Over The River and Through... Wait, No Snow?

I did a blog entry last week talking about the late arrival of snow over much of the country in October. That problem was put to rest for Minnesota over the weekend, with the largest pre-Thanksgiving snowfall since 1991. Now the Northeast U.S. is in mid-November with no snow yet (except for the highest elevations). The following map plots snowfall so far this month:

That's a lot of zeroes. Thanksgiving is coming up in Boston. How the heck is the horse expected to "carry the sleigh through the white and drifting snow" there? SIDEBAR: Read my diatribe Climate Origins of a White Christmas for an explanation on why the last Ice Age created Holiday lore:

Back to this year. Here's a statistic that will scare snow lovers: Since 1884, Pittsburgh has made it through every month of some winter with next to no snow. February only totaled half an inch in 1909 and the rest of the months got away with just flurries (what we call in meteorology a "trace amount" because it's not measurable in a rain gauge).

According to our internal stats for State College, four of the last 10 years have had only a trace of snow in November, so it's no unusual for us to stay snowless this month. December here is tougher -- and it's feast or famine -- as many years as have had more than 15" of snow that month have had less than an inch.

In summary, it's not unprecedented to go through the whole month of November without snow in most of the northeast. But based on our Winter Forecast saying that the worst of the winter will be before the end of the year in the Northeast, I'm not worried yet.