Comments on: Not much snow cover yet south of Canadian border; cooler weather the next few days, then milder for weekend

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:17:14 +0000

Brayden: Meteorological winter starts Dec. 1. Astronomical winter begins Dec. 21. And to be fair, as I point out in new blog entry, we’ve had substantial first week of December snow events in 2002, 2003, 2009 and 2010, so some expectation of early December snow is not out of kilter — though it’s not necessarily a determinant for how the rest of the season will go.

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:12:15 +0000

Deck is stacked against me, WD, when on one Sunday have to make a call on a system the following Sunday. I might get a few gimmes here or there with a Monday storm that looks to be a pretty sure hit.

I am quite certain I would NOT have gone 5/10 or higher on the Dec. 18-19, 2009 storm the previous weekend. Would have settled for 3/10-4/10 or so. And I would have LOST on an 18-inch snowstorm!

By: wdbrand

wdbrand — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:07:24 +0000

I’m also sure, most of the folks on this board are too polite to point out a stacked deck. However, I’m not one of them. Ain’t a bookie in Vegas that would take the bet if you were givin 10 to 1.

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:06:50 +0000

Disagree totally, WD. I’ve made this HARDER for myself with this up or down/ win-loss thing. I expect to do no better than about two-thirds and would be very happy with three quarters, unless the winter is uniformly warm like last year and therefore easy. Typically, there are too many late-week potential systems that I’ll have to gamble on one way or the other from several days out, too many sneaky disturbances/clippers/upslope snow events that can pop up that won’t be clear the previous weekend. A heavier snow squall goes into Blacksburg for just an hour when I have 3 or 4 snowflakes, dumps an inch, and I’ve blown the week. If we get into a winter like 2010-11 with frequent small disturbances, many of which miss, I could easily go sub-.500. I actually made it HARDER for myself by making a 5/10 call that doesn’t happen a LOSS, instead of a tie or half win/half loss. There is NO advantage for me sitting on a fence at 5 flakes — when I call 5 flakes, it will just be showing a very low confidence in a potential event, but I will lose nonetheless if it doesn’t happen.

I could have made this easy on myself with partial victories/losses for in-between snowflake numbers. But this is all or nothing each week.

By: wdbrand

wdbrand — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:57:49 +0000

Mr. Myatt, you are far too lenient with your self set rules for your snow meter. You have a 50/50 chance of winning the entire season. 100%. You need to reset the difference between win and lose. If you need help, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll give you a snow meter that will let you work for your prediction.

By: Brayden Shushok (braydenofbtown)

Brayden Shushok (braydenofbtown) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:57:14 +0000

Ok.. I absolutely LOVE snow, and truthfully, I think this could be the year.

First of all… Winter hasn’t even STARTED yet.. it doesn’t until december 21st… and It’s been a while since I’ve seen any significant snow in this neck of the woods before december 15th. Second, We have had tons of frost this fall.. which has to be a good sign. When I look at the extended forecast..starting next week temps will drop into the mid to high 40′s…and stay there. AT LEAST, we aren’t still in the 60′s. So long story short.. IT AINT OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS!

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:20:51 +0000

Yeah I was about to do zero snowflakes but wasn’t sure at the time about the timing of the cold front which now looks to arrive late Monday, after the period of the first week of the snow meter.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:12:18 +0000

The first 5 days of DEC are in the books, and what an epic “blowtorch” they have been. Blacksburg is 10.7 degrees warmer than normal, and ROA is at +12.1. You definitely should have gone with zero snowflakes for this week, KM, not that it makes any diff for your win-loss total ….

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 22:12:16 +0000

Chris actually commented in the previous thread at 2:39 p.m. today. I approved his commented but didn’t see which tread it went in.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 21:59:01 +0000

The NAO outlooks. Widespread agreement here ….. MUCH more negative numbers on all future outlooks, both ensemble and the GFS. On both the 7-day and 10-day GFS outlooks, the NAO will go to -3 near the end of each graph. One neat thing that you can identify is, the GFS model is the 3rd-most negative spaghetti strand on the top ensemble graph.