Updates

Sorry for no snow map yesterday, that's because I went snowboarding at Mountain Creek which was awesome. I would say the bottom got 2.5 inches and up top got 3-4 because of the lifting air going up over a 1,000 foot vertical. Yeah it makes a BIG difference. My forecast was calling for a grand total of 4-6 inches, but I probably should have said 3-5 because that's around what most people got with the morning and evening snow events together. And lower elevations getting less.

December:

Let's recap December because it was a cold and snowy month. Now this is for my house at 1,000 feet so some will have more and some will have less. I just want to point out that December was typical of El Nino winters. Lots of snow, then rain to melt, then snow, then rain. But that's how you get big snow seasons around here.

" Well we got a whole lot of rain 5.09" inches to be exact which was WAY above the average, and on top of that we had 22.25" inches of snow. Now that is a decent chunk but northwest Jersey averages 50"-70", so months like this need to happen to get us there. We also had white Christmas and a white New Years. In total we had 20 day's this month of solid snow cover topping out at 18" at High Point and a foot other places. It snowed 10 days this month and we stayed below freezing (for highs) 15 days. The average is 30 per season, last year we had 50! (A cold and dry winter if you ask me)". The average day time high was 5.4 degrees below average, and the over night low was 1.1 above average. (The over night almost every month is above while the daytime high is significantly below, this is most certainly due to urbanization of my area over the last 40 years. Which means the "average" is essentially useless. By personal opinion it useless everywhere because there is no "average" or "normal". But the weather offices and everyone uses it so all in all December was 2.1 degrees below the "average".

Out with the old, in with the new. JANUARY!

Now after today's warmth (mid 30's) we will dip below freezing tonight and I don't think we will get above it for a solid two weeks. The arctic oscillation (which you can find in previous posts) is heading toward a value of -6, which basically signals the cold air is here, and here to stay for awhile. The NAO is also negative, and just to let you know we have had ALL our snow this season while the NAO was negative. That includes October and all of December, but remember that warm November? It's wasn't global warming. It was the NAO and AO both positive, and there was no snow and little cold. Go figure? Now they were both negative and it was cold and snowy. The NAO, AO, ENSO, MJO, AMO, PDO, PNA, AAO, and other oscillation patterns ARE essential in weather forecasting medium to long range. If you don't fully understand these atmospheric patterns I suggest you look them up, it's fascinating stuff. It's these indices that whether decadal or not that cause short term and long term climate change. If Al Gore knew about this stuff then maybe he would claim to have invented it...

Ok, sorry for my rambling. Climate change is touchy for me, and when a politician tries to sell me something as fact it's in my scientific nature to question it. And if you don't wanna question it and just go with the "majority" then you my friend are not a scientist. You are a follower that cannot think/do for themselves. Ok, I'll make another paragraph for the 1996 repeat storm? Yeah, I just said that...

I was only a youngling when the blizzard of 1996 hit, but I remember it like it was yesterday. In fact it's why I am blogging to you right now, it is the event that lead me on the path to meteorology. Unfortunately I don't know the entire scenario that played out but Joe Bastardi is talking about a potential repeat of the storm to the DATE! This is the GFS model for January 8th, exactly 14 years after the blizzard. It's developing along the arctic front and it's our next potential snow event. I'm all over this...\

That's it for now, if there are any misspellings I'm very sorry. I don't have any time to proof read this morning, I heading out. See ya later...