Feb 2024 Observations and Discussion

Folks,

We have made it to the shortest calendar month of the year even if it is a leap year LOL!!
What will this month bring?
What will the Groundhogs: Phil, Chuck and Emily have to say for our areas??


31* this morning with some patchy frost as I made my way to the Highlands.
I heard the birds chirping this morning - amazing, right on cue for 2-1 for my area each year!!!

AND we gain the most amount of sunlight as we move through this month - gaining 2 minutes per day then 3 minutes per day once we get to Feb 15th - this is when the sun angle starts to kick in for snowstorms making it harder for the snow stick if it is light and marginal temperatures during the day.
We are slowly coming out of low Vitamin D season peeps!!

For NYC
Sunrise Sunset
Feb 1 7:06 am ↑ (112°) 5:13 pm ↑ (248°)

Feb 29 6:30 am ↑ (99°) 5:46 pm ↑ (261°)

Gaining ~ one hour and 7 minutes over the course of the month if my math is correct LOL!!

Thanks Mugs!! Our temps have already been marginal in storms this year. Adding sun angle into the mix kinda BLOWS! But a favorable wind direction and track of mid-level lows will always beat sun angle. So let's see how it plays out.

Here are my usual reflection maps. I don't remember if I posted December.

Precip departures from normal

DEC



JAN



Temp departures from normal

DEC



JAN

It's been a mild winter so far no doubt. Up here in the MHV January wound up 5.5 above normal after a December that was 7.2 above normal. We managed 15.5 inches of snow in January which is average for the month. Feb. looks like it may finish above normal as well thanks to the first 10-14 days. I'm hoping for an active and colder second half of the month continuing into early March. Fingers crossed.

The sun came out for half and hour the dogs ran to the sun spot it was so funny I guess they noticed as well and then I took us all outside to feel it!! It was 49.* Now mostly cloudy again and temp dropped to 47* but we had a few min of sun!!

36 degrees and something new and different.....cloudy.Calm winds.Looks like the sun comes back Sat, Sun and Mon with fair weather.

Happy Groundhog Day unfortunately I don’t believe it that we’re having an early spring. We all know what’s gonna happen when we get into late March April May it’s cold raw rainy conditions then we get into summer it’s hot

29 degrees, sunny (glory be) and calm winds.The sun and blue skies drove the dark clouds away!

Beautiful site!! I might have to drive with the top down..cold be damned!

UPDATE:a little chilly but wow felt wonderful flying down the highway with the wind blowing and the sun shining!!

Nova Scotia (particularly NW areas) is ground zero for a historic blizzard that closed off its ULL and cutoff. It's been stuck under a block for several days. Parts of the island have received over 3' of snow with the system and likely another 1'+ still to come. Winds at time well over 60 mph so you can imagine some of the drifts exceeding 20'. It's that same Omega block that prevented our eastern zones from a major snowstorm.

Hopefully the mid month pattern change occurs because right now you can really feel the strong sun and now the early flowers are popping up

Sun is definitely getting stronger, can start to feel it if you're out in the sun. And can really feel it now if your car is parked in the sun for a few hours even on a cold day.

Of course this will eventually herald "sun-angle" issues with daytime storms later this month and March. But my thought on that has always been that the sun usually only hinders marginal events anyway. If you get a real snowstorm, it is going to overcome the sun angle issues anyway.

aiannone wrote:Hopefully the mid month pattern change occurs because right now you can really feel the strong sun and now the early flowers are popping up

this is going to start messing with the maple trees too. last year was already a couple weeks early for the sap to start running and this warm stretch might just start the flow even earlier.

30 degrees, clear , calm winds.On the way to 53 today, a heat wave.
NWS improving here, rain to snow late Monday night into Tuesday morning.Temps are colder after the storm so may get a snowpack back.Trend is our friend right now.

Is anyone able to comment on the chance for rain tomorrow? Things seemed like they were looking good up until yesterday. Trying to decide if a hike is doable or if I should skip that and head straight for the brewery...

Snowing hard at 11:20 in the PM, sticking to everything, 30 degreees, didn’t expect this!
     Good Luck !

Same. 31 and driveway is coated

Totals from todays storm.

Lot's of 1 foot plus amounts North of the city. Most places there were pegged for 1-3 inches by the models at this time last night.

https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&product=PNS&issuedby=OKX

dkodgis wrote:

Is that whole road your driveway??!!

Currently 31* was wondering where the winds were yesterday..they are here now 21 mph and the gust that just woke me up was 30..

25 degrees, clear, windy.Howling winds last night woke me up.

Mom, yes. It is my driveway. 225 feet.

The next potential threat of snow comes Saturday.

This will be a baroclinic driven system where we have a deep arctic air mass clashing with a sub-tropical one.



Check out this western ridge extension. Over the last couple of days we have seen this ridge trend stronger. In tandem with a -NAO (notice ridging over Greenland), its causing the Polar Vortex to stretch south and for the polar jet to sink into the eastern CONUS. We have the right signals. A -EPO, +PNA and -NAO.



A look at the 500mb energy shows the pieces needed to come together for a storm to develop. We're tracking the sub-tropical energy, the pacific energy and the polar energy. These pieces are trying to consolidate near the Mid-Atlantic and models show a formidable storm system. Whether it comes up the coast or stays to our south is the question. Additionally, the size of the precip field, aka, how far north the snow gets, depends on dynamics and mid level lift. As of now, this is a system that favors southern portions of our area from DC-Philly to SNJ and as far north as Trenton.

Here is the Icon model's depiction of the snow threat. The timing is early Saturday morning (after Midnight) to 8am.



There is a CHANCE, we can see a better consolidation of all these piece of upper energy which could yield a much larger storm system. The timing for this one would be more Sunday into Monday. Not many models show this happening right now, but based on what I see aloft, its something we should keep an eye on.