bluewave

Yeah, we had great storm tracks that winter. So we were able to have a snowy December even though it was the 10th warmest on record. Almost like an earlier version of 16-17 where it didn’t matter how warm it was since the benchmark track was locked in. Climatological Data for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY - December 1990 Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Sum 1540 1100 - - 686 0 5.58 7.2 - Average 49.7 35.5 42.6 3.5 - - - - 0.3 Normal 44.3 33.8 39.1 - 804 0 4.38 4.9 1990-12-01 53 36 44.5 1.3 20 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-02 57 42 49.5 6.6 15 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-03 53 38 45.5 2.9 19 0 1.21 0.0 0 1990-12-04 60 35 47.5 5.2 17 0 0.95 0.0 0 1990-12-05 36 32 34.0 -8.0 31 0 T T 0 1990-12-06 47 31 39.0 -2.7 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-07 47 37 42.0 0.6 23 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-08 49 38 43.5 2.4 21 0 T 0.0 0 1990-12-09 49 36 42.5 1.6 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-10 54 36 45.0 4.4 20 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-11 39 30 34.5 -5.8 30 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-12 51 35 43.0 3.0 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-13 60 41 50.5 10.8 14 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-14 41 30 35.5 -4.0 29 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-15 49 33 41.0 1.8 24 0 0.47 0.0 0 1990-12-16 48 40 44.0 5.1 21 0 0.26 0.0 0 1990-12-17 49 37 43.0 4.4 22 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-18 58 39 48.5 10.1 16 0 0.44 0.0 0 1990-12-19 52 39 45.5 7.4 19 0 T 0.0 0 1990-12-20 45 32 38.5 0.6 26 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-21 59 45 52.0 14.4 13 0 0.30 0.0 0 1990-12-22 61 58 59.5 22.1 5 0 T 0.0 0 1990-12-23 66 57 61.5 24.4 3 0 0.27 0.0 0 1990-12-24 63 29 46.0 9.1 19 0 0.44 0.0 0 1990-12-25 31 22 26.5 -10.2 38 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-26 36 25 30.5 -5.9 34 0 0.00 0.0 0 1990-12-27 28 21 24.5 -11.7 40 0 0.07 0.6 1 1990-12-28 36 24 30.0 -6.0 35 0 1.05 6.6 7 1990-12-29 43 35 39.0 3.2 26 0 T 0.0 1 1990-12-30 60 40 50.0 14.4 15 0 0.02 0.0 0 1990-12-31 60 27 43.5 8.1 21 0 0.10 0.0 0

Hopefully we can break the under 5” streak in the coming years so it doesn’t surpass the record. Number of Consecutive Days Snowfall < 5 for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Period of record: 1869-01-01 to 2025-02-25 1 1394 1932-12-16 2 1123 2025-02-25 3 1063 1952-01-27 4 1051 1963-12-22 5 794 1956-03-15 6 764 1998-03-21 7 761 2020-12-15 8 744 1981-03-04 9 742 2013-02-07 - 742 1920-02-03

Looks like the new version of the AIFS which just became operational yesterday scores a little better than the old version its replacing one and the regular OP.

The big warm up to end the month will allow several stations like EWR, JFK, and ISP to finish close to or even a little above average. EWR…-0.5° NYC….-2.7° LGA…..-1.8° HPN….-1.5° JFK……+1.5° BDR…..-1.4° ISP…….-0.1°

Back in the 1970s Long Beach was much more like Coney Island. With arcades and an amusement park for blocks along the boardwalk. Then they started to change the character of the city during the 1980s. Now there are condos selling for 4.5 million a few blocks from where all the old boardwalk attractions used to be. Several scenes in the Joan Jett video below were filmed at Chauncey’s and you can see the old amusement park.

While this chart only uses hourly readings, this was there first 100°rise in 5 days there. https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto/?_wait=no&q=169&network=NE_ASOS&zstation=VTN&v=tmpf&hours=126&month=all&dir=warm&how=exact&_r=t&dpi=100&_fmt=png

Yeah, we used to go to the old Chauncey’s Bar on Georgia Beach back in the 80s and 90s. The West End was a pretty wild place on Saturday nights in those days. It was like a college party town times 10.

Yeah, Long Beach is really a one of a kind place on Long Island. It’s the only city located on a barrier island. Great boardwalk and beach with a good restaurant scene. It really took them a while to bounce back after Sandy.

Montana is one of the few spots on the planet that got colder instead of warmer with the updated 91-20 climate normals compared to 81-10.

