KeithinCali

Really, most of Europe and North Africa have well above what would be expected temperature wise for the given latitudes. You have to go east to the steppes of Ukraine/Russia to get a more latitude appropriate climate. Without the jet the Scandinavian countries would consist of denuded tundra rather than coniferous forests. No more English gardens and London would be more like Reykjavik. Which is funny because growing up I always strongly associated London with snow. It must have been all those versions of a Christmas Carol. I assume snow in London was a far more regular occurrence during the Victorian age. Well I think though there is a correlation at times there's not always a causation link to go with it. This winter has been a year of record breaking warmth for much of the eastern 2/3rds of North America yet from what I've been seeing the UK has still been pretty wet. Also the eastern seaboard of the US, including the boroughs of NYC, saw record smashing blizzard dumps in the winter of 2010-2011, the very same winter that was such a boon on your end. So it's not always the case that a winter favorable for snow for one precludes the same for the other. Although the jet and blocking events are often linked. But there are more variables. I think the UK needs a northerly plunge like occurred in Nov/Dec 2010. So it's got be the right blocking set up. The easterlies are always going to have the chance to disappoint if their advance is halted by the Atlantic flow or if there's not enough moisture to generate decent snows. The best thing of course would be to get a good run of years like you had. Get a more favorable trend or cycle situated rather than just having one boom and a whole lotta bust to follow.

NYC proper dodged the bullet. Although really a few inches of snow with sleet/mix/rain on top is more dangerous than a foot for drivers and pedestrians. The dividing line moved just enough to the west...the NAM nailed it this time. The city didn't get hammered but a lot of the people that work there did since many of the commuting suburbs are digging out. I don't think those along the coast will be skeptical of the warnings next time. They've been through enough of these to know that you shrug off the forecasts at your own peril. But even for the people in Jersey, Westchester Co, etc that got a generous dumping it will all be gone by next week, at least in the exposed areas. Big March snows on the east coast usually are fleeting mirages...come and gone quickly enough that you're not sure if it really happened (I lived in Conn for a few years).

So far south? lol. Relative to where you are maybe. But remember you are the outlier not NYC. The fact that your location doesn't receive more snow than it does given your latitude is more surprising. NYC is further north than Beijing and Seoul. It has got a pretty expected climate given it's latitude and continental location (west to east flow). Speaking for myself I'm not quite as jealous of a mid march blizzard in the eastern cities. The snow all comes at once and it will probably all be long gone next week. Chicago is better. They tend to accumulate their snow in smaller to medium sized events and it's more likely to stick around in March than on the eastern seaboard. Anyway it's a bit amusing they're still getting this type of event out east after such a historically mild winter. The UK is due for a cold/snowy winter. It's been what 6 or 7 years? It's going to happen sooner rather than later. Even the stubborn California drought had to release it's grip eventually.

Interesting question. But not one that's asked too much because most of the state's supply, that's isn't still part of the Sierra snow pack, is stored in the extensive reservoir/aqueduct system. There are however small towns in the Central Valley, particularly along the foothills of the that still rely entirely on ground water. Interesting that most of California is now drought free. But it would still be great to get another decent winter next year to consolidate this.

What a difference an extremely wet (and snowy) week makes. D4 the dark maroon shade (exceptional drought) has now been completely eliminated. A year ago much of Southern and Central CA were that shade. The D3, or severe drought, in red still constituted a large area. Now only a small bit of it remains the Santa Barbara-Ventura areas have been downgraded from Exceptional to Severe.

lol, well outside SE California and the Mojave the inhabited areas west of the mts in Southern California are not technically a desert. Even though for the last half decade it sure has seemed that way. https://www.kcet.org/socal-focus/los-angeles-is-not-a-desert-stop-calling-it-one Water storage isn't really the main issue and that wouldn't alleviate the demand-supply shortfall to a great degree. Water infrastructure in this state is massive already. It needs to be updated, modernized in some areas but new infrastructure is not really needed. http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article12778412.html Most of California's water supply is consumed by agriculture or set aside for conservation/environmental purposes. About 10% is consumed by residents and businesses. There are no simple solutions. It may be easy for an outsider to say why don't they do this or that and they'd be sorted. But remember these are issues that have been tackled for a long time and by American standards California is a very progressive state.

Actually it's very wet at the moment. Comfortably above normal in most locations. That map just shows it's going to require plenty more to make up for several dry years in a row. While the drought is still officially ongoing in SoCal that map has improved there as well. The darkest shade titled "exceptional drought" has shrunk a fair bit this winter, now just a small blob around the Santa Barbara-Ventura-Thousand Oaks area.

This is what we were hoping for the previous winter with the El Nino but it seems Texas and other areas got the wet weather. There were certainly no great expectations this winter that's for sure. Here my station has now recorded just shy of 13in since Oct. 1. So even if it dries up after next week, it will still be a boon relative to the past 5 years. The main boost has been the snowpack in the Sierras. That's where the drought has really done the damage to the state's water supplies. The grasses here have greened as you might expect, verdant hillsides from foothills to the coast. Summers here are dry but June and July are typically mild for SoCal west of the mts. Marine clouds and fog are typical due to a coastal eddy and the cold Pacific taking it's time to warm. The real summer in Southern California is August through October which is typically when the offshore winds and fire season occurs. If we had 4 season in this corner of the country, which we don't, so I'm speaking in relative terms: you would say we go from Spring to Fall to Summer thence to Winter. The real concern is a wet winter causing the vegetation to flourish followed by a scorching Fall with severe Santa Anas. More fuel is not a good thing.

