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February 2017 General Discussion


Hoosier

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If we can get another 70+ at MLI today, and then add a few more Tuesday and Wednesday as well as a new all-time Feb high I will rank this right up there with Morch '12.  Morch was certainly special, but this is turning out to be a very special period of "torching" as well.  Can confidently say that we'll never see another Feb like this in my lifetime, which is exactly the criteria Morch was based on.

Up to 52 here.  MLI up to 54.  They've gone up 10/11 degrees at 9am/10am respectively.  

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6 minutes ago, Jonger said:

I agree the earth is warming. I'm not sure it's having that big of an effect locally, I'm sure a bit. The one thing about that graph is that it starts just after a period of pronounced warmth. If you continued that graph back, it might have peaked close to the late 2000's.

I agree with you. The earth is definitely warming globally, but it's still not enough warmth to have significant impacts on our local climo. I feel like that is still quite a ways off. This winter has been incredibly warm here in NYS, yet Redfield is over 325" of snow off the Tug and places in Ski Country south of me are nearing 250". It's been a bad winter for snowfall from my area and points north though. The relationship between higher temps in winter and lower snowfall is not always correct.

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1 minute ago, cyclone77 said:

If we can get another 70+ at MLI today, and then add a few more Tuesday and Wednesday as well as a new all-time Feb high I will rank this right up there with Morch '12.  Morch was certainly special, but this is turning out to be a very special period of "torching" as well.  Can confidently say that we'll never see another Feb like this in my lifetime, which is exactly the criteria Morch was based on.

Up to 52 here.  MLI up to 54.  They've gone up 10/11 degrees at 9am/10am respectively.  

Not speaking from a AGW aspect, I don't know if I'd count this out from never happening again. It's warm, but our monthly anomaly still isn't that out of wack. February and March have a lot of variability. 

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1 minute ago, BuffaloWeather said:

I agree with you. The earth is definitely warming globally, but it's still not enough warmth to have significant impacts on our local climo. I feel like that is still quite a ways off.

Our weather is determined by the jet stream. This winter the troughs just never hung around long.

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5 minutes ago, Jonger said:

Our weather is determined by the jet stream. This winter the troughs just never hung around long.

Not to mention the Polar Vortex remaining very strong all year and making quick visits to Europe when it did temporarily split. 13-14 the PV was very weak and resided over here for nearly the entire winter. Without the PV and a PAC jet dominated flow its virtually impossible to get sustained cold in the GL.

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2 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Not to mention the Polar Vortex remaining very strong all year and making quick visits to Europe when it did temporarily split. 13-14 the PV was very weak and resided over here for nearly the entire winter. Without the PV and a PAC dominated flow its virtually impossible to get sustained cold in the GL.

The California rain situation wasn't possible without this flow... We scarified for their water. LOL

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6 minutes ago, Jonger said:

Not speaking from a AGW aspect, I don't know if I'd count this out from never happening again. It's warm, but our monthly anomaly still isn't that out of wack. February and March have a lot of variability. 

From a mean temp standpoint I definitely agree.  Even during this exceptionally warm stretch we've had several nights well below freezing.  The daily maxes AOA 70 is what most will remember though, and that will certainly be noteworthy if we get several more along with a new all-time Feb max.

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Just now, Jonger said:

The California rain situation wasn't possible without this flow... We scarified for their water. LOL

Very true! The mountains of Cali had record snowfall too which helped them after a terrible few winters. I mean the MJO is in phase 8 which usually coincides with the coldest possible temps in the GL and Northeast, yet here we are with record warmth. No matter what the indices did this winter, it did not matter. Everything was controlled by the Pacific Jet.

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March 2012 VS winter of 13-14. With the warming of earth as a whole. I think these temperature and weather anomalies are just the tip of the ice burg. To pick a winner is comparable to the Coke vs Pepsi debate. As each voter has their own taste of passion with no definite conclusion. Myself the historic warmth of this week will be burnt into our memory banks for seasons to come ....

 

Nature will be for sure confused. As to the Canadian Geese nesting in the bush behind the house. We have two pairs this season and the morning ritual is very vocal to say the least.

