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Banter your New Years resolutions

dendrite

By dendrite,
in New England

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted

Tippy. My point is that you have fairly high accuracy techniques at gauging trends like rainfall and temperature data. We can record those with fairly high accuracy all things considered. When you have snowfall and the varying ways of measuring, along with inaccuracies and inconsistencies...I think people should be careful here. Sure you can perhaps get an idea of subtle trends....but snowfall data IMO does not even fall in the same category as getting good data from rainfall or temperatures.

as shown in many instances even rainfall or melted qpf is highly suspect. One of the reasons Cocorahs was developed.
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CT Rain

CT Rain

Posted
Posted

do you know if for the last decade during the increase in these heavy snow winters if precip totals are AN? LOTS of high ratio storms can skew,see 2015. I agree we have seen an increase here in SNE this decade but NNE has seen a decrease. It's localized on a scale of a globe. Higher precip events have occurred but aren't unusual in our history. But there is a climate change forum here.

 

There has been a statistically significant increase in heavy precipitation events in the northeastern US - most likely due to AGW. Not sure what the breakdown is by season - or if there is one. 

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

Posted
Posted

do you know if for the last decade during the increase in these heavy snow winters if precip totals are AN? LOTS of high ratio storms can skew,see 2015. I agree we have seen an increase here in SNE this decade but NNE has seen a decrease. It's localized on a scale of a globe. Higher precip events have occurred but aren't unusual in our history. But there is a climate change forum here.

 

fair question ... but, we'd also have to quantitatively and qualitatively re-analyze all events in that time frame with a tedium that would make an arm of Asian seamstresses jealous and well ...i know of no studies that excruciatingly discrete.  

 

also, ... intuitively high ratio snow events still fit in... because, dips and ridges in the jet also become more amplified in climate change (as modeling shows; as is verifying) which means you have cold available

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted

Tippy. My point is that you have fairly high accuracy techniques at gauging trends like rainfall and temperature data. We can record those with fairly high accuracy all things considered. When you have snowfall and the varying ways of measuring, along with inaccuracies and inconsistencies...I think people should be careful here.  Sure you can perhaps get an idea of subtle trends....but snowfall data IMO does not even fall in the same category as getting good data from rainfall or temperatures.  

 

 

There's also a weird distribution of where the snowfall increases have occurred....why has the interior Northeast (say, SLK to BGM to UNV) seen a drastic decrease in heavy snowfalls? Was that predicted?

 

 

Also the literature on winter storm precipitation does not support a meaningful trend since the middle 20th century....this does not speak for other types of precipitation events such as convection in the warm season or TCs (or their remnants), or even regular mid-latitude cyclones in the non-winter period:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2121/full

 

 

The lack of a coherent trend both spatially and temporally says it's a lot more complicated than the "AGW = more frequent heavy snowstorms in the northeast" anecdote. There's obviously factors like SST currents, atmospheric blocking, etc that can significantly affect the formation of major winter storms...and none of those are easy to attribute to AGW...or how much to attribute it if there is a connection. The increased water vapor content itself from a mathematical perspective cannot explain it since we're talking about a 0.5C rise in winter temps the past 50+ years and that equals about a 3.5% increase in atmospheric water content.

 

 

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CoastalWx

CoastalWx

Posted
Posted

There's also a weird distribution of where the snowfall increases have occurred....why has the interior Northeast (say, SLK to BGM to UNV) seen a drastic decrease in heavy snowfalls? Was that predicted?

 

 

Also the literature on winter storm precipitation does not support a meaningful trend since the middle 20th century....this does not speak for other types of precipitation events such as convection in the warm season or TCs (or their remnants), or even regular mid-latitude cyclones in the non-winter period:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2121/full

 

 

The lack of a coherent trend both spatially and temporally says it's a lot more complicated than the "AGW = more frequent heavy snowstorms in the northeast" anecdote. There's obviously factors like SST currents, atmospheric blocking, etc that can significantly affect the formation of major winter storms...and none of those are easy to attribute to AGW...or how much to attribute it if there is a connection. The increased water vapor content itself from a mathematical perspective cannot explain it since we're talking about a 0.5C rise in winter temps the past 50+ years and that equals about a 3.5% increase in atmospheric water content.

 

 

 

 

  The bigger argument I've seen was in some heavy rain events that were in warmer seasons. However, I think it goes back to your statement about a 3.5% increase. If you get a localized heavy rain event...the same process that gave you heavy rain in 2015 is gonna happen in 1815 as well. It's not like it goes away because PWATs are 2.17" instead of 2.25". 

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Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip

Posted
Posted

Tippy. My point is that you have fairly high accuracy techniques at gauging trends like rainfall and temperature data. We can record those with fairly high accuracy all things considered. When you have snowfall and the varying ways of measuring, along with inaccuracies and inconsistencies...I think people should be careful here.  Sure you can perhaps get an idea of subtle trends....but snowfall data IMO does not even fall in the same category as getting good data from rainfall or temperatures.  

 

I understood where you are/were coming from ...  just the same, there HAVE been more events with higher snow depths and I don't believe it is true that measuring techniques can atone for feet of snow differences. ... 

