Another week…another east coast snow storm!
If you’re getting a little weary here in CNY of the daily shoveling and occasional arctic cold blasts, you can only imagine how folks in the major cities along the east coast are feeling. Yet another in a series of major storms hammered the seaboard cities Wednesday and Wednesday Night pushing winter snow totals for most of these major cities to more than double their entire winter average…and guess what? It’s not even the end of January yet!
I can’t speak for everyone here in CNY, but my “guess” is there aren’t many of us who “feel” for these folks, and I can understand that. I mean, let’s be honest, how many folks in the Big Apple, Philadelphia or Washington are saying “Oh, those poor folks in Syracuse and central New York!” Probably not many. Oh well…
Just for the record, here are a few snow numbers for some of these cities…
LATEST STORM SEASON TOTAL
Boston 10” 52”
New York City 17” 54”
Philadelphia 16” 37”
Baltimore 8” 13”
Washington, DC 4” 9”
For back in here Syracuse and central New York, we are officially hovering around the 115” mark for snowfall so far this winter, a mere 6” away from our average total snow for the winter…and yes, just like along the east coast, it’s still not even the end of January yet! Obviously this is substantially above normal.
Last year at this time we’d had 50” of snow. Normal snowfall through this date is 64”.
Looking at the medium and long range computer models, I don’t see any major break in this pattern through the at least the middle of February (unless of course the models are, as we say in the weather biz, “out to lunch”). Generally, the models are continuing to indicate a trough of low pressure in the upper atmosphere (storminess) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, a ridge of relatively quiet weather in the central US and Rockies, and a persistent trough of low pressure (storminess , tending to favor coastal storms) along the eastern seaboard.
Given this pattern, the overall temperature trend would tend to be a little colder than normal. If it’s any consolation, I believe that brutal arctic blast we had here last weekend was likely the coldest part of the entire winter, and, more good news, we’re gaining a couple of minutes of daylight each day!
Of course, this coming Wednesday is Ground Hog’s Day, and I suppose that’s when we’ll really be able to nail down the forecast for the next six weeks.