Montana has been consistently been getting the core of the cold in recent years. Even with the warm up last few days there are still at -20° for the month. This is their 4th top 10 coldest February since 2018. Time Series Summary for Great Falls Area, MT (ThreadEx) - Month of Feb Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. 1 1936 -5.2 0 2 2019 -0.2 0 3 2025 5.9 4 4 1922 9.0 0 5 1989 10.3 0 6 1899 11.0 0 7 2018 11.8 0 8 2021 12.4 0 9 1975 13.1 0 10 1978 14.4 0 Climatological Data for Great Falls Area, MT (ThreadEx) - February 2025 Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Sum 366 -82 - - 1414 0 1.33 16.0 - Average 15.3 -3.4 5.9 -20.0 - - - - 5.1 Normal 36.7 15.2 25.9 - 937 0 0.51 8.7 2025-02-01 44 9 26.5 1.1 38 0 T T T 2025-02-02 10 -8 1.0 -24.4 64 0 0.02 0.7 T 2025-02-03 -3 -8 -5.5 -30.9 70 0 0.17 1.5 2 2025-02-04 -7 -9 -8.0 -33.4 73 0 0.20 2.4 2 2025-02-05 18 -11 3.5 -21.9 61 0 0.02 0.2 4 2025-02-06 11 -7 2.0 -23.4 63 0 T T 4 2025-02-07 6 -8 -1.0 -26.4 66 0 0.28 2.1 4 2025-02-08 23 -8 7.5 -17.9 57 0 T T 5 2025-02-09 13 -5 4.0 -21.4 61 0 0.06 1.8 7 2025-02-10 1 -29 -14.0 -39.5 79 0 0.04 0.7 5 2025-02-11 3 -25 -11.0 -36.5 76 0 T T 5 2025-02-12 8 -18 -5.0 -30.6 70 0 T 0.1 5 2025-02-13 19 0 9.5 -16.2 55 0 T T 5 2025-02-14 8 -2 3.0 -22.8 62 0 0.11 1.5 4 2025-02-15 3 -9 -3.0 -28.9 68 0 T T 5 2025-02-16 4 -4 0.0 -26.0 65 0 0.17 1.9 5 2025-02-17 -2 -6 -4.0 -30.1 69 0 0.25 2.9 8 2025-02-18 -6 -22 -14.0 -40.3 79 0 0.01 0.2 10 2025-02-19 -6 -29 -17.5 -43.9 82 0 0.00 0.0 10 2025-02-20 36 -9 13.5 -13.1 51 0 0.00 0.0 9 2025-02-21 39 20 29.5 2.7 35 0 0.00 0.0 8 2025-02-22 42 36 39.0 12.0 26 0 0.00 0.0 6 2025-02-23 49 35 42.0 14.8 23 0 0.00 0.0 4 2025-02-24 53 35 44.0 16.5 21 0 0.00 M M 2025-02-25 M M M M M M M M M 2025-02-26 M M M M M M M M M 2025-02-27 M M M M M M M M M 2025-02-28 M M M M M M M M M

This is why I wasn’t expecting the -AO to last very long when it dropped below -5 a few weeks ago. These rapid rises have become the new normal in recent years. Notice how many 7+ sigma jumps we have had in recent years. This one was a +8.193 rise from the 15th to the 24th for a new 7th highest. Pretty wild following the greatest October rise on record last October. 15Feb2025 -5.2570 0. 24Feb2025 2.9364 https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.ao.index.b500101.current.ascii #1……+10.790……3-11-21 #2…...+9.401…….1-16-16 #3……+9.256……3-2-56 #4……+9.039……4-21-13 #5……+8.522……1-25-05 #6…...+8.462…..1-15-77 #7…….+8.268….3-16-68 #8…….+7.793….2-25-01 #9…….+7.731….3-23-86 #10……+7.720…2-4-11 #11……+7.641…..3-5-70 #12…..+7.502…..1-19-85 #13……+7.387….3-20-78 #14……+7.240….10-23-24 #15……+7117……1-23-52 #16…..+7.066…1-24-08 #17……+7.043…3-19-15 #18……+7.038…2-10-76

This is one long range forecast that we hope is incorrect. But would match what we have been seeing in recent years with the record SSTs and rapid hurricane intensifications near landfall. So it’s something to be aware of.

One of the more dramatic shifts from winter to spring for parts of the U.S.

Not as concerned about the total ACE for storms that can be OTS while RI has been on the increase for the all important landfalling systems.

