Halfway through the winter and still just 6 inches of snow has fallen. Blame it on the position of the polar jet stream.
Snowy winters almost always feature a jet stream that comes our way from the southwest. Storms form east of the Rockies over Colorado or Wyoming and track northeastward, pulling moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, which produces heavy snowfalls.
Another snowy pattern for our region is when a string of Alberta clippers move along a jet stream coming from the west-northwest. These clipper storms bring Pacific moisture and usually make less snowfall, but snow can add up if the storms are frequent enough.
But this winter, the jet has been relatively weak in our area, limiting the number of storms. The few strong jet stream patterns we have had have been oriented almost due north-to-south, bringing dry cold fronts down from the Arctic with very light snowfalls.
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