December Obs & Discussions

Folks,

Here we are on the 1st day of meteorological winter an dit feels like it for sure with temps in teh upper 30's to low 40's and wind chillsin the 30's all day.

What will December be like good ol' days of cold with th epotential for snows - notice the plurals are a dumpster fire as we have experinced before.

Snow showers in the region:

Lets see how they do with this map:

amugs wrote:Lets see how they do with this map:

These maps are the stupidest attempts at a forecast IMHO.  Its not even a real forecast.  And riddle me this...what the heck is "Equal chances" mean?  To me it would mean its the battle zone for above or below normal.  So is that a 50/50 shot for a given location within that zone?  If so lets take a peak at the legend at the bottom.   The lightest shade of blue they are giving a 33-40% chance of being below normal; whereas, the lightest shade of orange is 33-40% chance of above normal.  So once again what the heck does "Equal chances" actually mean if there is a less than 50/50% chance of above or below normal in the zones above and below the "equal chances" zone?  Again its really stupid how they do it and its not a forecast.  Its a cop out at a forecast.  

That is all...

Already I had a half-hearted dusting this morning.

sroc4 wrote:

amugs wrote:Lets see how they do with this map:

These maps are the stupidest attempts at a forecast IMHO.  Its not even a real forecast.  And riddle me this...what the heck is "Equal chances" mean?  To me it would mean its the battle zone for above or below normal.  So is that a 50/50 shot for a given location within that zone?  If so lets take a peak at the legend at the bottom.   The lightest shade of blue they are giving a 33-40% chance of being below normal; whereas, the lightest shade of orange is 33-40% chance of above normal.  So once again what the heck does "Equal chances" actually mean if there is a less than 50/50% chance of above or below normal in the zones above and below the "equal chances" zone?  Again its really stupid how they do it and its not a forecast.  Its a cop out at a forecast.  

That is all...

Even aside from the uselessness of the "equal chances" aspect, this map substantively doesn't even seem that reflective of what the models are showing/hinting at presently. Interestingly, The Weather Channel December outlooks map is like an inverse of this (and more in line with what the models are showing). i.e. Shows western ridge-eastern trough type pattern with below normal temps in the Midwest and East and above normal out west.

🥶🥶27* this morning..real feel 20...🥶🥶 Feels good to have some cold!

15 degrees at 6 am this Monday morning

17.5 this morning.  Felt like end of December/early January

Low 20s this morning here. Thick layer of frost to deal with on my car. Midweek warm-up on tap, but then we should be returning to a colder regime this weekend.

22.5* for a low here last night. Felt wintry.

25* for a low, the grass was sparkly and crispy from the frozen dew. No wind either, so it actually felt kind of nice being properly bundled up and walking down to the bus stop this morning.

Man, that wind on a cold day changes everything! It's like humidity/dewpoint in the summer time.

Friday night into Saturday as of now won't amount to much w.r.t. to precip.  The s/w becomes a shredded mess due to the building H pressing on it. Models are coming into agreement on that.  I'll give it until tomorrow afternoon, but very unlikely to produce much besides a few flakes...

^^^ Unless the ridge pops more like what Euro was showing a few days ago. This ridge won't cut it.

46* with light rain currently. In short: Yuck.

A few scattered showers earlier, and 53*, feels like April

I sure hope I get stuck in the center of a west to east death band of snow this winter like I am this rain, how long is this going to rain for? It seems endless. I need to get packages in the mail tomorrow (too big for bags) and they cannot get wet ugg.

SoulSingMG wrote:Canadian Coup?    GEM model has been fairly consistent with a coastal low developing late weekend while GFS & Euro are just beginning to sniff out the potential. Regardless, a volatile pattern is taking shape for the Northeast heading into mid-December with surprises in store.

heehaw453 wrote:Sunday night threat a storm redevelopment with a hard left lean on the EPS indicative of Atlantic blocking. May not work out, but definitely worthy of attention.

I figured since I was basically posting a weenie-map, I ought to keep it ought of long range (it might even belong in banter still lol), but SoulSing's and heehaw's posts got me a bit distracted, and I had to check it out. This is the latest from the Canadian model, and it definitely got an "Oh!" out of me. And we actually now are in the 5-7 day window, so I thought it might perk up the crowd up a bit.  According to the surface maps that created this lovely vision below, all points south of the NJ/NY border will start off as rain (except the very NW portion of NJ, which start as snow).

oh! Of course I know things change as we get closer to the date but this looks like some snow is on the menu-no piddly stuff neither

58° out foggy it’s nasty out. Anybody else noticed certain trees has flowers growing on them already what is this Easter instead of Christmas coming lol

frank 638 wrote:58° out foggy it’s nasty out. Anybody else noticed certain trees has flowers growing on them already what is this Easter instead of Christmas coming lol

Did not notice..but I almost put in the air today. 59 and gloomy..I am ready to sit in front of the tree with hot chocolate not an ice tea..

weatherwatchermom wrote:

frank 638 wrote:58° out foggy it’s nasty out. Anybody else noticed certain trees has flowers growing on them already what is this Easter instead of Christmas coming lol

Did not notice..but I almost put in the air today. 59 and gloomy..I am ready to sit in front of the tree with hot chocolate not and ice tea..

You got that right it’s almost Winter . At this point I will take Temperatures in the 30s for the high

Regarding Sunday night threat a big difference between the Euro and GFS is the strength of the s/w coming down from the upper midwest. GFS is strengthening it while the Euro keeps is rather weak. The orientation of the ridge is the difference in my opinion.  That's the difference between Hudson Valley getting up to half a foot or a few inches. Below Rt 78 my expectations for this are maybe a coating. If the trajectory the ULL doesn't go further south this won't work out for anyone below rt 80.  Watch the ULL strength and trajectory and the ridge axis to its west IMO. 

Plenty of cold air starting Sat and beyond. I didn’t see it coming until this morning. In about a week from now there is another chance for snow. We are off to the races.

It's early, but pretty paltry so far.  Let's get this picked up a bit!

Energy comes ashore tonight, 0z should have a better idea but by 12z manana well have a good handle on Sunday into Monday. Interior fairs to do best as per climb but a 50 mile shift SE could donwonders down to I78 for a whitening.