Yearly Comparison

After sitting down and looking at the models I wasn't going to post.  Here we go with the back and forth.  What makes it harder for me is that I only get one chance to look at these during the day and that is now.  I don't get the luxury of watching this play out.  For all I know these model runs could be throwaways.  Both the Euro and GFS backed away from the coastal storm.  They do still show snow.  As much as I'd like to say you can count on snow this weekend you never know.  We've all been fooled before.  This is what makes it fun.

I ended up doing this post for a different reason.  As I sadly watched the Euro show almost nothing for the weekend the cycle continued to show a new coastal storm for the 23rd and 24th.  It's of no significance now except that it shows a continued chance of stormy weather.  The next ten days will be interesting to watch.  Once a track is set all you need are a few trains.  The track begins to take shape at the end of the work week which should also provide a lot more answers to what we will see over the weekend and into next week.


2013-14 vs 2014-2015


You know a winter is bad when even I'm ready to move on.  That's what happened last year.  Cold temperatures and consistent snows were all to frequent.  It made winter seem to last forever.  I heard something interesting the other day from a respectable source.  It was noted that the belief was this is the last of a series of consecutive nasty winters particularly in our area.  As a huge believer in patterns it is only a matter of time before we have a few years of above average temperatures in winter with little snowfall.  All that remains to be seen.  So let's see just how close this winter and last winter will end up.

November 2013 - Average temperature (-4) below normal, no snowfall
November 2014 - Average temperature (-4) below normal, 5.7 inches

Think about that one for a second.  As bad as it was last year we didn't see any accumulating snow in November.  It was just colder than normal.  This year it was colder than normal and we had snowfall.  Allentown averages less than an inch of snow in November.

December 2013 - Average temperature (normal), 13.7 inches of snow

So far this December has been warmer in terms of temperature and there is one huge reason why.  If you haven't noticed December began by resembling the ugly sister of November.  8 of the first 11 days had measurable rain.  The sun has seemed to disappear.  Because of this the nighttime temperatures have not been able to drop often.  With at least two chances of snow the 13.7 inches would not be a stretch.  My guess is the month will end up pretty close to last December.

Will the pattern continue?  Many would hope not.  Last year ended with 68.1 inches of snow.  It was the third snowiest winter in recorded history.  Can we get into the top ten again?