Waiter, There's a Hole in my Snow Cover!

I had to laugh this morning at the NOAA snow cover maps from the AccuWeather.com Winter Center, showing how State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ, is in a "snow hole".

And it extends to the northeast from Pennsylvania. (Ironically, that might be filled in by Monday). Most of the northeast quadrant of the country, outside of that, has snow on the ground as we approach Christmas week. And it's not just snow cover - according to the AccuWeather.com climate database and NCDC's snow averages, places like Scranton, PA, which averages over a foot of snow by the end of December, has had less than an inch. Worcester, Mass. usually gets about 17 inches; they've only had a few flakes!

So if you're a snow enthusiast in the hole who thinks it's been snowing all around you this month... well, you're right. Rain washed away what little snow there has been so far. You can see the month's snow cover animated at this link - and watch the storm tracks seemingly avoid the area. I'd like to pin this on some weather pattern phenomena, but in reality I think it's just bad luck.

The GFS computer forecast model predicts the hole will be even more hole-like in a week:

However, as Henry Margusity said yesterday, there are still plenty of chances before Christmas for snow to fill in the hole, and that's what we're predicting will happen on our official White Christmas Forecast map. So if you want a White Christmas, here's hoping.