 

which it is, really.. The number of 8+" snow events may be fairly constant - I don't believe that is true for the frequency of 'yard stick events' 

 

those latter type have happened with more frequency - that's just fact. 

 

i don't really care about those other aspects and as the discussion pertains to me, i only made the question about gw causality. wasn't intending to get sucked into a debate. 

 

although, i will add: i don't think it is intuitively a good fit to remove snow events from being effected by the same systemic changes that are effecting everything else.  that seems to be what is going on with that side of the discussion?   

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tamarack

tamarack

Posted
Posted

The average annual total NESIS score from 2009-10 through this year is over 3x higher than the average of all other years going back to 1956. 15-20% doesn't account for that magnitude of difference.

 

In looking at the 58 events (in the version I had) on the NESIS table, 20 of them occurred Jan 2010 on.  However, their places on that table make me wonder of some of that predominance is because we're paying more attention recently.  Of 46 events in Cats 1,2,3, this decade has 19, or 41%.  For 4s and 5s, last week is our only one of 12, or 8%.  Five out of ten Cat 1s scoring under 2.0 on the scale occurred this decade, including 3 in 3 months last winter.

 

2010-on has a NESIS-per-year avg of 11.0, and the next highest is the 1960s at 5.9.  However, the current decade's average qualifying event scores 3.42, against 5.33 for the 1960s.  In fact, that 3.42 is the lowest per-storm avg of any decade in the table, and only the awful 80s (3.53) are particularly close.  How many of those older, lesser events have slipped thru the cracks?

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted

In looking at the 58 events (in the version I had) on the NESIS table, 20 of them occurred Jan 2010 on.  However, their places on that table make me wonder of some of that predominance is because we're paying more attention recently.  Of 46 events in Cats 1,2,3, this decade has 19, or 41%.  For 4s and 5s, last week is our only one of 12, or 8%.  Five out of ten Cat 1s scoring under 2.0 on the scale occurred this decade, including 3 in 3 months last winter.

 

2010-on has a NESIS-per-year avg of 11.0, and the next highest is the 1960s at 5.9.  However, the current decade's average qualifying event scores 3.42, against 5.33 for the 1960s.  In fact, that 3.42 is the lowest per-storm avg of any decade in the table, and only the awful 80s (3.53) are particularly close.  How many of those older, lesser events have slipped thru the cracks?

 

 

I would say with high confidence that many did.

 

There's no way they are back-rating storms like Feb 2011 or even Jan 29-Feb 3, 2015 (they basically tracked a SWFE across the country in that one) from previous decades.

 

March 2007 is on the NESIS site...there are probably 20+ storms that rate higher than that previously that went unchecked.

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powderfreak

powderfreak

Posted
Posted

There's also a weird distribution of where the snowfall increases have occurred....why has the interior Northeast (say, SLK to BGM to UNV) seen a drastic decrease in heavy snowfalls? Was that predicted?

 

The interior is probably regressing to the mean a bit, too.  Its just been more obvious because of the luck Eastern New England has had the past few seasons.

 

Looking at the BTV data, 5 of the top 10 meteorological winter snowfall (Dec/Jan/Feb) totals have occurred since 2003.  When I think of a 130+ year record period, and have 5 of the top 10 DJF snow totals occurring in the past 12 years, with the other 5 spread out over 120 years.

 

Also for BTV, these top monthly snowfall totals have been set recently.  Again this is very odd to see with a 130+ year record period.

January...48.4" in 2010

February...43.1" in 2011

March...47.6" in 2001

 

Lastly, 4 of the top 6 snowfalls in 130 years have occurred in the past 14 years.  That can't just be "chance"....there has to be more to these stats that are so heavily weighted to recent years.  I think Ginxy is right in that some of it is measuring techniques (storm total depth vs. 6-hour clearing), but there's definitely more to it than that. 

 

Eastern SNE has just gotten lucky as sh*t in the last 5 years.

 

There's also some of that for sure.  But something in the pattern these past few years is favoring eastern sections, for whatever reason.  Just like there were some good winters back between 2000-2010 that really favored the deeper interior. 

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JC-CT

JC-CT

Posted
Posted

many felt unlucky when there roof collapsed last winter. How is it luck we had the snowiest coldest Feb ever recorded

Luck

noun

1.

success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

"it was just luck that the first kick went in"

synonyms: success, prosperity, good fortune, good luck

"I wish you luck"

There is a physical process for chance
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powderfreak

powderfreak

Posted
Posted

There is no such physical process called luck. Luck is a human trait by definition.

 

Luck is known as chance.  20th century philosopher Karl Popper argued its impossible to prove the existence of chance scientifically. 

 

We just look at "luck" as the same thing as chance and randomness as intertwined in chaos theory.

 

It was by luck that it was so snowy last winter in Eastern Mass... it was by chance that it was so snowy in Eastern Mass.  You could be given the same pattern 100 times and still not have the same outcome as what happened last winter.  Its chance, and we just substitute luck for that word sometimes.

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