Winter outlook 14-15
Overall, we grade out pretty well.
December was the warmest month and in Lynchburg we ended up right in the range of snowfall, with Roanoke and Blacksburg being just a smidge low. I called for temps to be 1-2 degrees below normal, and we ended up in the -3 to -4 range region wide because of the ridiculous -9 to -10 departure in February.
One of the best quotes is:
1-2 degrees isn't much I'd not be shocked if that 30 day stretch I mentioned is a -4 to 5. I think the we get a stretch where 2-3 storms beat us up pretty good in a 10 day period and snow falls on top of a snow pack during that stretch.
Now, my timing was slow by about two weeks and that was because the trough axis was a bit east and pulled back west into mid February. We had some colder temps before that but it was basically dry.
It started out on Valentines day with a decent Saturday that ended with a STRONG cold Front passage, where we had a about a quarter inch of snow. That lead us up to the Presidents Day storm where 6-9 inches of snow was common over all of our area. The following Saturday we had Snow to ice where parts of Amherst county had 10-12 inches, while Rustburg south only had 1-2 inches. The official number on the Climo report for Lynchburg is 6 inches, but I think that was a mistake that I talked to Sean Sublette about before he left and it was never corrected at the NWS. That would actually knock Feb 15 out of the snowiest February ever, but this is science and exact figures matter.
Next we had the Huffman special on Feb 25-26 where 3-4 days out many outlets bought the storm well to the south and I held on my 3-6 inch call and it worked out very well for our region.
Lastly, the snow to ice in early March topped of our winter season. My forecast was on par with everyone else as we all had to guess at where the sleet line ended up.
Best Call: 3-6 inch event Feb 25-26
Proud of: Hitting the sleet on the Presidents day storm. It cost us about an inch and a half of snow here, but not I did pull the sleet into Lynchburg if you check my map Here
Needed work: The Saturday event I played the north trend and it drifted a bit south last second. I could have hit the ice a bit harder too-- it wasn't a HUGE ice storm but it was significant.
Summer Outlook? Working on it-- El Nino summers tend to be warmer than normal.
I grade that a Solid A-- not bad compared to my TOTAL F for my outlook last winter. We've hit our average snowfall the past 2 winters and 12-13 was only off by 1-2 inches. We've also hit a trend of bigger events. From The 96-97 winter until 07-08 winter we only had 3-4 snow events over 6 inches in that 13 year stretch. Since 08-09 we've had 9.
I grade that a Solid A-- not bad compared to my TOTAL F for my outlook last winter. We've hit our average snowfall the past 2 winters and 12-13 was only off by 1-2 inches. We've also hit a trend of bigger events. From The 96-97 winter until 07-08 winter we only had 3-4 snow events over 6 inches in that 13 year stretch. Since 08-09 we've had 9.
