predictions look good
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jamesdeluxe
Administrator
Is Henry an alias for Dr. Weather?
I'm always suspicious of predictions like this. The URL is from accuweather, but I can't find a source explanation of the map's raionale.
jasoncapecod
Well-known member
Yeah Right..I wonder if this guy is holding Natural Gas/Heating Oil futures that are coming due in December..
Bluebird Day
New member
Looks like the BLUE states are getting all the snow this year.... poor GOP is going to lose its "base" again. :lol:
The MEI is down a little bit at the recently posted value of .754.
Any prediction of "below by 50%" is really going out on a limb. That's a 1-in-30 year prediction, almost certainly going to be wrong. On the other end, 90+% of ski areas have NEVER had a 200% season. Consistent places like Alta and Targhee have never exceeded 150%.
Any prediction of "below by 50%" is really going out on a limb. That's a 1-in-30 year prediction, almost certainly going to be wrong. On the other end, 90+% of ski areas have NEVER had a 200% season. Consistent places like Alta and Targhee have never exceeded 150%.
Patrick
Active member
Tony Crocker":3ndqpq9d said:
Never really looked into AccuWeather. Are their predictions (percentage from normal) based on expected snowfall in ski areas or just in general across the state? The standard deviation would be much greater in places on the borderline snow/not-snow divide that aren't in the mountains. For example, how much snow does Boston, New York or Philadelphia general receives?
To place in context, Ottawa's almost record winter received 424.1 cm in 2007-08 (average: 235.8 cm) which was a 180% year.
In the bad category, last year was 93% of normal. At 3.2cm, last March being at 8% of normal.
So if the accuweather talks about snow across the whole area, I could see those percentage away from the norm being more realistic than data collected at ski areas or in the mountains (Mansfield or Mt Washington). However I don't know if they are realistic for this winter. :roll:
EDIT: I just noticed the Accuweather map mentioned x% of Normal.
jamesdeluxe
Administrator
Did any of you catch the fine-print disclaimer in that Accuweather document?
** All predictions and maps based on 2009-10 Farmer's Almanac. :lol:
** All predictions and maps based on 2009-10 Farmer's Almanac. :lol:
Good point. Once the average gets over 100 inches, 200% seasons are very rare. Mt. Baldy averages about 175 and its max seasons (the 2 huge El Ninos in 1983 and 1998) were about 350. Arizona Snowbowl average 244 max 459 in 2004-05 but rumored over 500 in 1972-73 when it was open July 4. The most volatile area in the Sierra is Mt. Rose, average 353 max 600 in 1994-95. Other regions in North America are less volatile than the Sierra. Although Mt. Washington NH volatility as measured by standard deviation is not that large, it had 565 inches in 1968-69 despite a 43-year average of only 302. The worldwide prize in this category goes to Portillo, which averages 254 but had 729 in 1972, assisted by a fairly strong El Nino.
berkshireskier
Member
This winter forecast is from Henry Margusity - one of the meteorologists at Accuweather. The forecast is strickly his and NOT the official Accuweather long-term forecast. Being somewhat of a weather nut, I read Henry's blog almost every day. He is a legitimate meteorologist, but he's also an admitted snow lover and he is highly biased towards predicting snow storms. His long term prediction for this winter is based primarily on his theory that there will be a weak El Nino and that this usually results in stormy and colder weather in the East. I'm highly suspect of the reliablity of any long-term forecast, especially one that is 3 to 6 months out. My guess is that this is probably no better, from a statistical viewpoint, than pure guesswork (if you were able to plot the accuracy of such forecasts over a long period of time). The undeniable fact is that weather patterns can be extremely variable and occur in a random pattern. Furthermore, in the Northeast, the winter weather can vary dramatically over a range of a few hundred miles in any given season. Northern Vermont may get a lot more snow than the Catskills, for example, or vice versa over some shorter time periods. I hope Henry is right, but, having lived in the Northeast for decades, I make the same forecast every Fall - over the course of the Winter months, we'll have periods of below average temperatures, periods of above average temperatures, some snow storms, some snow storms turning to sleet and then to rain, some storms of all rain, and almost every other type of weather. This forecast pretty much comes true every year.
Here are the 5 seasons with similar MEI readings for AUG/SEP as now.
No trend here that I'd want to make any predictions. All of these seasons maintained the mild El Nino readings through at least JAN/FEB. 1979-80 was the worst ever season for the Northeast.
1991-92 also had a similar reading at AUG/SEP but strengthened significantly after that. That was a very peculiar season with a persistent split jet stream and overall the 4th worst season of the past 40+ years. How strange? Mt. Baldy had more snow than Snowbird that season.
No trend here that I'd want to make any predictions. All of these seasons maintained the mild El Nino readings through at least JAN/FEB. 1979-80 was the worst ever season for the Northeast.
1991-92 also had a similar reading at AUG/SEP but strengthened significantly after that. That was a very peculiar season with a persistent split jet stream and overall the 4th worst season of the past 40+ years. How strange? Mt. Baldy had more snow than Snowbird that season.
berkshireskier
Member
Thanks for the chart, Tony. There does seem to be a fair amount of variability over the five time periods you illustrate (especially if you include that one outlier year in the Northeast). Interestingly, Henry Margusity is predicting a dry winter for California and the Southwestern States, including most of Colorado, but your charts indicate that the opposite has mostly happened when the MEI readings are where they are now. Furthermore, the Northeast has not really had any huge snow winters during these five years. Again, I think these long range forecasts are, for the most part, worthless. Plus, the El Nino pattern can change over time, throwing the entire rationale off course.
