I 've just started skiing two years ago and snowboarding last season and has been a lurker in this forum until I decided to sign up last year. Although, I am originally from tropical country -- Thailand, I really got addicted into winter sports!

I have a questions for those who have been skiing/boarding in mid-atlantic states for longer times. Has the weather always been like this in mid-atlantic? Winter 2005/2006, it was bad as I remembered -- January was bad. Winter 2006/2007 was worse as our local resorts could not opened for 2-3 weeks from X'mas to mid January. This winter it is a little better but yet it leave a lot to desire -- something better than a roller coaster pattern like this. I went to Snowshoe 5 times in the past two years and 4 out of 5 times, it rained!

I remembered when I first moved to DC area in winter 2003/2004, the potomac was frozen for quite a long time and Arlington National Cemetary was covered with snow for quite a while. There was even 20" snow in DC a winter before that.

I am now seriously considering moving to the west maybe Seattle or the Bay area! (Colorado would be great, but there is no IT job there)

I am sure people have asked this before, have the weather always been like this around this area? (Say 10 years ago, was it different?)

--
Nat

Having lived here for most of 50 years, I'd say this is pretty much a typical winter. Two weeks from now, it'll be cold again. The biggest difference that I've seen, at least from a snow sports perspective, is how much more reliable ski area operations have become as a result of the massive investments in snowmaking equipment and the technology itself. 20 years ago it was utterly remarkable to be able to ski over Christmas week. Now people complain when an area isn't fully open. THAT, in my view, is a big difference.

You can probably improve your chances of good weather with some planning. In the 8-10 family trips we have take to Snowshoe in the last 3-4 years, only 2 have been impacted by rain. Certainly, our advance trips are a gamble, but I have found that early to mid February is a safe bet if you have to make reservations far in advance. For short-term weekend trips, just take weather into account before deciding to book a reservation. With all the up/down cycles in weather, there are always some very obvious clusters of days where the skiing is going to be excellent (like last Thursday/Friday), and other clusters of days where you might not want to go (middle of this week). If you can plan short term, your chances of getting good skiing weather/conditions go up dramatically.

I am always shocked when I run into people at Snowshoe that seem amazed to experience rain and warm temperatures up there. A lot of people seem to drive 3-8 hours to Snowshoe as if they are heading into the artic circle, with the assumption that it's always 100% winter there. That's not the case. Heck, that's not even the case in Vermont, where they will be hitting the 40s and 50s this week, with rain. Early winter is often cyclical on the east coast, and you have to roll with it. We're lucky that the mid-A ski areas are so good at recovering from warmups and thaws; I think they are better prepared to deal with ups and downs than some of the resorts in New England. That was certainly true last winter, when Snowshoe managed to have as much or more open terrain than many Vermont resorts. There's a tremendous amount of snowmaking power and expertise down here in the mid-A.

There is almost always a warm spell in our local winter, often lasting a while. If we are real lucky we'll get an uninterrupted 4 weeks of cold with snow in the mountains. You have to act when it's good. Last year was exceptionally good - after Feb. 1. I must have had a dozen powder days in the WV backcountry.

That said if I were young and unencumbered, as you imply, and could move to the Pacific northwest, I'd do it. I have friends out there who belong to this group;
http://www.turns-all-year.com/
Need I say more?

I don't agree. I grew up in the area near Annapolis. I learned to skate on frozen lakes. I "skied" down the hill in my back yard when i was learning. Once the "bay" froze over it was so bloody-cold. Often we would get a late season march snow... I simply do not recall 60 degree January days...

Now we have none of these things and while one warm year may be forgettable, this is the third year in a row with what I consider to be abnormally warm temps in the first part of January.

Patterns probably come and go but the overall trend for the last 20 yrs here has been towards warmer winters.

I've lived here for close to 15 years and its been like this every winter that I can remember. There is always a cold snap after Thanksgiving but every single year I can remember I have been back playing golf at some point in January.

