Let it Snow

No, not for tomorrow.  I am sticking to my guns.  I wouldn't rule out a stray flurry here or there, but even a coating is pushing it in my opinion unless you are north of the valley.

The snow I'm talking about is what the rest of the country has been experiencing.  Florida has been left out in the cold on this one as every other state currently has snow on the ground somewhere.  It is estimated that 70% of the United States is covered in snow.  A rare feat indeed, but how rare?  I did a little digging and found the last time that snow was recorded in at least 49 states was way back in the winter of 2010, when only Hawaii couldn't produce.  However, according to some experts, this kind of thing hasn't happened since the 1970's, though records were never really kept on such a statistic.  Now I don't want to get into the whole progression of weather and the ebb and flow of historical temperatures that generally produce warm periods and cool to cold periods, but I think there will be some things to look at within the next few years that could give us a better idea of what is really going on. 

Back to the white stuff.  While us easterners were focusing on the storm that came whipping through, others were trying to dig themselves out too.  When we think about lake effect snow, portions of New York, Ohio, Erie and Michigan are generally places that come to mind as getting hit hard.  How about South Bend, Indiana?  Situated in northern Indiana, not far from the Michigan border and about 40 miles east of the southern tip of Lake Michigan, it doesn't seem like the ideal spot for lake effect snow.  Don't tell that to local residents.  Last weekend, between Friday and Sunday morning, the town received 36.7 inches of snow.  That's more than anybody saw in the Northeast from this last system.  

Notice the bullzeye right on top of South Bend.  Again, some of the weirdness of weather is shown on this map.  For one, the snow moved from north to south over the lake (not that uncommon) but somehow managed to hit one particular spot that happens to be home to 100,000 people.  Better yet, in one six hour window, South Bend reported just over 16 inches of snow.  Truly insane. 

A car under there somewhere waiting for the summer thaw