NYC, Pittsburgh, Ohio Valley Snow Drought?

I had a few grouchy blog readers or Forums users tell me last week:

1. Winter 2009-2010 is over and was snowless for the Northeast. 2. Too bad we didn't get that White Christmas 2009.

Of course, they weren't time travelers, so I paid them no heed. Obviously being only two weeks into Meteorological Winter, and a week or two shy of Calendar Winter and Christmas, we can't declare it over yet. But there are some areas that have yet to see significant snow while others have. There's New York City for one. And much of the Ohio Valley including Pittsburgh. Below is a map of total snowfall this season and clearly these areas are lacking. But how unusual is this?

New York City and Philadelphia have not recorded any snowfall so far this season, according to data from AccuWeather.com and Pittsburgh has picked up less than half an inch. But the normal snowfall is less than an inch in November in NYC, so it's not that unusual for it to be mid-December with nothing. By the end of the month, on average, they should have 5 and a half inches, but we've got two weeks to go.

In Pittsburgh they have a little more to complain about; they should have seen 4 inches before December 1st and on average a foot by the end of December, so this is starting to get unusual there. Cleveland is even worse. Here's a graph showing the normal and actual amounts. I have appended arrows to the December 1-14th Actual data since it's not fair to compare it to the Dec 1-30th Normal data. Clearly Cleveland and Pittsburgh have the most ground to make up.

The reason? The storms have just missed, for temperature or track reasons (Pittsburgh was especially hurt during the last storm simply by the amount of warm air that the behemoth storm dragged up with it). Below is a map of the October snow storm, which affected mainly Central Pennsylvania and New York, and the December storms which affected the Midwest (a true "December to Remember" there), as well as the mid-Atlantic and New England. No significant snow fell outside of the Appalachians in November.

Again you see the trend: The Ohio Valley & major cities of the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England getting shafted. Looking at the maps below though, showing average snowfall, though, what we see above really doesn't look that unusual. These areas are not supposed to get much snow in November or December. Again the Pittsburgh area and northern Indiana and Ohio are an exception, especially if they don't get a storm by the end of the month. And yes, D.C. and Baltimore got lucky with the December 5th storm, much to the dismay of New York City, Philly and Pittsburgh (though Baltimore only officially reported about an inch from the storm).

So what I'm saying is: Don't lose hope. Winter hasn't even started yet, I'm sure these areas are not going to be dry until March. In fact our Winter Forecast issued in October didn't say anything about December specifically (don't believe me, read it yourself), but rather pointed to a "normal" snowfall winter for Pittsburgh -- and above normal for Philly & New York City. So if that comes true then PIT's probably got 40 inches ahead of it and the Big Apple will see more than 2 feet -- just please, don't call it over until it's over (come back and we'll talk April 1st).