I've been living in the DC area for 20 years now. I agree with the general sentiment of this thread; this is a typical winter wrt weather. Prolonged cold stretches of weeks at at time don't happen all that often. The second half of last season (late Jan - early Mar) was a welcome exception. The snow on the ground generally doesn't last too long, especially close to the city.

Periodic warm periods, with rain and mixed precipitation thrown in, happen every winter. Occasionally, we'll get an extended warm period that last weeks or even the entire season. Throw in a random blizzard (feet or more) anytime in November to March, and you have Washington, D.C. in the wintertime.

Kev R., what years do you remember the bay freezing over? IIRC, the 70's (and early 80's?) was one of the coldest decades for the East Coast.

To paraphrase Denis, Carpe Skiem.

The bay froze solid in '76 or '77 I think -- the weather here changed approx 20 yrs ago, and its been screwed up since.

Go back in time, regardless of the "coldest decade" stuff, it was generally colder pre-20 yrs ago.

Murphy once found a website that had the temperature records throughout the southeast, but of course I lost the site. It was great. I also remember once at a job in Annapolis I got hold of BWI's temp records from 1940 on, and there was no trend at all. Anyway, if Murphy is smarter than I am he might still have that site and we can see what the numbers say about temps; no sense arguing about who's memories are suffering from CRS if we can help it, no?

What do you mean IF?

Is THIS what you're looking for?

Great, now we have to argue over what Virgina county we want to consider.

Also, for the sake of this argument I plotted the average annual temperature of Blacksburg for the last 53 years and fit a linear regression to it. The trend showed a 0.03 degree increase per year. Take out '07, which was over 4 degrees above average and the trend drops to about 0.02 degrees per year. Some of this could be attributed to the development of the city. There's not much to Blacksburg but it does still have a small heat bubble.

There are IT jobs in Denver and Colorado Springs. Verizon Business has an office in Colorado Springs with about 3000 people in it. They are always hiring somebody. You might want to check out Boise too.

why the skepticism -- it was freakin' colder, now it's not.

You the man Murph. I did the linear trend on BWI (five or six years ago) and was shocked to find no trend- it actually went downward very, very slightly. Of course, a REAL analysis would be multivariate and control for concrete per square mile around the site or something representative of the urban heat island effect.

KevR the numbers are there, there's no need for skepticism at all. Let the analysis begin!

BTW- MD, NC, WV, TN, etc are all on the main page...

We set some record lows down here in the carolinas with the latest Arctic front & looking back in time it was 76 degrees on this date in DC back in 1907.....The Arctic ice has frozen back to normal from record lows..Thats all I need to know...If the winds blow south we are warm..If they blow from the north we are Cold..Its been that roller coaster forever!.....PS Remember last year when it snowed almost everyday from jan 10th thru march up at Canaan Valley?

Oh right now I remember why I picked up ice skating ... all that balmy weather. I believe summers have grown longer here, fall is shorter, and spring comes on earlier & transitions to summer earlier. Winter is overall a tad shorter, and not as "deep"... how that folds into annual average temps -- no idea.

Yes I do

My first post was just opinion. I have lived here since 1974 and do recall some very cold winters, 4 or 5 in a row, in the late 70s/early 80s. At one point in that period somebody drove a car across the Potomac! I took my kids skating on the little pond at NV Community College and also on the C&O canal. They were rock solid and hundreds of people did the same. I believe that those years were abnormal for this part of the country, but that too is just opinion. Until somebody posts some hard data, preferably over several decades, such as this;
http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/?Page=depths.php
we are just wasting bandwidth. My advice is worth what you paid for it - nothing. Except perhaps for the last few sentences, Go West Young Man, if you can.

I just did some work on Murphy's Snowshoe snowfall data and I can see no real trends. Now if I can figure out how to post a file to this site.....OK, I give up. Anybody know how to add an Excel spreadsheet file to a post?The Colonel

Again, this is anecdotal and not proof of anything but that I love ice hockey, but 3-4 years ago we played pond hockey several times on the C&O canal. People were skating on ponds throughout the area; our team captain hurt himself playing pond hockey. Can't remember the exact year.