Patrick
Active member
berkshireskier":skhuqrm6 said:
2007 was an amazing year. I don't recall many years where they were so many storm. They just started late in the season. From Valentine day til the week after Easter, it was storm after Epic storm. If 2009-10 is a repeat, I would be very very happy.
And I do remember the terrible 1979-80 season, that was the year were a few Quebec ski areas went under or decide to get snowmaking. However I remember htting a powder day on my first visit at Whiteface, it was a few weeks after the Winter Olympics. Remember that my mom had a hard time skiing the bumps and cut up powder on Skyward, man that was so long ago. I just realized that my mom was exactly the same age as I am now. :-(
Amen.
Actually, this is the one part of the forecast that tends to be quite reliable. El Nino tends to persist month to month, and is most persistent from July to January. Of the 6 seasons with MEI in its current range in AUG/SEP, 5 of them stayed near that level through February. The problem is that mild El Ninos are not a good snow predictor compared to strong El Ninos or even mild La Ninas.
](*,) I know the second half of that season was great from the powderhounds' perspective, but to call the overall season "amazing" when the first half of it was as bad as 1979-80, no way. Ask the NE resort operators what they thought of that year. Skier visits were down vs. long term average, and with Christmas totally sucking revenues were probably worse. It has to be an axiom of skiing that if all your snow is going to be in half the season, you're better off if it's the front half. Late season with challenging surface conditions (Patrick is as good at enjoying these as anyone) beats the hell out of early season with inadequate natural cover and only WROD's to ski.
Mike Bernstein
New member
While it may have been lousy from an operator's perspective, that really doesn't correlate that well to whether it was a good snow or powder skiing year. You can have consistent cold temps in the early season allowing for expansion of terrain coverage by X-Mas and MLK but without great natural snow. 2006-2007 was just the opposite. There were decent snowfalls mid-month just prior to the X-Mas holiday period, allowing for a brief window of enjoyable conditions. Then the rains came almost on cue with X-Mas but by the time everyone got fed up with it and left, the snows began to fall again towards the end of the week, culminating with a surprise 8-10" hit on 12/31 - was supposed to be 1-3" at best. SB operated early season at Mt. Ellen that year, and I vividly recall poaching Lookin Good early in the morning and then, as the day wore on, mid-mountain runs like Hammerheard, Tumbler, Encore and even Cliffs as the snow got deeper. By the very end of the day, patrol even opened Black Diamond, which generally requires a good bit of snow due to the rocks. It was one of my top 4-5 days of the year.Tony Crocker":6jriyjjt said:
Of course, it got wet and warm for the next two weeks but MLK weekend was most definitely the cut off. There was some sort of thaw/freeze mixed precip event that weekend with lousy conditions (leading to lousy business for the resorts) but it heralded the arrival of the cold that long-range forecasters had been predicting. From the Sunday of MLK weekend until late in March, it didn't go above freezing at SB for more than an hour or two. As a result, snow depths built rapidly and consistently, with me and my posse back in the woods by early Feb in the well maintained areas. Of course Valentines Day opened everything but there were several impressive storms after it, not least of which was St. Patty's Day weekend where SB got 34" in 36 hours and you couldn't find the bottom of anything.
Given that the woods generally don't open up at SB until the Jan 15-Feb 1 range (except for occasional outliers with early season blizzards), I felt this was solidly average in terms of quantity of tree skiing days and well above average in terms of quality of tree skiing days. Recall that the northern part of the Spine got pounded over Easter holiday as well. I was skiing in knee deep powder into Slidebrook on like April 10-11. It was a fantastic and long powder skiing season in northern VT, regardless fo how well the resorts did.
Patrick
Active member
Tony Crocker":gkz5hzpr said:
Amazing? Definitely. River and other Eastern powderhounds will all say the same thing. Mike mentioned the constant non-freeze/thaw cycles for at least 6 weeks. Snow accumulation over the season might be close to the average, however these accumulation weren't added 1-2 inch at a time, but through a couple big dumps.
I skied both 1979-80 (season pass at Tremblant) and 2006-07 extensively, the huge difference was that ski areas in 1979-80 relied much more on natural snow back then. Tremblant only add snowmaking on a few runs on the lower south side in 1979-80.
Tony Crocker":gkz5hzpr said:
I wasn't talking as operator. People are willing to rush at hit the slope for American Thanksgiving while deserting once the days are longer, temps warmer, better snow conditions and coverage.
Tony Crocker":gkz5hzpr said:
Christmas Holidays represents a huge part of the ski areas revenue, anyway with all the family stuff and pre-Christmas school and music shows for the kids, even when the ski is really good in December, I can't really take fully advantage of it.
jamesdeluxe
Administrator
I don't expect lift-served loads like myself to ski a northeast spring like that ever again. A place like Sugarbush is far enough to the north that a decent mid-April dump is within the realm of possibility, but it's pretty shocking when the snow goes all the way down to Belleayre in the Catskills.Patrick":1kl1crmp said:
