Is rain associated with warmer weather during the winter for you? (climate, snow)

[nei]

I've noticed that many times here we tend to get precipitation around, usually following our warmer spells many winters. Pattern many times: cold, dry and sunny; mild varying between sunny and cloudy then mild and rainy. Do you have a similar pattern (just in winter).

You can tell that a lot of precipitation must be during the warmer parts of the winter by looking at our averages. For example, our January average is 24°F (-4.3°C), so one might guess more of our precipitation falls as snow. We average 3.26 inches of precipitation in January, but 12 inches of snow. 12 inches of snow is about equivalent of 1.2 inches of snow if it's wet snow, much less if dry snow, but wet snow is a good assumption for New England considering the coastal origin of many snowstorms. So, about 2/3 of January precipitation is in the form of rain.

AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS - Climate Summary

This might seem obvious (warmer air = more moisture = higher potential precipitation) but it's not true everywhere.

Denver has the opposite going on; precipitation is associated with cold periods (at least in the colder months). Its January average is warmer than Amherst 31°F (-0.5°C), but more of its precipitation is in the form of snow, 7 inches of snow, but 0.5 inches of precipitation overall, so almost all of its precipitation must be snow depending on how dry it is.

DENVER WSFO AP, COLORADO - Climate Summary

The difference is more obvious in April. Denver is slightly warmer than Amherst in April, but with half the precipitation, and about 5 times the amount of snow!

[trlhiker]

Same here, usually warmer weather means rain. The cold air comes in after the rain.

[Rozenn]

It's the same around here, unfortunately.

[ben86]

^^ True, here you'd find some kind of weak/moderate correlation linking the wetter winters to milder temperatures, but non-weather aficionados don't necessarily associate rain with 'warmer' winter weather. The last wet winter month we had actually had a noticeable lack of mild weather:

http://www.weather-uk.com/hampstead/1002M.html

[dunno what to put here]

Usually mild winter is wet..

[B87]

Rain in winter in London usually means temps of 10-15C. It's rare for the temp to be above 10C when it's sunny in January.

[Rozenn]

Originally Posted by ben86

^^ True, here you'd find some kind of weak/moderate correlation linking the wetter winters to milder temperatures, but non-weather aficionados don't necessarily associate rain with 'warmer' winter weather. The last wet winter month we had actually had a noticeable lack of mild weather:

http://www.weather-uk.com/hampstead/1002M.html

Interesting. Maybe February 2010 is a weird month in that sense for london?

Here is ours, one can see some correlation bewteen precipitation and temperatures:
Meteociel - Climatologie mensuelle de Orly



Two graphs I made about last month. This is the same scale for all parameters (mm, hours and °C):

[ben86]

Originally Posted by Rozenn

Interesting. Maybe February 2010 is a weird month in that sense for london?

Here is ours, one can see some correlation bewteen precipitation and temperatures:
Meteociel - Climatologie mensuelle de Orly

Anyway over the last month the correlation between overcast weather and balmy temps is quite verified. The sunny days were noticeably colder than the month's average. But yeah overcast doesn't mean rain.

It was weird but not unheard of. Actually one thing I noticed last year, my first winter in London, was that the mildest temperatures came on overcast days with wind but little/no rain - the rain I'd usually expect to come with it was further north.

[tigre79]

Most of our snowstorms are formed by low pressure systems from the Aleutians or the North Pacific (often called a "pineapple express" when they originate particularly far south), which generally warm things up a bit and sometimes change to slush or rain at lower elevations. We get small amounts of snow (3-6") at lower temperatures without the presence of a major storm system, but when it's in the single digits it's usually clear (and often windy as well) due to a high pressure system dropping down from the Interior.

[Joe90]

The warmest maximums here in winter are due to fine dry weather, normally with a decent diurnal range. The warmest average days are warmish rain days with low diurnal ranges. Rainfall from cold fronts is of short duration, and not common. It generally means the start of a frosty spell.