Snow Talk

0.2 Degrees.  That is the low temperature my thermometer recorded last night.  Wonder if we hit the negative numbers tonight?  I'm thinking yes.

Back to my post.  This winter was suppose to be an average year in terms of snows and a little warmer in overall temperatures.  That would have been the typical La Nina pattern.  With February and another storm coming, I think it is safe to say this will go down as an atypical year.  

It got me thinking about snow totals that the area has seen recently.  There have certainly been some monsters in the past twenty years.  But we have all heard our older relatives weave stories of how much snow fell in their day and how much worse it was then it is today.  It led me on a hunt for the real story and the numbers that will back it up.

This is what I was able to find.

The chart is a bit small.  It was the only way I could fit it on the screen.  However, the chart shows the snow totals for the last 30 years for Allentown.  The purple box is the average total, right around 31 inches.  Now for some numbers.

Since the 1979-80 winter, 13 seasons have had above average snowfall while five seasons had less than 15 inches.  On the contrary, four seasons had over 50 inches.

2000-2009= Averaged 35.4 inches
1990-1999= Averaged 28.9 inches
1980-1989= Averaged 30.9 inches

Average snow total since 1980 is 31.7 inches.  Normal seasonal total is 32.1 inches.  No matter how you look at the numbers in the chart, it all comes out even in the end. 

But then I ran into a different chart.  One that got me thinking about potential changes in our weather.  Since 1922, when I'm guessing they started officially keeping track of snow amounts, 5 of the top 11 snowiest seasons have occurred since 1993 including the first and second.  All five are in the chart above including last year's 59.8 inches that made it the sixth snowiest season.

What does this all mean?  Absolutely nothing really.  I just found it somewhat interesting.  Unless a huge spike in snowfall occurs over the next few years, I read this as weather being weather.  The year after Allentown set an all-time yearly record of 75.2 inches, the city got all of 13.7 inches.  The very next year was the second snowiest ever.  The second and third seasons that followed combined did not hit 10 inches.

This all ties into the next storm.  The hype, the four-letter word hated by most in the weather business, is at a fevered pitch right now.  Weather is unpredictable.  I can't predict it, your local channel 2 guy can't either and neither can the dozens of models that try.  We could get blasted on Tuesday night with heavy snow and high winds or wait, no I think it is a mix of sleet coming Wednesday afternoon, or was it snow to sleet to rain to snow on Wednesday night into Thursday?  What if it misses us completely?  How dumb would that make us look?  I'm not diving head first into the hype pool just yet.  It's weather.  Things change.  That's part of the excitement.