Volcanic Winter

Who needs Reed Timmer and the Dominator when you have a glass door and can just yolo your body into the inflow of a massive tornado and film it? https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1291owm/woman_from_little_rock_arkansas_takes_direct_hit/

Pretty intense lines pushing across the beaches now to my south.

I split the difference on the two warning boxes. Nothing really noteworthy here, actually. Worst of it was just to my north.

Pretty tight couplet. Would be surprised if that’s not on the ground. Further frames weakened though.

Rotation looking a bit more intense in the Trenton warning box. Here we go.

I’m now in a tornado warning, though my primary concern is straight line winds.

During one of those we had perhaps the most intense thunderstorm I can ever remember. Thunder so loud it sounded like Tunguska style airburst meteor strikes. I managed to capture the worst thunderclap I’ve ever witnessed from that storm on my phone while recording, you see me fumble with and almost drop my phone it startled me so severely. It was so loud it actually hurt my ears. I’ll have to find and post that short vid. When thunder strikes are immediately overhead and extremely intense they take on a completely different audible quality. I’ve only heard it a few times in my life, but this was by far the worst.

Ugh, the part of the line headed towards me is ugly. Really hoping this weakens as it nears the ocean, as they often do.

Looks like a stronger couplet on the cell right now. Edit: Weakened next frame.

Looks like some rotation in the discrete cell down in the Delmarva. Broad at this point.

This is why I don’t share the optimism many have for a Niño next winter. It’s totally possible I’m completely wrong and we have a kickass snow season finally, but I really feel like we’re going to struggle with warmth again. Domestic cold has been tough for us lately, we need that arctic pipeline in place. I haven’t touched on it much but several climatologists I follow have mentioned as far back as last year how they expect the next Niño to surge us globally over 1.5C, and now that’s even likelier due to the unfortunate, unexpected warmth forcing of Hunga Tonga. Prior to the recent papers that came out about that I tried to remain optimistic the ash and sulfur aerosol, though not as much as it should’ve been, would offset the warming caused by the water vapor flux. But the latest papers on this topic suggest that won’t be the case and will contribute to a strong warming push the next few years. Can’t extrapolate that down to regional conditions and yes we could still have a kickass winter despite with good teleconnections, but I’m concerned we’re going to be even torchier than normal. And if the N Atlantic is still on fire, perhaps even a Niño won’t temper the dreaded SER. Hoping to be 100% dead wrong.

65 on my home Tempest. Warmer where I am now.

It’s always possible, but I’m banking on our typical QLCS line. Not that those can’t be destructive and powerful. Over in Milltown now and the sky is crystal clear. That’s definitely not gonna help things.

The sun is out here in South River (out for my FIL’s bday), that will pay returns on the severe threat later.

Yeah, a 5% tornadic risk is actually pretty high for this area. I had always heard SPC forecasts are not intended for the general public. IIRC the EF3 from 2021 occurred during a 5% risk and overall Enhanced SPC forecast as well. In the plains and south it’s not uncommon for a slight risk to overperform with strong tornadoes.

Looks like more of a QLCS / straight line wind risk today with the potential for spin ups instead of discrete tornadic cells. But will be interesting to see how this plays out today.

Wow, looks like they’re upgrading to a high risk for today’s severe threat.

And yes, a Niño should represent a better teleconnection configuration for us next winter, but I’ve been following several climate scientists warning how the next strong Niño could put us closer to 1.5C of warming. Now with HTHH in the mix it’s certainly not helping in that regard. There was a recent climate paper discussing this (how the next Niño will likely surge global temps forward, and how the predominantly Niña state of recent years was masking things). This of course being from a global perspective and not regional. We will still probably have a better winter, as long as it’s not a torch. Also this topic is more your territory guys so I will defer to what you think about this, just reiterating what I’ve read / heard.