Hopefully, we can get back to some semblance of a benchmark storm track in the coming years. It’s hard to believe that January 2022 was our last big snowstorm month. I don’t mind a warm winter as long as we get some decent events. This was the scene from my old hometown back in January 2022. Haven’t been back there in a few years but hear from some friends that it’s doing pretty well.

Some of the new research suggests that the downturn in the 1970s was mostly a result of increased sulfur emissions. So that the record SSTs in the Atlantic and other basins in recent years have gone against past cycles. As we have never seen SSTs as high in the Atlantic as the last few years. New shipping fuel emissions have cleaned up the air over the Atlantic and other basins. Plus the rapid warming of the WPAC east of Japan is a first for a -PDO. So with the rapid growth of marine heatwaves we may not be able to count on any type of sustained downturn like we did in the past. But it will be interesting to see what happens in the future as places like Florida may become uninsurable for anything but new construction which is up to code. The older inventory will increasingly become too expensive to insure. So we could be one or two big hurricane seasons away from even further difficulty for that market.

The excess salt runoff into the local waterways has been a big issue in recent years with the increased road salting. I have actually been on the roads where trucks were leaving a salty dust haze behind them. The local car wash business has been booming up here. https://planetforward.org/story/road-salt-contaminates-water/

Actually feels pretty good out there today. Getting some melt of the leftover snowpack. As usual, Central NJ is the warmest with some spots already into the mid 50s.

You are ahead of the game in Florida if you are in new hurricane code construction away from the immediate shoreline. Those folks with all the hurricane code roofs and windows can still get insurance but it has been going up even for them. Especially if you are in one of the zones which have missed the brunt of this recent active hurricane period. Part of the problem with the increasing weather extremes as the climate warms is that the population has moved into the highest risk areas. In the past like from the 20s to 50s, there really wasn’t as much population in harms way during that very active hurricane period. But the population has grown rapidly during recent decades. One of the biggest issues related to development is that the shoreline communities have been sinking due to subsidence and ground water pumping. This is on top of the fast sea level rise in places like South Florida since the 1990s. So these factors lead to that terrible collapse in Surfside several years ago. This had lead to condo assessment crisis on all condos over 30 years old. So many people have been forced to sell since the fees to bring the buildings up to code for the rising seas and sinking land near the shore are too high. So new construction away from the water is the best bet if you want to move to Florida now. Since the insurance companies will insure you due to new construction being up to code. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/florida-condo-owners-face-unretiring-112000881.html Yet another torrid tale has emerged of Florida homeowners being hit with eye-watering special assessment fees as building managers race to be in compliance with a new state law. This time, it’s the residents of SurfSide Club South in Ormond Beach crying foul after they were billed over $100,000 per condo owner. Per the new Florida law, all three-story-plus condo buildings and at least 30 years old must undergo a mandatory engineering assessment before Dec. 31, 2024. Condo associations must also shore up repair funding reserves. This law was introduced after the Surfside tragedy in 2021, in which 98 lives were lost when a 12-story condo collapsed. While few condo owners would argue against the need to make their buildings structurally sound, many at Surfside Club South are at a loss as to where they’ll find the money to fulfill these new obligations. “I’m a retired teacher, so we don’t have hundreds of thousands set aside somewhere that we can contribute,” resident Janet Stone told WKMG News 6 on June 26. “It put me in a position where I needed to return to work.” Many other condo owners are suffering a similar fate and feeling blindsided by the mega bills landing on their doorsteps. Here’s what’s going on. Addressing critical building issues After the Surfside incident, Senate Bill 4-D was rushed into law to require older condo buildings to perform inspections, address critical issues and build up their reserve funds for future repairs. The law, which applies to about two-thirds of condos in the Sunshine State, caught some condo associations off-guard. Many did not have adequate funds in their reserves to pay for the required engineering assessments and potential repairs — and as a result, that cost was passed on to the individual unit owners. But it doesn’t stop there. The condo associations are also required to beef up their reserves to meet their future maintenance needs, which is adding to condo owners’ fees — money they must pay on top of their mortgages, property taxes and home insurance — three other living costs that have climbed in recent years. Parks Huffstetler, a snowbird who bought a condo unit at SurfSide Club South in late 2021, told News 6 he had no idea about the upcoming assessment fees — and he certainly hadn’t budgeted for a six-figure bill. “It’s over $100,000 per owner,” Huffstetler said. “The hope is, once we get the restoration part done, then the units will be worth more and I can sell.” No option but to sell Some condo owners facing whopping special assessment fees may have no option but to sell their unit — especially retireeson fixed incomes, or younger Americans who used all their savings to buy their first home. If you can’t pay a special assessment fee, there may be consequences, depending on your contract with the condo association. This may include a fine or late fee — only adding to your financial burden. And in the most severe cases, they may elect to place a lien on your home or even foreclose on your property. Before letting things spiral out of control, you may want to negotiate with your association or set up a regular payment plan to reduce the immediate burden. It’s also worth speaking out if you have questions about your responsibility to pay or how the community is managing its funds because, as the situation in Florida has revealed, there are many struggling condo owners in the same boat. You may want to seek out legal advice or approach advocacy groups if you need help resolving issues with a condo association.

