Cold sticks around through most of January. Pow window from 1/18-1/25

It's been a pretty epic pow cycle from West Virginia to Gaspe. New Hampshire and Maine got ripped off mostly because the coastal storm i predicted never developed. But everywhere else the predictions for the first half of january were pretty good. Even some of the more outrageous claims came true. 4-7' of snow indeed fell at several resorts in the first half of January (slide #1) West Virginia resorts were indeed some of the snowiest resorts in the country last week. I also claimed that the mansfield stake would be around 5' by January 15th. We currently sit at 51" with NWS forecasts pointing toward another 8-12" today and tomorrow. That puts us right around 5' by mid month. Pretty happy with the overall forecast despite being wrong about the coastal storm. Don't know of anyone else that has been calling for this pow cycle since mid december.

So what is next? The pattern gets a little tricky. Looks like it stays cold through January but there aren't many obvious snow windows other than the 18th to the 25th of january. Keep an eye out for our coastal storm somewhere in that window that would even the score for NH and Maine. Or upslope and lake effect surprises. Cold air remains until the end of the month. There is potential for a warm up near the Jan/Feb transition. Whether that warmth and rain stays south of New england is to be seen but the mid atlantic looks like it has a potential rainstorm/meaningful thaw in the last week of january. See the teleconnections on slide #1. Remains cold, with a window for potential snow developing before an end of month thaw/rainstorm.

LONG RANGE Modeling has a warm February with the warm/cold battle taking place in the midwest and great lakes (Slide #2). But keep in mind that in the northeast we are talking about a 1 or 2 degree temp departure from avg. So the average February high in stowe VT of 20 degrees may look more like 22 degrees. I actually see the warmth as a positive development for the northeast. The mid atlantic, not so much. This will be enough warmth to hit alot of mid atlantic resorts with a mid winter thaw. The teleconnections also show a warm February. But i think the warmth is over done. Looking at slide #3 we can see the same models that are calling for a warm February also have a lot of snow cover over eastern Canada come the end of january. That is going to act as a buffer from the warmth in the northeast and quebec. We could see a pattern where we have a primary storm track west of the appalachians, but with so much snow cover, it's going to be tough for that warm air to really drive into quebec. In that scenario I'd expect to see a secondary storm track emerge along the coast.

Here is where I am most skeptical of the modeling at the current juncture. The headlines are screaming La Nina at the top of their lungs. But looking at slide #4 SOI values don't support la nina. They support neutral ENSO conditions with a slight bias toward la nina. Neutral enso tends to bring the troughing and cold air into the northeast as opposed to the midwest and plains. I really dont see any reason to be pessimistic on February just yet in the northeast. Let's see what happens.