WHAT HAPPENED TO WINTER HERE IN THE MIDWEST?

[mrfreeze]

why have we been in such a relatively mild pattern while there's record cold back east? this pretty much going to continue all winter? i,ve pretty much went against the grain and predicted this, this year here. im also predicted no snow for the rest of winter and possibly a snowless 2004.

i know alot of folks don't believe in global warming and by what you people have seen back east i probably wouldn't either. but here i can pretty much safely say we haven't seen a real harsh winter in 19 years. in fact our local weatherman the most respected in town by the way said we are heading into a colder cycle the next 15-20 years. of course he lost alot of credibility with me when he predicted the coldest dec in a longtime and the worst winter in twenty years.

i do realize there is alot of winter to go and it's not even half over. but keep in mind i heard it's coming it's coming countless times. the cold snap we had which i correctly predicted to last four days when others said it was a sign of things to come never materialized even close to what was predicted.

the snowy pattern never developed either, im sorry but the pattern has pretty much established itself since early november. i,ve heard a mild october and november is usually followed by a cold winter. not so fast, not here it doesn't in fact every mild fall we had was followed by a mild winter dating back to at least 97-98. the one cool fall we had was followed by the first decent winter we've had in about seven or eight years.so that whole mild fall cold winter doesn'ty buy alot of credibility with me.


i would at least like the metrologist to give us an explanation why it's been so warm overall since 1990 but there's never a explanation given. if anybody would like to explain why i would love to hear it.

i think you people back east experience colder winters than the rest of the country so your not aware of how relatively mild the last twenty years back here have been overall.

i realize after posting this i'll most likely be banned. and i think that's a crock for all im doing is expressing my opinion. it's been warmer here since at least 1990 and that is not an opinion that is a fact. i can't vouch for the years overall but you look at the winter months from 90 on and compare them to any other time in history

[StormCrazyIowan]

I don't think you will be banned.

I don't know anything about global warming, so I won't say a word about it, but I can vouch for the fact that our winters for the past three seasons have been the mildest I remember! Last two seasons had very little snow, and this one had a good start, but I'm still not convinced that I'll see the normal of 35"...which frankly, I'm not too worried about, as long as we have a wet Spring to make up for the lack of moisture! And yes, the cold snap? Highs in the 30's isn't so cold to me!! It was cold for maybe 3 days, and then it was gone...winter isn't over, so I won't say it won't happen, more than likely it will get very cold, but I wouldn't have my feelings hurt to see an early Spring! There's my two cents, and a dime for your time!

[mrfreeze]

I don't think you will be banned.

I don't know anything about global warming, so I won't say a word about it, but I can vouch for the fact that our winters for the past three seasons have been the mildest I remember! Last two seasons had very little snow, and this one had a good start, but I'm still not convinced that I'll see the normal of 35"...which frankly, I'm not too worried about, as long as we have a wet Spring to make up for the lack of moisture! And yes, the cold snap? Highs in the 30's isn't so cold to me!! It was cold for maybe 3 days, and then it was gone...winter isn't over, so I won't say it won't happen, more than likely it will get very cold, but I wouldn't have my feelings hurt to see an early Spring! There's my two cents, and a dime for your time!

thanks for your reply, by the way im done bringing this up in the chatroom. i'll give a monthly summary for the previous month the first of every month. snowfall total for month and how far above or below normal we were for that month. as it stands right now every month since oct has been above normal. this month looks to be no exception either. our snowfall total for the winter of 2003-2004 is only 3'', way below normal. we have none for the year of 2004 so far. our last and only measureable snowfall will be five weeks ago on saturday.

[Lafayette WX]

It is very frustrating being in the Midwest this winter. Let us harken back to last winter though and remember that Indianapolis had their 3rd snowiest winter on record. St.Louis did not fair too bad as well, and Springfield, MO had a great snow season. Overall temps were around normal throughout the Midwest and even below in some places. With all of that said, the last 10 winters on a whole have not been great. I believe it runs in cycles. If you look back to the 40's and 50's winters were warm/less snowy. The 60's and 70's, even into the early/mid 80's were the greatest period of cold/snowy winters for the Midwest. I believe we are trending towards colder and snowier. That does not mean every year will be cold and snowy, just that on average we will see better conditions. And don't be so sure about how the East has seen great winters lately. Last year and the first half of this year have been very good to them. But only 3 winters ago NYC recorded like 4 inches of snow for the entire winter. Hang in there!

[mrfreeze]

It is very frustrating being in the Midwest this winter. Let us harken back to last winter though and remember that Indianapolis had their 3rd snowiest winter on record. St.Louis did not fair too bad as well, and Springfield, MO had a great snow season. Overall temps were around normal throughout the Midwest and even below in some places. With all of that said, the last 10 winters on a whole have not been great. I believe it runs in cycles. If you look back to the 40's and 50's winters were warm/less snowy. The 60's and 70's, even into the early/mid 80's were the greatest period of cold/snowy winters for the Midwest. I believe we are trending towards colder and snowier. That does not mean every year will be cold and snowy, just that on average we will see better conditions. And don't be so sure about how the East has seen great winters lately. Last year and the first half of this year have been very good to them. But only 3 winters ago NYC recorded like 4 inches of snow for the entire winter. Hang in there!

last winter was very decent here, we recieved 30 inches of snow springfield got more like 45. last winter was the eight snowiest on record in st.louis springfield im willing to bet had one of thier top five snowiest winters ever maybe even the snowiest ever.

to be fair feb was our coldest and snowiest month, but is a repeat all that likely really? right now he have 1/10th of what we got last winter.

[pojo]

We probably still have YET to crack the 10" mark for snowfall this season! Dead Serious!!!! The snowstorms either head to our NW or to our SE....nothing really in our direction. Lakes Winnebago and Michigan definitely have a bearing on the weather that we are getting...... most of the time, systems are deflected and/or weakened to the extent that the system is no longer a major producer. Average temperatures so far have been around 30*, which I would rather have instead of single digits. This year, we actually had a green Christmas.... Last year was green, but started snowing on Christmas Eve!

[timNms]

Hey guys, at least ya'll got some snow. We haven't even seen a flurry here yet. lol

[sertorius]

mrfreeze:

I hear what you are saying-we didn't even have your winter here last year-we hand only 8 inches of snow the whole winter last year!! North East Kansas and North West Missouri have not had a true winter since prob. 1993 when we had 4 storms; of course that was the year of the floods as well-since then, it has been dry and warm the whole year. we are currently 18 inches below normal for the past two years and in a severe drout. Is it global warming-possibly, "but not the type being touted by the media"-we may be in a warm cycle, but it will eventually break. I know by reading diares of this area, they had some winters in the 1840s here where it never frosted-it was like summer the whole winter!! It is frustrating and our local mets do not really see winter returning here this year-we will have highs in the upper 30's to low 40's for the next 7-10 days with no real artic air-cool weather, but not real cold!! weather is weather and we can't controll it-Thank God, or there would never be snow!!! maybe Feb. will turn cold and snowy-it has happened in the past-what will prob. happen is that come about late March, it will turn cold and damp-we'll have a month of 40's and drizzle!!! At least this morning we are getting some rain-I haven't seen a cloud for 2 weeks!!!!! Hey, the fish are bitting-Have been catching bass and crappie for the past week!! have a great day!!

[sertorius]

Sorry, but I had to post one more thing-I just read in the Lawrence paper that this is the third warmest year on record for the globe and that 7 of the 10 warmest have occured since 1990-all fine, but I wonder if they will say where these readings were taken-most of them are in the middle of cities where it is warmer because of the heat island affect!! Also, they said that the cold snap in the east seems so cold, because it has been so warm the past 10 years that people aren't use to it!! I'm sorry, but most of the readings in the east are just plain cold no matter what the weather has been in the past-lows of minus 10-20 are cold period!!! Sorry, but this article is bunk!! The data used is suspect and using computer models is supect at best-heck, our computer models have trouble forcasting the weather 10 days away let alone 50 years!! Before people jump on me, I am not anti enviornment-quite the opposite-i do feel we need a new fuel source and quick-but these scare tatics from a group who stands to get billions of dollars in research money are getting out of hand-rant over-sorry!!

[rainstorm]

for much of the nation winter never arrived. very uneventful so far

[vbhoutex]

i realize after posting this i'll most likely be banned. and i think that's a crock for all im doing is expressing my opinion. it's been warmer here since at least 1990 and that is not an opinion that is a fact. i can't vouch for the years overall but you look at the winter months from 90 on and compare them to any other time in history

I THINK POSTING THIS PORTION OF YOUR POST IS A CROCK!!! This is called prejudging for no reason. NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN BANNED AT THIS SITE FOR VOICING THEIR OPINION EVER!!! They have been banned for posting lies about things that have happened at the site and for personal attacks on others or the site in general when there is no basis for an attack. We allow just about any opinion to be posted here as long as it is done in a RESPECTFUL MANNER.

As far as the rest of your post is concerned I will leave the total explanation to the more knowledgeable people on this site to answer. But I can tell you that with the PJ winging in from the NW and staying to your NE/E you will be getting warmer than normal temps and less precip. I can't speak to anything except last winter which like you said was pretty cold and snowy so it seems to me you either had a quirk last year or almost disproved yourself. The PJ and the Eastern trough are expected to migrate further West in the next several weeks. Let's see if you are still asking where winter has gone then.

[mrfreeze]

i realize after posting this i'll most likely be banned. and i think that's a crock for all im doing is expressing my opinion. it's been warmer here since at least 1990 and that is not an opinion that is a fact. i can't vouch for the years overall but you look at the winter months from 90 on and compare them to any other time in history

I THINK POSTING THIS PORTION OF YOUR POST IS A CROCK!!! This is called prejudging for no reason. NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN BANNED AT THIS SITE FOR VOICING THEIR OPINION EVER!!! They have been banned for posting lies about things that have happened at the site and for personal attacks on others or the site in general when there is no basis for an attack. We allow just about any opinion to be posted here as long as it is done in a RESPECTFUL MANNER.

As far as the rest of your post is concerned I will leave the total explanation to the more knowledgeable people on this site to answer. But I can tell you that with the PJ winging in from the NW and staying to your NE/E you will be getting warmer than normal temps and less precip. I can't speak to anything except last winter which like you said was pretty cold and snowy so it seems to me you either had a quirk last year or almost disproved yourself. The PJ and the Eastern trough are expected to migrate further West in the next several weeks. Let's see if you are still asking where winter has gone then.

i feel i have posted in a respectful manner. i don't feel i have ever attacked anyone. and last winter was a quirk believe me. funny as i post my reply it's supposed to turn colder on sunday and stay that way through the workweek. the thing is though cold and dry. by the time moisture makes it's way in again it will be above freezing. it"s a recurrent pattern and i just don't see it changing.

last year the timing of the cold air and moisture was just right for snow just about everytime. this year it's been off everytime but one and i feel as this will be the case throughout the winter. thus my predictiion for no snow at all. even if im wrong about that we are definitely seeing less than 10'' or about half or average winter snowfall.

[StormCrazyIowan]

It was almost funny to me watching areas of Southern Missouri (aka Garrett's "hood" ) get three times as much snow as I got last season!! That just the way the jet stream took the storms I s'pose! As I said, you'll see no tears from me if I don't see much more snow- but hold back the rain this Spring? I'm gonna blubber like a baby!!