 

 

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Here are the top 5 warmest Februaries for Chicago with departure above average in parentheses.  If this month ended on the 24th, I'd say there'd be a really good shot to challenge the top spot.  It doesn't work that way of course, but a finish good enough to make this list looks all but certain.  And who knows depending on how things go, maybe there still is a shot at first place.  The stretch we're in right now/and the next several days is adding about 1 degree per day to the month's anomaly, give or take.

1882:  39.0  (+11.3)

1998:  38.7 (+11.0)

1954:  37.5  (+9.8)

1877:  37.3  (+9.6)

1930:  37.1  (+9.4)

 

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38 minutes ago, Jonger said:

I agree the earth is warming. I'm not sure it's having that big of an effect locally, I'm sure a bit. The one thing about that graph is that it starts just after a period of pronounced warmth. If you continued that graph back, it might have peaked close to the late 2000's.

I have never said I don't believe in climate change either. I have mocked the hilarious "projections" of what may happen locally, as well as how these projections have flip flopped like crazy.  But never said the earth isn't warming.

 

The chart above starts in 1943 and ends in 2012. Its from mark tersggosa of mlive who is like the opposite of jb. Ive seen him cherry pick tons of things, so I am not surprised he skipped the 1930s and started after the hot year of 1942. But note also and more importantly, that is annual high temp. I have stated here numerous times that our Falls have been warming more than any other season, as has the latter half of spring. Winter temps are a different story. Winters since the start of the 21st century have averaged colder than the 1930s-50s (though certainly warmer than the 1970s). Ive posted those raw numbers several times. Snow has been increasing in every facet (total snowfall, big storms, days with snow on the ground). As buffalo said however, localized impacts will be minimal. And ironically most of our most impressive winter warm spells are pre 1960.

 

I'd love to chart some data....anyone have any suggestions on the easiest way to make graphs and charts from inputting data?

 

Which brings us full circle back to my point. Never said a word about AGW. The earth is warming - yes. The local weather impacts overall are minimal. So....when an anomalous weather pattern is in place, attributing it to AGW is flat out wrong.

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On 2/16/2017 at 1:30 AM, csnavywx said:

 

It's not over yet, but with 10 more days of prime snow-making time spent in blowtorch-land, that leaves me a whopping 2 weeks before climo starts kicking snow chances rapidly out of the door. The breakdown of the Pacific jet extension gives one last shot at the start of March. But we've been down this road a few times this winter and it's amounted to what ends up being transient cold air outbreaks because the block retrogrades into Asia or rolls over and crashes the party, leaving behind a GoA low and monster Pac jet to scour out whatever cold air outbreak manages to force its way in. Meanwhile the AO remains stubbornly positive -- something that is yet again forecast. Note that the 7-14 day forecasts have been too low with the AO by virtually all winter. You have a longer window, so you still have a good month after the torch.

 

GFS AO BIAS.png

 

 

 

Great post. I agree completely. Models have underestimated the +AO and overestimated a -AO, when the pattern was clearly favoured for less blocking this Winter. Now the models do bring back a -EPO beyond February 24th, however the cold (as it has been all Winter long) is centered in the West while anything we see in the East ends up being transient. The EPS/GEFS both have a pretty robust SE ridge in conjunction with the -EPO/-PNA pattern. This would mean alot of severe weather for areas in the south, however with such a robust SE ridge our snow chances continue to diminish with each model run, even for areas further north like myself. I'm starting to lose that remaining hope i had left for this Winter as the days progress. It'll go down as being a non-event for many of us, and even for my area were fortunate to be at 29" for the season so far (avg. is 45.3") mostly thanks to December. 

If one were to believe the constant cycling pattern in the Pacific, I'd expect a major warm-up in the consensus beyond March 15th as the WPO block retrogrades. That in my opinion would signal the end of Winter for much of the sub-forum.. ? 

 

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5 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

It's up to about 60 here, several degrees ahead of yesterday(high of 63) and even a couple degrees ahead of Friday's pace(high of 71).

Wondering if the extremely dry landscape is really starting to aid in these huge temp overachievements.  Several days of full sun, warm temps, and low dews are doing work.  We're cooler aloft than on Fri, and mixing isn't so good either, yet temps are absolutely skyrocketing.  New HRRR has 74-75 over parts of southeast IA now, and still playing catch up.  