Colonel,

Open the spreadsheet in Excel. From the Excel menu, choose File - Save As and select some text format as the save as type (space delimited/separated, tab delimited, comma delimited, etc.) Open the saved-as file in a text editor, and then simply cut and paste the relevant section into a post. This is a down and dirty simple approach; you may lose some column alignment when it is posted.

Scott,
Does the mark-up for this forum software support tables? Looks like it doesn't and I'm willing to bet for obvious security reasons HTML comments are not allowed.

Thanks everyone for answering! In fact, this is an indirect way to ask how old you guys have been around! lol.

I really am just wondering about this since it seem like people I met complain about skiing in this area a lot and some blame it on global warming.. It 's understandable coz the past three years suck (with the exception of second half of winter last year). Thanks for all the answers, I 've always enjoyed reading posts in this forum from people who are passionate about weather!

Denis: The link to the site above is really interesting, I am even more tempted to move to Pacific Northwest now!

Murphy: Thanks for the link to the data. Btw, I went to school in Blacksburg!

Rusty: I will keep that in mind -- Colorado Springs.

I hate to push this towards the edge of GW, but earlier I found this interesting article that was written that says the global temperatures are actually remaining flat while carbon emissions are up about 4%. I want to hunt down the data, but for those of you here who won't make this a flame post, take a gander:

Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
January 8, 2008

An accumulation of nearly 45 inches of snow in New Hampshire last month has Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby asking, "Where did global warming go?"
Jacoby contends the "hysteria and alarm" that is expressed by many people who write and comment about global warming is misplaced. Lost amid all that "hysteria," he says, was the fact that record low temperatures were set all over the world in 2007, noting the start of winter last year in South America was one of the coldest ever observed.

"The hook of it for me was going through my files and realizing that at the beginning of 2007, there were predictions that it was going to turn out to be the warmest year ever recorded," he comments. "And in fact what happened in 2007 was that global average temperature was essentially the same it had been in 2006; which was essentially the same as it had been in 2005; and so on going back to 2001. Whether this is a permanent thing or something temporary, it seems that global warming has stopped."

Jacoby says for the past seven or eight years, there has been no real change in the temperature of the planet -- either up or down. "When you combine that with the hysteria about how the world could be roasting if we don't radically revise and drastically change and restrict the way we live and the consumption of energy and all the rest of it, it just seems to me that it's a point that needs to be made over and over again," he shares. "This thing gets treated like a religion when that isn't the way science is supposed to work."

The columnist says "much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming -- especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill."

In his new column "BR-R-R! Where did the global warming go?" Jacoby also contends that "even though atmospheric carbon dioxide ... is up about four percent since 1998, the global mean temperature has remained flat."

<end>

I'd listen to scientists more than columnists.

That makes sense. Here you go.

I'll stick to listening to anyone that says we are headed back to having times of the potomac freezing over like an artic waste land. I figure anything that could promote a natural ski resort in the bowl on the mountain behind my house... all the happier I'll be.

RED FLAG RED FLAG!! ^^^^FOX News link right above ^^^^


I Hate The Rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE STOP RAINING!!! I HATE 70 Temps in JANUARY!!!

We will be heading back to a cooldown by 2012...& if whoever is still around by 2045 they might feel the urge to grab some beer or your fav beverage..Find a way to keep the stuff from freezing..Find a graveyard where there's a certain ex nobel......AHHHh Forget it...ain't worth the grief!!!

Discussions of how cold/hot it was in 76/85/92/07 is just geezing. Why I remember when I was a kid and the snow come up to my waist.... but I was only 4' tall then . It's all relative to where we were and are in our perspectives of cold, snow, and winter. Before I became an addict (to skiing, that is) I relished warm winter days for the opportunity to play with my sticks on fairway drive. Now, I put everything into ski perspective (read wanting/needing cold and snow) rather than golfing (read warm, sunny). Do I want it cold and snowy? You betcha! I want it so cold that brass monkeys have certain parts of their anatomy turning blue and that 10'whatever has to shovel snow to wipe their #%*@#. In the mid atlantic, we just don't get the kind of winter weather our addiction requires.