It has been a few years since I've had a forecast like this:

Definitely the cities of the PNW, Seattle, Portland, along with Vancouver in BC. Similar enough climate although you have larger elevation variations. Some years they may get only flurries and dustings of snow (near sea level where these cities and much of the conurbations are) and other years they may receive around a foot of snow in total. Then there are the outlier years which happen at most once a decade. They have experienced big dumps of snow in the past if you go back earlier in the 20th Century. A blizzard dumped 21 inches in Seattle in 1950 which remains the 24 hour record. The nearest thing to that since, although not classified as blizzard, was a storm that dropped 17.5 inches over two days in 1985. The snowiest winter on record in Seattle was 1967-68 when the airport received 67 inches in total. But even in lean years, given the topography, you don't have to drive far in winter to find lying snow. Mt Rainier and it's environs always receive an absolute pasting. Same with Mt Hood in Oregon. These two volcanoes have snow year round. You might say it's closer to a winter in Scotland than London. Atlanta and Charlotte are less of of an ideal comparison given the continental climate. Atlanta averages 2.9 inches of snow a year. Light snow isn't unusual for them but anything more than a couple inches is rare and when it does happen it creates chaos. Although they have had to deal with ice storms in the past which are much more difficult to handle. Atlanta can get very cold in the winter, much colder than the UK during cold snaps but usually it coincides with the drier air on the back heels of a front. At Atlanta's location usually the moisture from the gulf ahead of the front keeps most of the moisture falling as rain or freezing rain. Charlotte averages about 6 inches (downtown) although you can find much higher averages on the western flanks of the city. Charlotte is different than Atlanta in that they have more experience with large dumps of snow in one go, even if these don't occur every winter. They're certainly not on the ball like the cities in the mid-Atlantic or New England up the coast but they're generally much better prepared than Atlanta. Charlotte does have a fleet of ploughs on standby during the winter. A few recent examples in Charlotte of storms that were much more prolific than "Jonas", just last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-KUxs_PI8c The biggest event in recent history was in 2004: http://wxbrad.com/10-years-ago-today-we-saw-almost-2ft-of-snow/

Not as clued up as the natives so bear with my ignorance... But it seems to me that a better thing to hope for, rather than the OP's wish/scenario, would be for a recurrence of late November through December of 2010. It was a sustained pattern of cold and snowfalls that lasted up until Christmas. Sure, you didn't get a huge dump all at once. But do you really want that? It seems to me that a lead up to Christmas with subzero weather and some accumulations of snow from multiple systems would be the ideal dream scenario. It's something that has happened very recently so is very much on the table. On the eastern seaboard of the US much of this snowfall may melt in the next week before potentially facing another winter storm. What a mess. Why would one rather have a mammoth event lasting a few days with all the attendant headaches...When you can have a month or so of what you experienced that winter back in 2010? In terms of the recipe for these sorts of events, historically many of the biggest blizzards affecting the Atlantic seaboard of the US have been during above avg and avg winters in terms of temperatures. This means more fuel. And that fuel comes from the Gulf of Mexico..basically subtropical with the Atlantic ocean (perhaps more amped than usual) being the accelerant to ignite the bigger conflagration. The eastern half of the US just saw it's warmest December ever. The south has been very wet this winter and that moisture gets pulled up the coast north. Much of the US did have frigid winters in 2013-2014 & 2014-2015 but no expansive blizzards such as this. Those winters were most notable for the temps. New England (and parts of the midwest) got walloped but that was the accumulation from several storms not one hay maker like this one. It seems one of the problems has been for the cold temps in the UK to coincide with drier air. But you can't realistically hope for a wintry wish list to come true if the forecasts have much of the country skirting the freezing mark. So the first priority should be to get the temps you need. You had the right constellation come together not too long ago (relatively speaking). So whatever synoptics created the scenario in late 2010 that's what I would be looking out for.

Vermont? They got nothing from this storm! Maybe you meant parts of northern Virginia?

I would love it. I'm not a fan of the cold. But I do love a snowy landscape. There aren't a lot of snow lovers in California. Many people here are transplants from other parts of the country who come here for the climate. There's a reason California is the most populous state. LA wasn't even in the top 50 most populous cities back in 1900. However, I find this "great" climate pretty boring. Our ongoing "event" at the moment is the historical drought. So literally our main whether phenomena is literally nothing happening. So I have to laugh at Brits bemoaning their supposedly uneventful weather.

I'm aware of that. But the UK has had a maritime climate influenced by the gulf stream since long before records began. So even in the context of that period it will never be an enlightening comparison because it's not a continental climate. Even during the time frame you cite there were relatively mild winters. But I'm not unacquainted with Britain's chances for snow. I clearly remember hearing and reading about the events in December of 2010. And I'm also well aware of the winters of yore like 63 which has become iconic, even being referenced in hit songs like "Life in a Northern Town." No, I haven't experienced British winters in person...I've visited twice (both times in June). Still, just because I'm American don't assume I'm speaking from a place of complete ignorance.

Well stating the obvious, but needs to be remembered... it's a different climate. Here we get nothing. Ever. You have to go up the mountains.