HTHH is the anomaly to that fact. Yes, large explosive eruptions such as Pinatubo release sulfur which converts to sulfate in the stratospheric aerosol veil which ultimately leads to a surface cooling effect. During past episodes of volcanic cooling, there were observations of a persistent dry fog (sulfur) that allowed people on the ground to literally stare directly at the sun and view sunspots unaided with the naked eye. HTHH was of the correct size to have a similar impact to Pinatubo, however it released an ENORMOUS amount of water vapor as its predominant stratospheric gas flux. The sulfur release was perhaps a bit more than the VEI 4 Soufriere eruption from a couple years ago; not enough to directly overpower the water vapor flux. This discrepancy is now explained better by the knowledge that up to two thirds of the erupted volume of HTHH occurred in underwater ignimbrite formation; essentially pyroclastic flows under the surface of the ocean. This would greatly limit the amount of sulfur reaching the stratosphere where it can act in the traditional manner. In short, HTHH was a worst case scenario for us and represents the first time a large explosive eruption will likely warm the surface rather than cool it. Pretty bad luck eh?

I found a new 2023 paper you might enjoy on Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai’s climate impact. Spoilers; not good news for winter enthusiasts (myself included). They’re pretty confident in it causing a significant surface warming event for five years at least, possibly putting us “temporarily” over the 1.5C threshold. I will link it here later this afternoon when I return from work. Regional impacts of these things always vary and our winter was largely pattern driven, but still it may not be the best news. Our luck to get an anomalous large eruption that doesn’t cause a brief but sharp cooling episode, which is the first known event to do the reverse instead. edit: Actually found it easily on my phone, see here: https://phys.org/news/2023-01-tonga-eruption-chances-global-temperature.amp Link to the paper at the bottom of the page.

Well, you’re kind of an all star on this forum. So there’s that. Dude, I have so many snipped screenshots of your posts it’s honestly a little embarrassing.

This winter really took it outta me. Most weather related depressed I’ve been since the dreadful 19-20 winter. I’m at peace with low snowfall winters, but this was so chronically awful and so temporally near to 19-20 it was just additionally depressing. Took a break for most of the month as it just hasn’t been worth staying engaged. Few pages back you guys were discussing whether the upcoming Niño would be east based or not. When it comes to producing colder and snowy winters in the northeast, what is the preferred Niño configuration? I generally just know that a very strong Niño can flood us with a garbage airmass, but am not fully versed in the nitty gritty beyond that. I’ve also heard Modoki Niño’s are good for us, which is cooler waters off the western coast of South America I believe? Before it warms up further west? Something to that effect. Just curious about what to look for and what we want. Thanks guys.

You have no idea how much I pray for a VEI 7 to knock us back a few decades of warming. It's one of the only things that can (temporarily of course, but I'll take it). The thought of going through something like that recent PNW heatwave gives me pre-emptive heatstroke. Lol nah man you do you, I respect it. I just suspect the way things are headed you'll have plenty of heatwaves to track. I'd like the opportunity to track at least one serious cold wave that isn't a short, sharp cold shot. Yes the Boston blast this year was impressive but it was here and gone within like 36 hours. Give me one serious several week long cold wave, of real, legitimate 18th-19th century cold focused into the northeast. And I'll feel a lot better. I'd even happily let you get your giga heatwave the following summer . You know what I mean, though? I just feel like the scales are so imbalanced toward warm seasons that aside from me preferring the cold it’s just so boring anymore to hear about heat and warmth. Not even boring, borderline upsetting. It seems to be the main thing we still do well around here, apart from an isolated major snowstorm. January last year was technically a cold month, but comparatively? Weak sauce. Like I said, give me some proper 18th century ‘Washington crossing the frozen Delaware’ level cold that doesn’t get booted out the next day by the seat of its pants, and I’ll be satisfied for a while.

Yeah, I don’t have any clever jokes or anything, this winter just absolutely sucked. Miserable. Downright depressing. It’s tough for me because winter is my season, where I’m engaged and on pins and needles with each model run. I don’t feel that for any other season. I’ve tracked tornadoes and tornado outbreaks my whole life, and I’ll track hurricanes of course. But northeast winters are the only season I have any real investment in. I’m just not a warm weather guy. Back to my volcano watching. At least the Aleutians might be waking up.

Almost a solid half inch down here! Pretty surprised, but it dropped to 32 during that last snow band before. Most snow all winter for me, … yikes.