FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports01.04.12 Predicting Winter Based On 1 Day

01.04.12 Predicting Winter Based On 1 Day

It's a new year and it's time to try new things, right?  I'm going to try to predict the rest of this January, all of February, and all of March.  I won't predict what's going to happen each and every day because we have the Farmer's Almanac for that!  However I am going to try to predict how much snow we get in this time period, what the coldest day will be and when, what the warmest day will be and when, and how much liquid precipitation we will get. 

Why you ask?  Because.

*Side note* I love that answer.  I remember being annoying as a little kid and asking, "Why are we going to the store?" My mom replied, "Because we don't have any food in the house." Me: "Why? Mom: "Because it's been a while since we went shopping." Me: "Why?" Mom: "Because we didn't need food then, but we do now." Me: "Why?" Mom:..................."because."

Hey at least I wasn't a little brat.  I don't think asking why is terrible, I was a curious kid what do you expect?!

Anyway I digress.

So here's what is going to happen here.  I looked up the weather data (high, low, precip, snow) for the last six New Year's Days in Burlington, VT.  Then I looked up the January, February, and March data for highs, lows, precip, and snow. 

Here's what I found:

New Year's Day:  Low      High       Precip      Snow      Weather

2007:                   30          45          0.16"       0.0"        freezing rain/rain

2008:                   18          30          0.14"       2.0"       snow/fog

2009:                    0           10          0.00"       0.0"       clear

2010:                  27           32          0.14"       2.3"       snow/haze

2011:                  35           51          0.01"       0.0"       fog/mist

2012:                30           45          0.02"       0.0"      drizzle/fog

Then here's what I found with each Jan/Feb/Mar following that New Year's Day:

Year            Coldest Temp         Warmest Temp         Precip       Snow

2007             -18 (3/7)                  62 (1/16)               6.72"        73.4"

2008               -7 (2/12)                54 (2/18)               9.19"        71.1"

2009             -21 (1/16)                68 (3/28)               5.47"        46.9"

2010               -6 (1/10)                66 (3/19)               7.49"        73.3"

2011              -19 (1/24)               58 (3/18)               7.85"        98.3"

5-yr Average   -14.2                      61.6                      7.34"        72.6"

All of the above data is courtesy the National Weather Service at Burlington, Vermont.

I am going to take the years 2007 and 2009 and blend them.  2007 had the closest weather on New Year's Day when comparing it to this year's (2012).  It was almost spot on aside from the precip.  Also I am taking 2009 because that was the driest of the years and our weather pattern has been very dry since about mid-November.

Thus my prediction!

                   Coldest Temp        Warmest Temp         Precip            Snow

2012              -19 (2/11)              65 (2/16)               6.10"            60.1"

 I plan on going back at the end of March and comparing what happened.  I don't expect to be right.  I just like doing this for fun. 

Also interesting to note, the 2007 data had the big Valentine's Day storm which gave a widespread 2-3 feet of fresh snow to the area.  I'm hoping we get it!

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