Dog days of winter, Cantore’s thundersnow outburst

"In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

-  Albert Camus 

There's poetry about most every month of the year. But you won't find a whole lot of flowery prose about February in Minnesota.

Welcome to the winter doldrums.

February is a unique month at this latitude. The sun climbs higher in the sky each day. By next weekend the sun is as high as it was on October 21st. The increase in day length and solar energy still seem academic, and have yet to significantly warm incoming air masses form the north.

The good news? Winter in Minnesota can be a time to recharge. We try and jam in a year's worth of social events and trips to the lake in the often hectic 12 weeks that we call summer in Minnesota. In winter the calendar takes a breather. We savor the occasional nondescript weekend to relax and rejuvenate.

The jet stream still clings to a wintry hangover. Spring is closer than we think, but still seems a cruely distant concept.  Perhaps setting our clock forward 1 hour in less than 3 weeks we can will spring into reality?

• 13 days until Meteorological Spring on March 1st

• 20 days until CDT returns March 8th (clocks move forward 1 hour-sunset 7:10 pm)

• 33 days until Astronomical spring (March 20th at 5:45 pm CDT)

 Another free arctic vacation

During my 9 years in Arizona, I marveled at the occasional sight of a rare snowfall. Better still, the magical reaction of those who have never seen snow before. It's as if Christmas morning came for the first time. A day with goose down feather snowflakes like today is magic for those who have never seen it before. I'll cling to that sliver of positivism as I slog through another chilly February day in Minnesota.

Blue smudges on the weather maps today over Minnesota indicate the occasional snow showers that lay on the sidewalk edges like cottonwood seed in June. Another February week, another big blue H sags south on the weather maps over Minnesota as the next semi-arctic surge slides south this week.

Here's the chilly breakdown this week. We add 2 or 3 more sub-zero nights in the metro by Friday morning. Snow showers today, a chance of light snow again Friday but no major Boston-style winter storms in sight.

The longer range outlook is starting to hint at a milder flow by around March 1. It's still early, and that could mean snow...or rain. But it would be about time for a pattern change around these parts. A string of 30s by the weekend after next? We'll see.

Boston: 3rd snowiest winter and counting

Yes, the latest storm delivered in Boston as expected this weekend.

Cantore goes nuts in thundersnow

I've had the good fortune to see experience thundersnow several times in Minnesota. Watch as the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore goes nuts in Boston last weekend inside a convective snowburst.

Even better...this kid reacting to Cantore's outburst. Yes, TV can create future weather geeks at a young age.

Finally how about a shout out to NWS forecasters in Boston who again nailed this inbound storm well in advance, again? The tired old fable about weather forecasters being wrong half the time and still getting paid? I don't think so.

Another successful forecast in Boston raises the question, what is the economic value of weather forecasts? I can tell you from working in private forecasting industry that companies pay significant sums, and receive substantial benefits from private weather forecast services. The overall value of weather forecasts to the US economy is staggering.

Given that U.S. adults obtain about 300 billion forecasts over the course of one year, this equates to roughly $31.5 billion total. That’s in stark contrast to what it costs the federal and private sectors each year to support meteorological operations and research, which is estimated at only $5.1 billion.