JANUARY HAS GOT AN IDENTITY PROBLEM!
Written By: Scott Hetsko
The new year began brutally cold and snowy. Our weather office was getting emails from snow lovers excited about a great season of snowmobiling and skiing. Then El Nino and the good old NAO/AO oscillations decided to radically mix things up! They are called "oscillations" for a reason after all. You can see the differences in the graphic I made above. The first 12 days were very cold and snowy. Since January 13th, only 0.3" of snow has fallen at the Rochester airport!
Better news for Winter lovers is coming this week. Colder is now moving into the area but a more robust shot of cold air will graze the area Friday and Saturday. There will be some lake effect but at this time I don't expect more than a few inches North of I-90. As for any large snowstorms, February is usually good for one or two. I'm still confident in Rochester getting a doozy before Winter ends!
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure glad to see the cold air return, but it looks like we're going back into a cold but relatively benign, non-eventful weather pattern, with yet ANOTHER snowstorm missing us to the south for good measure. Do you see a more active storm track setting up that is more favorable for Rochester, or are we going to have to rely on lake effect for nearly all of our snow opportunities in the coming weeks?
sort of related to the first poster, im wondering what has to happen to make storms hit us instead of missing us every which way? im afraid that by the time the pattern shifts for storms that track closer to us they will then start cutting west again and we'll miss then too. i dont think ive ever seen it so difficult to get snowstorm around here. its NY for peets sake
ReplyDeleteEl Nino Winters are famous for an active Southern storm track. These strong Arctic high pressure systems have been forcing storm off the mid atlantic coast. Snow for them, little for us!
ReplyDeleteI don't see this changing too much in the near term. Hopefully we'll get a good on in February/March, still plenty of time!
Scott, with the prolonged cold forecasted, do you think the snow will pile up, slowly but surely, like it did in early January?
ReplyDeleteI'm so tired of the same old....storm hits us, rain, once cold, storm misses us...on and on and on and on....why would this change in February and March? Sorry for my pessimism, but I've had it with hoping for any type of big synoptic snowstorm. Once Spring and warm weather arrive, at least this constant frustration will be history.
ReplyDeleteMiss after miss after miss. Another storm at the end of the week will miss us again. We can get 1.00 inch of rain, but cannot muster one synoptic snowstorm in New York. Unbelievable. Bring on spring.
ReplyDelete