The other day we posted a link to the NWS Winter Outlook 2018-2019… which ignited a firestorm.
The truth about winter outlooks and riding Upstate
Regardless of whether it’s from the National Weather Service, other meteorologists, The Farmer’s Almanac… or us… It’s just a summary of thoughts and trends. The devil is always in the details.
Why are seasonal outlooks not useful for determining how much you can ride during snowmobile season? Because riding is highly sensitive to short term changes in temperature, sunshine and precipitation.
Think of it in these terms: If you play the stock market and say, “I’ll be up 10% at the end of the year,” you may be right if you go from point A to point B. If you make trades along the way and miss the short-term changes that can influence the market… you could lose your shirt. Or you could make out like a bandit and make way more than 10%.
The weather during a typical winter in Upstate NY works much the same way. If there was any case study of this being true, it was last winter.
Here is LAST winter’s outlook, as issued by NWS:
NWS Winter Outlook 2017-2018
Despite this, we had an overall colder and snowier winter than normal. From a summary standpoint, it was a good winter, certainly not a “crap winter.” We rode the Holiday Season for the first time in years with major cold. Mid-winter conditions were good. After a bad February thaw that wiped everybody out, there was a great second season of riding in March in many places, especially north of the Thruway.
Last winter came down to two major thaws that screwed everything up: The first came on January 11-12; the second on President’s Day. January 11-12 featured 60-degree temps and inches of rain that took out everything, followed by a major quick freeze. This wiped out trails and put major water and ice jams into play for a long time afterwards. We were fine for another month until 70+ degree weather took all Upstate off the trails from President’s Day to the first weekend in March. A second blast of heavy wet snows, lake effect and enough cold created a second season that was awesome in March that lasted most of the month for areas mainly north of the Thruway.
Two events, major thaws, you’ll never see in a seasonal outlook, defined the 2017-18 snowmobile season. Seasonal forecasting and trends are getting better each year, but we still have a long way to go.
November 2017 forecast highlights
December 2017 forecast highlights.
January 2018 forecast highlights
February 2018 forecast highlights
March 2018 forecast highlights
March 2018 forecast highlights
March 1-15 snow summary eastern NY
SEASON SNOWFALL TOTAL
So the bottom line is two points:
1. Regardless of what the general forecast for winter is, or regardless of what happens on the average for total snow and temperature, SHORT TERM TRENDS MATTER! That’s why Upstate Snow has been around since 2012… to analyze these trends to give you the information necessary to make your best decisions about if and where to ride anywhere Upstate. No hype. No bull. You don’t build a faithful audience like we have by crying wolf.
2. IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE SNOW… IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COLD TOO! THIS IS BY FAR THE MOST OVERLOOKED AND UNDERAPPRECIATED VALUE TO THE FORECAST FOR RIDERS!!! The cold to freeze trails down and stop the water from flowing underneath the snow and the base is just as important, if not more so, as snowfall.
If it’s mild and rainy… then suddenly 1 to 2 feet of snow falls with temperatures not much below freezing, everyone hits the trails like everything is fine… and then the wonder when their Ski Doo’s take a dunkaroo in a deep hole that looks like Nestle’s hot chocolate with marshmallows! You have folks swamp their sleds everywhere and clubs have a fit because everyone is so excited to ride when there is white stuff on the ground, not considering these other factors!
It’s just as important, if not more so, that you have consistent daytime temps below freezing with overnight lows in the single digits above zero, to anything below zero consistently. Temps in the teens overnight help but it takes longer. You want to know why Tug and the Adirondacks are such snowmobile heavens for many of you? THE COLD north of the Thruway! Despite sometimes equally heavy snowfalls south of the Thruway, is it harder to keep the snow and the bases around south of the Thruway… the hills of Chenango, Madison, Cortland, Onondaga, Otsego… and we’ll bring Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Wyoming, southern Erie, Wyoming, Allegany and Livingston Counties into this discussion for the same point… because the cold in these counties of Upstate has a much harder time staying put! These counties are farther south, and by the lay of the land, are much more susceptible to the warm surges coming out of the Ohio Valley at us during the winter. Those in the “south towns” to the south of Buffalo are especially aware and frustrated by this common problem in winter. The topography blocks some of those warm surges from the Tug Hill and the Adirondacks… plus the cold air from Canada can reach the Tug and Dacks WITHOUT having to cross Lake Ontario and/or any other Great Lakes. That lack of modification of the cold air mass makes a HUGE difference there!
You need the snow AND the cold to set up the trails nice. There’s no way around it. You need two to tango. If it doesn’t get very cold at night and it’s getting near or above freezing during the day, especially later in the season, the trails won’t set up no matter what the hard-working volunteers do.
Proven by the historical weather data, it’s a great guide that “how November goes, so goes the season.” After a very warm fall last year, November was normal. And winter turned out decent, not great or perfect, but decent. Warm Novembers without snow are always a killer… and that ties back into the “cold” thing. If that water is warm and flowing in lakes and streams and not chilling down in November and December, that just shortens the duration and quality of the season. It just takes that much longer to freeze the lakes and freeze the ground down. That is something to chew on.
Happy November! It’s just 33 more days until the first full day of riding season in Old Forge and northern zone portions of Upstate. As always, we’ll be here keeping you posted on the comings and goings of the weather.
