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Wintry Winter 2018-19 Discussion

Ben Noll has launched a website with free ECMWF seasonal snowfall data.
https://www.bennollweather.com/ecmwf/
That's good to see. It may have a low resolution, but it gives a pretty good idea of what the Euro seasonal is showing at the moment. Looks like in terms of snowfall, it'll be held back from a majority of the plains until January, then it looks like some snow in Jan and Feb for the SE. Of course it will change, but it's an okay look for now. Not sure what they showed this time last year for last winter.
 
Don't know if it means anything since I've seen years before where a good early snowfall in Siberia didn't have any impact on our winter, but Canada is off to a great start with temps and snow, while parts of Siberia are way above normal temperatures and lack of snowfall.
 
That's good to see. It may have a low resolution, but it gives a pretty good idea of what the Euro seasonal is showing at the moment. Looks like in terms of snowfall, it'll be held back from a majority of the plains until January, then it looks like some snow in Jan and Feb for the SE. Of course it will change, but it's an okay look for now. Not sure what they showed this time last year for last winter.

Higher than average snowfall in January & especially February generally jives with NINO winter progression climatology, we might get away with something in December though given this is a weak modoki event. Oth, the biggest winter storms that immediately come to mind for me during NINO Decembers all happened in moderate or strong El Ninos like 1896-97, 1930-31, & 2009-10. Still amazes me the December 1930 event was a multi-day cold air damming event that dropped 1-2 feet of snow west of the Triangle and nearly a foot in Charlotte. Most of what fell in Raleigh in that storm was IP. Raleigh getting screwed out of a foot or two of snow from a stout warm nose is nothing new. December 2-3 1896 NC Snowmap.png

December 15-18 1930 NC Snowmap.png
 
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Joe Bastardi‏Verified account @BigJoeBastardi 14m14 minutes ago
Latest CFSV2 Winter run looks like JMA and Euro ( cant show Euro) and supports http://weatherbell.com idea issued on Aug 7

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E394D4A3-7FAF-44D6-8611-B0D61815C79D.png This was a suctastic winter, I hope he’s wrong like normal! JB
 
I'll take what we can get in December, but I am okay with it setting the stage for January and February. The last couple of years February has been making a comeback as far as snow around NC. However, since 2000 most of our big snow storms have come in January.
 
I'll take what we can get in December, but I am okay with it setting the stage for January and February. The last couple of years February has been making a comeback as far as snow around NC. However, since 2000 most of our big snow storms have come in January.

I think the Triangle has yet to see a "true" extremely big dog in December even looking back into the mid-late 19th century, and the 9.1" single-storm record is the most likely single-storm monthly record to fall someday imo esp when you look at the December snowfall records in nearby locations. If the I-95 corridor and southern coastal plain can see 15"+ there's no reason to believe something similar (even in a slightly warmer climate) can't happen in December over RDU.

December 11-12 1958 NC Snowmap.png

December 1896, 1917, 1930, 2000, & 2002 are a few other notable close calls where RDU could have easily topped the record if everything fell into place just right.
 
I think the Triangle has yet to see a "true" extremely big dog in December even looking back into the mid-late 19th century, and the 9.1" single-storm record is the most likely single-storm monthly record to fall someday imo esp when you look at the December snowfall records in nearby locations. If the I-95 corridor and southern coastal plain can see 15"+ there's no reason to believe something similar (even in a slightly warmer climate) can't happen in December over RDU.

View attachment 6583

December 1896, 1917, 1930, 2000, & 2002 are a few other notable close calls where RDU could have easily topped the record if everything fell into place just right.
December of 2000 was a heart-breaker, as much as January 2000 was an amazing surprise. It is amazing how the effective magnitude of the miss in January was essentially the same as the magnitude of the miss in December...just in opposite directions (for the RDU area, I mean). That said, given the understanding that at least in December, a snowstorm was expected and it did occur (somewhere)...in Jan, not really much of anything was expected.
 
December of 2000 was a heart-breaker, as much as January 2000 was an amazing surprise. It is amazing how the effective magnitude of the miss in January was essentially the same as the magnitude of the miss in December...just in opposite directions (for the RDU area, I mean). That said, given the understanding that at least in December, a snowstorm was expected and it did occur (somewhere)...in Jan, not really much of anything was expected.

Yeah the December 2000 storm could have been the biggest in the NWS RAH CWA that early in the season since the December 2-3 1896 winter storm. The last 125 years haven't been too kind to Raleigh in general, I think a lot of this is just attributable to bad luck & sample size, just about in any direction you go from RDU, you'll almost certainly find a bigger December event than 9".

Even portions of the Outer Banks and southeastern NC w/ significantly worse (& arguably piss-poor) snowfall climo have picked up at least 9" of snow somewhere in their history in December. Point being, I don't think the observed record is very representative (at all) of the "true" range of snowfall variability in the Triangle during December, someday a one footer will come knocking at that time of the season.
December 14-15 1943 NC Snowmap.png
December 22-24 1989 NC Snowmap.gif
 
I think the Triangle has yet to see a "true" extremely big dog in December even looking back into the mid-late 19th century, and the 9.1" single-storm record is the most likely single-storm monthly record to fall someday imo esp when you look at the December snowfall records in nearby locations. If the I-95 corridor and southern coastal plain can see 15"+ there's no reason to believe something similar (even in a slightly warmer climate) can't happen in December over RDU.

View attachment 6583

December 1896, 1917, 1930, 2000, & 2002 are a few other notable close calls where RDU could have easily topped the record if everything fell into place just right.
Seems I've seen some decent winter storms in December... curious if the averages are actually a little higher east and west of the Triangle for December just because of all of the near misses. It's a crazy micro climate that has to be brutal for you guys living right on the line almost every time

edit: actually, even though I'm further north I'm also further east so usually right on that line with y'all
 
Seems I've seen some decent winter storms in December... curious if the averages are actually a little higher east and west of the Triangle for December just because of all of the near misses. It's a crazy micro climate that has to be brutal for you guys living right on the line almost everytime

I'm curious to see those changes too, I think they're likely not too divergent from the overall climatological snowfall distribution but there's definitely a hole in the max December values over Raleigh. I don't think we've observed the "big one" in December yet over the Triangle, I wouldn't be shocked if a 12-15" event in December came calling sometime in the next several decades
 
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