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Wintry Winter 2018-19 Discussion

Have had 4 weeks of solidly BN temps for the plains and points east. If ensembles are correct then next 2 weeks should be BN too. All this with above avg precip in the southeast/east. Even if we moderate some later in December, hopefully we can get another 6 weeks of BN temps with AN precip for Jan/Feb.

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Webberweather53 said:
The December "snow hole" at RDU looks to be due largely to internal variability (i.e. random) rather than some other large-scale physical reason. The biggest snowstorm to hit the triangle since 1895 in December struck in 1958, producing 12-15"+ just one county to the SE
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December 1896 generally followed suit.

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The heavy snows in December 1930 missed one county to the NW, if that, mixing w/ IP is what lowered totals near Raleigh, Durham had more than twice as much due to more snow vs IP.

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December 1989 missed way to the SE and dropped up to 20" near Wilmington.
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In essence, this looks like a long string of bad luck and I doubt there's enough big samples even going back a century or more to say anything substantiative about if there's something physical driving this local minimum in maximum storm-total snowfall in the Triangle during December.
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It’s most likely random, as you said. Interestingly though, it does seem like, at least lately (in recent years) the main gradient of rain/mix/snow sets up right over Wake Co. I live in far SE Wake and usually get shafted.
 
I'm sure this will probably feel like another punch in the gut to RDU folks for December snowfall climo but there's another big dog in the late 19th century that dumped about 18" on Atlanta & Birmingham in early December 1886, w/ about 2 feet (or more) near Greenville-Spartanburg while it seems Raleigh was shafted (again) based on the large-scale snowfall distribution and reanalyses products available for this time
 
Kylo said:
Have had 4 weeks of solidly BN temps for the plains and points east. If ensembles are correct then next 2 weeks should be BN too. All this with above avg precip in the southeast/east. Even if we moderate some later in December, hopefully we can get another 6 weeks of BN temps with AN precip for Jan/Feb.

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It feels like it’s been solidly below here, more than the map shows. But maybe it just seems that way.
 
Webberweather53 said:
I'm sure this will probably feel like another punch in the gut to RDU folks for December snowfall climo but there's another big dog in the late 19th century that dumped about 18" on Atlanta & Birmingham in early December 1886, w/ about 2 feet (or more) near Greenville-Spartanburg while it seems Raleigh was shafted (again) based on the large-scale snowfall distribution and reanalyses products available for this time
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Hard to beat Dec 2000. I had my snow bibs and sled ready to go. Still nauseates me. Though Jan 2016 and Jan 2011 are more recent pain. I need a drink.
 
Kylo said:
Hard to beat Dec 2000. I had my snow bibs and sled ready to go. Still nauseates me. Though Jan 2016 and Jan 2011 are more recent pain. I need a drink.
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January 2017 was painful too. Meteorologists and models were predicting it would be a significant SNOW event, with many models calling for 6 inches or more. Instead, RDU got less than an inch of a snow/sleet/freezing rain mix because of a warm air nose and the precipitation took longer than expected to change over.

The unexpected "warm air nose" events are keeping my expectations in check for this winter compared to others. Most of the indicators look good, but how much true snow are we going to actually get compared to mix/cold rain?
 
Kylo said:
Hard to beat Dec 2000. I had my snow bibs and sled ready to go. Still nauseates me. Though Jan 2016 and Jan 2011 are more recent pain. I need a drink.
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2000 featured both the biggest negative and biggest positive snow busts of my lifetime. That’s astonishingly amazing, actually.
 
CyclonicFury said:
January 2017 was painful too. Meteorologists and models were predicting it would be a significant SNOW event, with many models calling for 6 inches or more. Instead, RDU got less than an inch of a snow/sleet/freezing rain mix because of a warm air nose and the precipitation took longer than expected to change over.

The unexpected "warm air nose" events are keeping my expectations in check for this winter compared to others. Most of the indicators look good, but how much true snow are we going to actually get compared to mix/cold rain?
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That’s the one I was thinking of, they are starting to blur together. My 7 yr old was in tears, his teacher hyped it up so much, he had a homework assignment to measure the snow or something. He was out there trying to measure sleet. Painfully funny.
 
CyclonicFury said:
January 2017 was painful too. Meteorologists and models were predicting it would be a significant SNOW event, with many models calling for 6 inches or more. Instead, RDU got less than an inch of a snow/sleet/freezing rain mix because of a warm air nose and the precipitation took longer than expected to change over.

The unexpected "warm air nose" events are keeping my expectations in check for this winter compared to others. Most of the indicators look good, but how much true snow are we going to actually get compared to mix/cold rain?
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Nailed it. Chris Justus was calling for 6-8” and it literally rained all night here while 15 miles to my north was getting pounded. I woke up with a light dusting. We drove to Travelers Rest that next day and the snow was deep
 
Starting to see a trend on the GFS/GEFS in the midrange. Ridging increasing in the upper midwest along with it slowing the troughs down as they approach the west coast. Should be interesting to see if that ridge continues to build westward as time goes on.
 
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