Study: Northeast winters warming fast By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 12, 1:51 PM ET



ALBANY, N.Y. - Earlier blooms. Less snow to shovel. Unseasonable warm spells.


Signs that winters in the Northeast are losing their bite have been abundant in recent years and now researchers have nailed down numbers to show just how big the changes have been.

A study of weather station data from across the Northeast from 1965 through 2005 found December-March temperatures increased by 2.5 degrees. Snowfall totals dropped by an average of 8.8 inches across the region over the same period, and the number of days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground decreased by nine days on average.

"Winter is warming greater than any other season," said Elizabeth Burakowski, who analyzed data from dozens of stations for her master's thesis in collaboration with Cameron Wake, a professor at the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space.

Burakowski, who graduated from UNH in December, found that the biggest snowfall decreases were in December and February. Stations in New England showed the strongest decreases in winter snowfall, about 3 inches a decade.

There were wide disparities in snowfall over the eight-state region, with average totals ranging from 13.5 inches at Cape May, N.J., to 137.6 inches at Oswego, N.Y. Some stations on the Great Lakes, where lake-effect storms are common, showed an increase.

The reduction in days with at least an inch of snow on the ground was the most pronounced at stations between 42 and 44 degrees latitude - a band that includes most of Massachusetts, a thick slice of upstate New York and southern sections of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Burakowski cites two likely causes for the reduction in so-called snow-covered days: higher maximum temperatures and "snow-albedo feedback," in which less snow cover to begin with allows more sunshine warmth to be absorbed by the darker ground, making it less conducive to snow cover.

The research has yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal, though meteorologists who have studied long-term climate trends said the observations appear to be in line with other research.

Richard Heim of the National Climatic Data Center looked at trends in snowfall totals nationwide from 1948 to 2006 and found that patterns varied regionally and seasonally. For the Northeast in winter, he found totals mostly decreasing along coastal areas, with an increasing trend along the Great Lakes. Art DeGaetano, of the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, said regions around New York state have recorded negative trends in snowfall since 1970.

DeGaetano cautioned that snowfall totals can vary a lot from year to year. Last month, for example, snow totals were well above average for December across much of the Northeast.

Ski center operators also have noticed an incremental increase in temperatures over the decades, said Parker Riehle, president of the trade association Ski Vermont, but he echoed DeGaetano's point that snow totals have gone up and down.

"We've seen some erratic winters in recent years," Riehle said. "The mood swings of Mother Nature, perhaps, are deeper than they used to be."

But while ski slopes can fire up snow-making guns to compensate for lack of flurries, snowmobilers and cross-country skiers have complained about later starts and fewer trails covered with snow.

Cross-country skiers never even get in the right frame of mind during some winters, said Mark Booska of the Hudson Valley Ski Club.

"They look out their window and they're not thinking skiing," he said.

Sure..Thats snowmelt under the bridge! fast f-ward to 2008 with a above ave snowcover in north America..Ice cap back to 1996 levels after record low's...Way below ave in parts of the Arctic & Snow in Baghdad Iraq..The 1st any living person has ever seen!...Step outside next week & see if you feel like posting a followup!...You Like Koolaid..don't ya?

Soon (?) we'll see news articles like this:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/northeast_stunned_by_freak_january

Of course, we all know that Global Warming is a myth and a part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to increase taxes and create a stage of national hysteria that will only cease with the proclamation of national health insurance, socialized medicine, gun control, stem cell research, solar eclipses, and same-sex marriage. And on top of that, they will take your snowboards away and everyone will be forced to ski on old Lange skis, as the sidecuts have been ruled as creating too much merriment which is contrary to the teachings of the State Church of the US. In short: Everyone knows that this global warming stuff is liberal propaganda anyway.

