Winter Recap

With our temperatures expected to top 90 a few times this week I think we can officially close out the 2012-13 winter season even though some places are still seeing snow and others will continue to as well.

Let's begin locally first.  One of the more interesting aspects of watching winter unfold is seeing how well these fine meteorologists do in forecasting ahead.  The simple answer is not very well.  And while I'm on the subject, I officially will forever be taking any forecast from anybody with a grain of salt.  My weekend ride to Manayunk last weekend was far wetter than the partly sunny forecast that was given.  Anyway, it's really not going to come as a surprise to see nobody was remotely accurate in predicting Philadelphia's snowfall.

According to the latest record the city ended with 8.3 inches.  That's about ten inches less than the closest lowest forecast that came from Fox who said 18-24.  So I guess Fox wins that round?  It was really more or less a swing and miss from every station.

Now the Lehigh Valley.  I still look at it as a decent winter.  It snowed often just not in very high amounts.  The totals I show for Allentown for the season were 21.4 inches.  Not bad but below average.  For the group who gave predictions it was once again a swing and miss, or maybe a foul tip.  We never got the big coastal storms that pounded New England this year.  If one of those would have gotten us both Allentown and Philadelphia would have ended with the predicted totals.  That didn't happen though so we all get a D in predicting. 

News and Notes

It wasn't a competition since factors in various areas greatly differ, but I can clear off my snow zones on the right side of the page now.

Assuming the season is actually over, Houghton will end will right around 225 inches.  Really nothing out of the ordinary.  That area is in such a prime area for snow that it's almost hard to believe people settled there.  If you like that type of weather and remoteness then maybe a job at Michigan Tech is for you.

Caribou ends the season at 108 inches.  Again, a pretty typical winter in northern Maine.  I think the bigger issue in that part of the country is the cold.  In my mind the weather tends to be more similar to that of the plains in that cold air dips down from Canada constantly and warm ups are hard to come by.  When it snows, it sticks around for awhile.

Last but not least is the always consistent Syracuse that finished with a quiet 115 inches.  They were also once again the snowiest city in the United States even though the mid-west and New England areas did quite well.  Their snow falls lightly but often which really adds up.  If you care to see the joys of lake effect snow pull out a map of New York.  Auburn got 72 inches.  Fulton got 171.  In the middle is Syracuse.  All are about 30 miles from each other.

SUMMER SEASON

The snow totals are gone on my page and this year we introduce something different.  Starting on June 1st and running through September 30th, or basically what I generally consider the summer season, I will be picking complete random cities to track total rainfall.  Obviously this will indicate very little and serve no real purpose outside of my entertainment, but it might help with my subject material.

Here will be the cities of choice in no particular order and literally being picked as I type this post.

• Des Moines, Iowa
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Savannah, Georgia
• Portland, Oregon
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I'd like to give a good explanation of why these cities were picked, but I cannot.  I tried to get a decent amount of the country involved in places I know should get decent rainfall totals due to a variety of circumstances.  Some will be from coastal (west) others could be tropical or some from heavy thunderstorms.  I also didn't want to take the slam dunk areas like Florida that see rain all the time or the proverbial Seattle that doesn't actually see that much rain.  Plus Portland is basically a younger cousin.  I'm also at this time assuming I can find totals for these five locations.

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