Thursday, March 3, 2016

Winter to make a retreat and a reappearance is not on the horizon

It's going to be difficult to keep SCWB going barring a dramatic change in later March. The snow stake at Mt Mansfield illustrates the situation perfectly. It is right there with the worst winters going back to 1954 which spans 60 years. In 1980 and again in the Super Nino winter of 1983, the snow situation was similar, but both years featured snowy periods in March or early April salvaging some minimal dignity. This year appears to want to go the way of 1956-57, which after a awful December, January and February, faded completely in March. If anyone has the great Crosby Stills Nash and Young's live album - 4 Way Street, Neil Young introduces one of his songs by saying this - "Here is a new song guaranteed to bring you right down, its called 'Don't Let It Bring You Down'. It sorta starts out real slow and fizzles out all together." This describes the winter of 2015-2016 perfectly.

There is really no snow in the forecast over the next week and I am not sure it gets much better beyond that. One organized weather system will pass well to the regions south Friday. This means more snow for the Mid Atlantic, a region that has actually seen above normal snowfall this winter. Another much weaker system follows on its heels Saturday night into early Sunday but this too will pass well to the south of us and minimal if any snow is expected. The last of the cold weather from the present arctic intrusion will then vanish Monday and give way to thaw which is expected to persist for several days.

The European model remains a bit warmer than the American GFS model going forward but both models share in the belief that the thaw will mark a major retreat for the current winter season. Temperatures in the 60's are possible during the middle part of the week and although cooler weather is expected for the weekend, nothing categorically cold is expected (below normal temps) and snow is certainly not expected. It is possible for the pattern to take a dramatic turn in later March. Spring in New England is especially unpredictable and full of twists and turns but I would be surprised to see significant snow or cold of any kind through about St Patrick's Day which looks out about 2 weeks.

8 comments:

DdR said...

When are you going to hang up the reins for this year? It really looks like the winter is over. I don't know if this is a climate-change thing, or just a freak event.

Thanks for all your hard work. I was going to go up to Killington next weekend and spend big bucks, but that's now off the table given the pathetic snow forecast. You've saved me big bucks and a lot of aggravation.

80sMetalForever said...

I blame Josh Fox

Unknown said...

Well this a real kick in the Richard. Josh, I encourage you to take my buddy, twowheelbeard (Twitter), up on his invite to join us all for Smuggs annual Lot #1 tailgate competition. We are two time defending champions, and take our tailgating as seriously as we do our skiing. After this most recent news that may be all we have left.

spunkie said...

RIP

Unknown said...

Hilarious...

Gauss said...

This has truly been the winter of our discontent. But thanks for the Four Way Street shout out. That got me through high school.

Unknown said...

Hang in there josh, thx 4 the information....

Unknown said...
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