The Winter Checklist

Every year around late October or early November I start mentally preparing myself for the best season of the year.  With that preparation comes my standard checklist of events that take place as we officially get into winter in our area.

• Drop to 32 degrees
• Locate the word snow in short-term forecast
• Find first snowflakes of the season (if need be drive to colder climate or higher elevation)
• See snowfall in home city/town
• Record first accumulating snow

Accumulating snow is my signal that winter begins.  Everything else is the lead up.  Since winter is dependent upon where you live, I focus less on dates and more on conditions.  Each year is unique in some way as I'm sure this one will be too.

It would be understandable that before today I posted little about winter.  The October numbers came in and sure enough, it was warm.  In fact the average temperature in October was warmer than May.  For comparison here are the differences in average temperature between May and October over the past three years.

2014:  May + 5.7 degrees
2015:  May + 13 degrees
2016:  May + 5.2 degrees

And as far as that checklist goes?  We (Allentown) have yet to check the very first item on that list.  This would normally happen in October with a day that begins with a 2.  Instead we will be a week into November.  But wait.  What is that I see floating down from the sky today as I walk through the halls in the office?  It can't be could it?  I didn't see anything in the forecast.  Sure enough mixed with that cold rain and sleet pellets were snowflakes.  Wasn't even a matter of discussion.  I even opened the door to step out to make sure.  Guess we are skipping straight ahead.  Next stop the accumulating snow.  And just for good measure I found this little map from NOAA when I got home.  The first "snow map"of the season.

We continue the skipping ahead trend with the weather this week.  The high and low temperature for Friday would be more common with temperatures in mid January.  If the high does indeed only reach the 30's on Friday, the first ten days of November will see highs in the 70's, 60's, 50's, 40's and 30's.  Again to put this in perspective in 2015 and 2016 the highs in the first 10 days were all 50 or above. 

It's this type of weather that leads me to believe winter is only going to get harder and harder to predict.

Remember the winter of 2015-16?  We didn't get accumulating snow until January 12th which I believe was the record for deepest date into a winter season without getting snowfall.  Then we received 31.9 inches in one storm.  Take away that storm and we totaled a whopping 4.3 inches.

Or last year.  We had more snow in March then all the other months combined. 

Winter snowfall forecasting is a massive guessing game.  I might be in the minority this year, but put me down for an above average snowfall season.  More to come later.
 

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