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5 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Wondering if the extremely dry landscape is really starting to aid in these huge temp overachievements.  Several days of full sun, warm temps, and low dews are doing work.  We're cooler aloft than on Fri, and mixing isn't so good either, yet temps are absolutely skyrocketing.  New HRRR has 74-75 over parts of southeast IA now, and still playing catch up.  

CONUS.MEXICO.vic.sm_qnt.gif

 

Getting very dry down here. Only 0.04" on the month. Last rain over .1" was a month ago. Definitely helping with the daytime superadiabatic lapse rates.

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11 minutes ago, Powerball said:

Honestly, I'm ok with calling this winter over.

Yes, I know that's not a realistic expectation at our latitude / longitude, but after this nice week of weather and with us now entering into March, more snow and extreme cold would be extremely annoying at this juncture. 

For people that don't actually have a hobby that requires winter, I'd want it over with on Jan 1st. I don't blame you.

Personally, a NW flow is all I need to have fun this time of year.

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5 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I was referring to here, i know you guys in Toronto have been suffering in the snowfall department. Its been a weird fluke as Toronto has had a handful of very low snowfall years while the midwest and northeast had been getting tons of snow.

 

We have had nothing close to low snowfall records here since the onslaught began 15 or so years ago. We can barely get a below average snow season much less record low snow. Yes, December 2014 was the 2nd least snowy Dec on record. But it followed the 2nd worst Nov coldsnap on record and was followed by the 3rd largest snowstorm on record and the coldest February in 140 years. In the last 10 years, we have had 13 months in the top 20 snowiest and 4 in the top 20 least snowy. Just 2 of the 10 years had below normal snow, and neither of them were close to top 20 lowest. but 4 of those 10 years have made the top TEN snowiest winters on record.

 

Extremes are nothing new, its just the type of extremes we have had the last 5 years has been impressive. By my own admission, Im always pulling snow stats out, but usually reserve the temp stats for when some sort of warm/cold event is ongoing for comparison purposes. But I could show you some amazing winter warm spells from the 1800s and early 20th century that would make your jaw drop. Xmacis is a wonderful climate tool to search for anything, anywhere.

Its hard to fathom the snow drought we've seen since 06-07. Hopefully we don't come close to ever experiencing something like this again. Surprisingly enough, our top 10 snowiest Winters were all in the 1800s. I don't know about the temperature anomalies though. Some of these numbers below remain untouched (though a couple of Winters since 1938 have come somewhat close). 

Toronto's top 5 snowiest Winters: 1869-70: 123.5" , 1872-73: 114.1" , 1866-67: 113.7" , 1874-75: 100.0" , 1851-52: 98.1" . 

In comparison, at the same station 07-08 recorded 82.6" (which would put in 11th or 12th position). 

The key thing I'm trying to take away is "extremes". Your area for example saw the snowiest Winter on record, then later in the year saw the 2nd worst November cold snap followed by the 2nd least snowiest December on record (all in the same year) is alot of extremes. In Toronto, we saw the coldest February and month on record in 2015 with an average temperature of 9.3F beating the old record set in Jan 94 (9.6F). Now in the same year, we saw the warmest December on record. So in my personal belief, if we were to take in climate change over the next few decades, extremes may become the norm more so than seeing constantly colder than or warmer than average months. 

 

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6 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

CONUS.MEXICO.vic.sm_qnt.gif

 

Getting very dry down here. Only 0.04" on the month. Last rain over .1" was a month ago. Definitely helping with the daytime superadiabatic lapse rates.

The wettest anomaly in the United States is centered over my house. Since the lack of frost, the water has probably penetrated deep in the soil.

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23 minutes ago, Jonger said:

Naw... Won't matter. It doesn't even seem wet around here.

It will matter if we get active in April/May/June. Just looking at that soil moisture map, you can already see the ring of fire setting up, and we'd be dead center on the train tracks.

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59 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

MLI has gone up 30 degrees in the last 3hrs to 63 lol.  35 degree rise from the low of 28.  At this time on Fri they were at 60, and they hit 73 that day.  

They actually hit 27 between the hours as it turns out.  Now up to 68, still 3 degrees ahead of Fri.  Looks like they may achieve the new all-time record today the way it's going.  64 here now.

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