We all know that Canaan Valley & Snowshoe get their deep annual snowfall totals largely due to the winds and moisture coming across the Great Lakes and hitting the high slopes of the WV Alpps!  

With the much colder than normal temps we and the MidWest are and have been experiencing this week and really since late November, the lakes have considerable more ice surface forming earlier than usual.  So Chaga, Langley, Mr. Fish, Tucker County Weathermen, anybody...how will this impact total snowfall in the Alpps, which has not been that abundant so far this winter?

What do similar past winter starts tell us about future lake effect snowfall in our beloved Alpps?

The Colonel

The Colonel wrote:

We all know that Canaan Valley & Snowshoe get their deep annual snowfall totals largely due to the winds and moisture coming across the Great Lakes and hitting the high slopes of the WV Alpps!  

With the much colder than normal temps we and the MidWest are and have been experiencing this week and really since late November, the lakes have considerable more ice surface forming earlier than usual.  So Chaga, Langley, Mr. Fish, Tucker County Weathermen, anybody...how will this impact total snowfall in the Alpps, which has not been that abundant so far this winter?

What do similar past winter starts tell us about future lake effect snowfall in our beloved Alpps?

The Colonel

Lake affect snow definitely adds to the snowfall totals for the Alpps, but I'd like to see some substantion that it is the dominant snow maker for that region. Canaan Valley gets snow from plenty of coastal storms and storms tracking from south central US.

Also, snowfall for December has been close to normal (6 inches below 12 year average but within 0.5 standard deviation.) October and November had greater than average snowfall. Problem this December/early January has not been cold in the Midwest, it's been warmth in West Virginia, i.e., rain. This has been the 3rd (or 4th?) straight weekend with non-frozen precipitaion. If some of the rain was snow, ... Snow depth was 11 inches on 12/18, and it's 1 inch today.

http://data.canaanmtnsnow.com/