The center of the earth, as every true American knows, is the US, with the city on the hill (can't remember if it is Kansas City or Omaha) on top. And as we get closer to the edges of the flat plate that is the earth, and its four corners (Isaiah 11:12) these areas receive more sunlight. We all know that there are no poles because if we did have them, the earth would have to be round and of course, Bruno was executed for being a heretic and espousing this belief, and his disciple, Galileo, finally recanted for his heresy before a tribunal of the Holy Order of the Inquisition. The earth doesn't move (Psalm 104:5) and it has pillars that lie upon its foundations (Job 9:6). Skiing is done in the mountains close to the edge of the earth that hold up the canopy (Isaiah 40:22).

Alas... Global warming... what a myth...

KevR,
Take a look at the Peanuts cartoon in the Sunday funny papers. If this is not Kansas, I do not know what is?!!

To all reviewing the study about winters in NE getting softer. The study covered a 7+/- year period of time. In a short period like that averages can really be impacted by a series of colder of warmer winter periods. I agree with fishnski, if you factor in the record snowfalls of Dec. 2007 in New England, the result of the study would certainly be different. How much, somebody else needs to do the math.
The Colonel

Glad to see that you are finally" waking up & smelling the Expresso" Ibotta! Welcome to the side of individual rational thinking & Common sense...no room for the DEMagods here!

Lou i AM quite suspicious of YOUR proposal that THESE fundamental truths are nothing but myth, and concerned for your well BEING. I am sure that as i write THIS that you have been relegated by the ANNOINTED scientific community to a future as a member of the FLAT earth society for your treatise on GW AS MYTH; as everyone KNOS there's a new NOBLE prize for literature/fiction on the line here and mr noble is pretty mad at you write now. I feel obligated to POINT out a few inconsistencyies in u thinking.

FIRST, as every educated american knos, the center of the earth is NOT the United States of America, it's a huge ball of molten, steaming boiling....... let me call it.....STUFF that sometimes blows AHOLE in the crust of the earth and causes all sort of BAD things to happen to our climate.....

SECOND, (do the RANDOM caps remind U all OF ANYone?? ) and this is what, at least for the reader LIKE ME who can keep up with u advanced THINKIN & writin, really for US discredits u whole argumint. You say that the guvmint is going to take "your snowboards away and everyone will be forced to ski"; and then you turn around and say "We all know that there are no poles"...... how can u say this lou, any skier with a skill level above novice uses poles. Imagine the chaos in the lift line if there were no poles, murder and mayhem would ensue and ur liebenschraum would turn into a cheap imitation of an urban subway station.

Lou, Lou
Tell me it ain't true ,

ur friend

You mean this Peanuts comic Colonel?

I need one of those online photo systems. Sandra and I spent the 30th out in the Flint Hills- there was about eight inches of snow and some drifting with temps around 35 degrees- and they were, as usual, beautiful in that prairie-sort-of way. You will never, never, never mistake Kansas for Colorado (though if you ever saw the Kansas State Flag, you might get a little confused), but at least the entire state isn't a table top.

And of course I could show some of the CO trip photos, too...

...okay, I finally did it. I got an online photo album. I'll start with that Flint Hill hike I was just talking about:

Flint Hills, Kansas

If anyone has problems with the link, please let me know. I'll work on getting some ski photos uploaded, as those are more pertinent to this particular message board, I'm told.

Thou shall not CAP a man for making fun of you (Fishnski 12:18)

Yeah Fish... I've been smelling the espresso now for many years. Obviously, not as long as the 5,770 years that the earth is old... ;-)

The article says "1965-2005" -- that's 40 yrs...

Anyway, who said anything about GW, could be the Clean Air Act for all I know getting rid of all the pesky but reflective atmospheric soot...

The point is -- we had marginally cooler, longer, somewhat snowier winters in the region during much of my formative years and a change about 20 yrs ago.

Which one is "abi-normal" in the long view, no idea.

While the irony of that situation would be worthy of Kubrick, I think the increasing industrialization of China, India etc would negate any soot-cleaning from the Clean Air Act. What a story idea though: we kill ourselves by trying to clean up after ourselves. Or maybe that's just a fantasy from being badgered by my wife to clean the house...

I think the weather started getting warmer in D.C. when Al Gore came to town. Any conspiracy theories?