during the lull, which only lasted a couple of hours. After the lull it was ripping with legit blizzard conditions. 

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23 minutes ago, HighStakes said:

Unpredicted clipper that dropped an additional 2-5 inches on the Tuesday then 6-10 on Friday.

I always felt during the peak of the clipper it snowed with more intensity than anytime during the main event a few days earlier. 

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