it’s not supposed to work or be sustainable on a larger scale over the long term since our system is only focused on the next quarter. But the climate system doesn’t care about our fragile human systems. It’s going to enforce the laws of physics and everyone is just going to have to do the best they can. It’s possible for people to find niches where they can do well. But there probably are going to be mass migrations in the coming decades to more hospitable areas. So if you play your cards right, then you can be positioned to do very well for yourself if you take the challenges into account. But there will inevitably be regions that probably won’t be really viable to sustain what we consider a modern society. So ultimately it could turn into a story of hope of people finding happy lives more in balance with nature. So I don’t think it’s going to be all doom and gloom. Since there will always be communities of like minded people who will find a way to turn lemons into lemonade.

Once the TPV consolidates in mid-March, we could see our first 70° readings by St Patrick’s Day.

Yeah, after the first week of March both the extended EPS and GEFS finally have a more durable warm up. But it looks like fits and starts before then. This colder pattern since January 1st is going to take time to shift. But as in the past when we had these cooler runs, the warm ups that followed were even more impressive than the cooler weather we experienced.

Looks like a back and forth pattern into early March before we eventually shift into fulll-time spring mode by mid-March. Feb 24 to Mar 3 Mar 3 to 10 Mar 10 to 17

Since the governments of the world can’t get their acts together, it’s going to come down to the insurance and mortgage companies to enforce climate policies on the general public. Instead of taking a coordinated global approach, this will be done in an uncoordinated piecemeal way. So the governments are essentially punting the ball to the private sector and telling them just to do whatever you have to in order to stay solvent in the face of increasing extreme weather events. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/fed-chair-warns-high-risk-185451042.html Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned that mortgages will be difficult—if not impossible—to secure in some high-risk areas in the future. As storms and wildfires pummel certain areas of the country, causing insurance rates to skyrocket, particularly in Florida and California, the chairman foresees a day when many areas will have turned into mortgage deserts. “Both banks and insurance companies are pulling out of coastal areas or areas where there are a lot of fires,” he said at Tuesday’s congressional hearing What that is going to mean is that if you fast-forward 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage,” he told the banking committee. The dystopian vision of large swaths of the country where mortgages are simply not available was one conjured up when Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota asked about insurers that have pulled out of high-risk areas such as California and Florida, and what that will mean for people trying to get mortgages In the question and answer portion of the hearing, Smith said her constituents are struggling with a 40% increase in insurance rates in the past seven years, which she attributes to climate change and extreme weather events. According to climate risk analysis firm First Street, between now and 2055, insurance premiums are projected to skyrocket in many areas, including in Miami, jumping 322% from current levels, followed by Jacksonville, FL (226%), Tampa, FL (213%), New Orleans (196%), and Sacramento, CA (137%). She went on to call attention to a recent analysis by First Street, which warned that $1.4 trillion will be shaved off the value of U.S. real estate within the next years due to this domino effect “What is going to happen when insurance becomes unaffordable or—in some parts of the country— literally unavailable?” she asked the chairman. “What impact will that have on the mortgage markets?” Powell admitted that banks would likely make mortgages unavailable in parts of the country, and even pull up stakes entirely, leaving behind mortgage and bank deserts. “The risk is that [mortgages and banks] just won’t be there. People won’t be able to get them. That is really the issue,” he said. There won’t be ATMs, the banks won’t have branches,” he went on. “That’s a possibility coming up down the road. The banks won’t stay there and keep making loans in the face of disaster. The insurance companies won’t continue writing policies. They can cancel those policies every year.” Who pays the price? As for the onus of the costs of a disaster befalling a property, “that will fall on homeowners and residents, but also state and local governments,” Powell told the committee. “You see that happening now,” he said. “States are stepping in where private insurance is going away. They want those areas to remain prosperous. It certainly will have significant economic consequences.”

I think it was more of an early indicator of the storm tracks we were dealing with usually emerges early on during La Ninas.