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Misc Winter Weather Support Group

Not going to argue what changed it, but our climate now is definitely worse for winter weather than it used to be. I think it's because of the warming of the ocean and the Triangle's proximity to the coast that makes it harder to get snow here. Even when we have a chance we are usually right on the line of rain or snow, or there's a warm layer in the atmosphere somewhere that causes someone to get screwed out of snow. We're just too far east and not far enough north to have a great shot at snow anymore outside of the mountains.
 
KyloG said:
The belief is we (Raleigh) get most of our snow in February....well not the past 10 years. I am including this winter so hopefully this Feb balances that out. But. Feb's have sucked since 2015.

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This would be the 5th straight winter with less than 6 inches of snow, and 8 out of the last 10. And that's counting Dec 2019 where we barely got 6 inches. It's ridiculous.
 
Well, if it's not going to snow for you guys, maybe consider picking up a new hobby?

Geocaching seems neat. Metal detecting? Bottle collecting?

Maybe shift your perspective to more of a "since it's not cold and snowing, look at everything else I can do" instead. :)
 
Generally I think there has been a change the last few years and I don't think it's a stretch to say it is the warming of the oceans. Argue the reason all you want, but parts of the ocean are on fire, changing global weather patterns. And I think the convection and forcing that causes makes it harder for us to get cold and snow in the SE now. That's just my opinion.

Essentially more convection in the bad phases of the mjo keep the trough out west making Seattle win. I think that's where we are.
 
SnowNiner said:
Generally I think there has been a change the last few years and I don't think it's a stretch to say it is the warming of the oceans. Argue the reason all you want, but parts of the ocean are on fire, changing global weather patterns. And I think the convection and forcing that causes makes it harder for us to get cold and snow in the SE now. That's just my opinion.

Essentially more convection in the bad phases of the mjo keep the trough out west making Seattle win. I think that's where we are.
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And it’s not going to get any better I don’t think.
 
If a ridge develops over Alaska, it will get cold down here. Matter of when not if. A change to cold won't happen right away. Hopefully we will have one more opportunity this winter here!!
 
Brick Tamland said:
Not going to argue what changed it, but our climate now is definitely worse for winter weather than it used to be. I think it's because of the warming of the ocean and the Triangle's proximity to the coast that makes it harder to get snow here. Even when we have a chance we are usually right on the line of rain or snow, or there's a warm layer in the atmosphere somewhere that causes someone to get screwed out of snow. We're just too far east and not far enough north to have a great shot at snow anymore outside of the mountains.
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SnowNiner said:
Generally I think there has been a change the last few years and I don't think it's a stretch to say it is the warming of the oceans. Argue the reason all you want, but parts of the ocean are on fire, changing global weather patterns. And I think the convection and forcing that causes makes it harder for us to get cold and snow in the SE now. That's just my opinion.

Essentially more convection in the bad phases of the mjo keep the trough out west making Seattle win. I think that's where we are.
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I think we all know where our climate is headed and I don't want to dwell on climate as we will get our hand slapped on here but look at what NYC just went through. They went over 700 days without 1" of daily snow and that blew away the previous record but finally got 1.5" of snow yesterday. Sometime in the future we won't even sniff snow.
 
KyloG said:
I think we all know where our climate is headed and I don't want to dwell on climate as we will get our hand slapped on here but look at what NYC just went through. They went over 700 days without 1" of daily snow and that blew away the previous record but finally got 1.5" of snow yesterday. Sometime in the future we won't even sniff snow.
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And the real clowns on here are the ones that refuse to see the truth.
 
Ok, so I was curious as to whether or not many folks in the area should be legitimately frustrated with the lack of winter weather. Is it really as bad as we think it is, or does the fish story grow bigger with each telling? So I went to Raleigh's Past Events page and took a look. These are NC specific, but you can probably mentally extrapolate to other areas of the SE and derive a reasonable picture of an event's impact. I have added my subjective grading for the winter. Also, it may be that RAH didn't list everything, although they do a pretty good job capturing these events. If there is something missing, let me know.


2022 (D): 1 winter storm on 1/15-16 (eastern sections saw very little)

2021 (F): None listed

2020 (F): None listed

2019 (D):
  • A good winter storm on 12/9/2018 for areas west to east north of Raleigh. Very little for southern areas
  • One minor ice storm listed on 1/13
2018 (B):
  • 1 mountain and mainly foothills event on 12/8-9/2017
  • Several small and a couple of good snow events, the biggest of which occurred on 1/17-18 with very little south of the state
2017 (F): None listed

2016 (D): 1 event on 1/22-23, where the entire state saw snow and sleet. 2" or more was confined to the western half of the state with good totals for the mountains.

2015 (B-): Several small events with two moderate events, the biggest of which was a nice snow for the northern and western part of the state. B- for multiple events

2014 (A): Multiple events, the biggest of which was significant snow and ice on 2/12-13. It was a good winter for NC.

2013 (F): 4 minor events listed

2012 (F): 1 minor event listed on 2/19

2011 (A+): Several events listed with with the infamous Christmas storm of 2010 topping the list

2010 (B+): Quite a few moderate to small events, including one pretty widespread snow event on 2/12-13

2009 (C+): 2 events listed with 1/20 showing the highest totals in central/eastern NC

2008 (NA): It looks like 3 events listed, but they won't pull up.

So, out of the last 15 years, it looks like we've had 5, maybe 6 decent winters in NC. By decent, I mean a good number of events with snowfall NOT confined to just one specific area.

The last one was 2018, unless you lived in the mountains last year. This is all predicated on the fact that RAH has listed everything of note.

My conclusion is that over the last 5 years or so, many in the SE have not had very much to cheer about. There is no list of storms that almost happened but didn't. But my suspicion is that there hasn't been very much to even track over the last few years, which is very disappointing....to me at least.
 
KyloG said:
I think we all know where our climate is headed and I don't want to dwell on climate as we will get our hand slapped on here but look at what NYC just went through. They went over 700 days without 1" of daily snow and that blew away the previous record but finally got 1.5" of snow yesterday. Sometime in the future we won't even sniff snow.
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I think it's safe to acknowledge that the climate is warming and speculate that it probably negatively affects the ease of which marginal areas like ours get snow. It's already hard to snow here. It doesn't take a whole bunch of brain power to deduce that a warmer climate is not going to help us. We can do this without getting into a debate about the cause of the warming and without calling each other clowns like Brick likes to do.
 
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