August 2019 Discussion

[powderfreak]

3 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

56 in milfville

August lol

Tonight and tomorrow night were the coolest on the models last week, so we'll see how many hit the 40s tonight. 

[CoastalWx]

What will ACATT do when we are +6 in December?

[powderfreak]

Just now, CoastalWx said:

65 for the high and 62 for the low. Currently 62. Can you guess we’ve had a NE wind?

60s for a high before us up this way.  Bet it feels good.

[CoastalWx]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

60s for a high before us up this way.  Bet it feels good.

Just got back from toasty NNE. Bit of a breeze too. 

[dryslot]

12 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

What will ACATT do when we are +6 in December?

Noted.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Inland we chill 

 

54f 

[ORH_wxman]

2 hours ago, Hoth said:

Ok, I don't contest that it ties in. And I didn't really stumble upon it, I merely overlooked it initially when expatiating on the various economic dominos I consider ripe to tumble. I'm just curious how you apportion climate's contribution to the floods last spring. What is more responsible for that outcome, pattern or climate? The science certainly supports more extreme events in a warmer climate, but couldn't one have epic flooding merely thanks to a stable pattern that supports excessive rain? Or hypothetically, if New England took three canes on the chin in a month, would we be more apt to blame climate or pattern? Please don't take my tone as surly or anything. I'm genuinely curious how you as a trained meteorologist differentiate between extremes driven by pattern versus climate change. Thanks in advance.

Attribution studies can help tell us what is more likely with AGW. Hurricanes aren't one of them. Flooding rains would be more likely but actual floods that occur from them are less damaging than they used to be due to flood control measures we have that are far superior to the early and middle 20th century. You may have seen my reference to the ORH 1955 floods and I made a comment how we'd never see that again due to the flood controls put in after that storm. Still, heavy flooding rains are more likely to occur so places that don't have better flood controls are going to see worse floods than they used to. So are heat waves...those are significantly more likely than prior to AGW. Heat waves are the highest confidence occurrence in the attribution studies for obvious reasons...higher temps = more heat waves for most. In New England and most of North America, drought has become less likely compared to the early and middle 20th century...but will it stay that way? The literature is mixed...it says southern parts of North America should see increased droughts in the future while further north will not. 

We cannot ever attribute a single event to AGW because as Tip said, climate doesn't control the weather. It just gives us guidelines for the probability of such events. 

The single most dangerous aspect of AGW is sea level rise. The other stuff is small potatoes compared to that. Sea level rise can make storms worse even if the storms themselves aren't more frequent or stronger...like hurricanes in my previous above example. The hurricanes aren't more frequent or stronger, but they produce a worse storm surge flood due to SLR (sea level rise). So what maybe a category 2 used to do for storm surge flooding, now it only takes a category 1 because sea level is higher. 

I do joke with people sometimes on how the media is pretty awful at parsing the differences though....like I will joke by saying "can you imagine the media storm if we had another period like 1938-1955 again?"....for those who don't know, that was the most prolific period for landfalling hurricanes on the east coast in our records. Of course, back then, you couldn't blame it on AGW, but I'm not convinced that wouldn't be the runaway story this time even though the literature doesn't support that narrative. But scary sells ratings...it doesn't need to be accurate. 

I tend to be less cynical than many on AGW only because most of the projections that are really scary assume what we call the "RCP 8.5" scenario which is continuing the emissions climb to extremely high values...and these values are pretty unrealistic IMHO. For example, it assumes the coal industry will be 7 times bigger by 2100 and assumes no major headway on green energy...something that is already happening. Solar is already becoming cheaper than coal. It is not likely that we will reverse this trend and decide to go back to more coal and less solar. Market forces will keep turning us toward solar and other green energy as it becomes cheaper. 

None of this means we shouldn't do anything to push it along quicker or that we should be totally complacent. It just means I find the worst case scenarios unrealistic from a scientific standpoint. 

All of this really doesn't belong in this thread anyway. We do have a climate change forum afterall. But I figured I would throw in my two cents given the discussion went on as long as it did in here. 

 

[CoastalWx]

Well said Will. I think many Mets fall into this category. Unfortunately given this political environment we are in, everything has gotten completely polarized. Some of the literature and headlines seem to stem from trying to get people back to “their” side. That’s where the fear mongering and lack of facts spewed come into play. I just want to know what is happening and what we can do. At this stage, adaptation is probably the serious thing to tackle since we can only curb emissions and not immediately stop it. 

[CoastalWx]

20 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Noted.

Maybe +8 LEW from massive -NAO. 

[dryslot]

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Maybe +8 LEW from massive -NAO. 

2010? Doubtful

[dendrite]

Hopefully a +10 DJF for Dendy

[dryslot]

I will go under 20 yrs for scott to be a resident of center harbor.

[dryslot]

3 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Hopefully a +10 DJF for Dendy

lol

[dendrite]

2 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I will go under 20 yrs for scott to be a resident of center harbor.

Vacay home in 10 years. He’ll retire in 25 years to FL. He’ll be ADATT by then.

[powderfreak]

12 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

All of this really doesn't belong in this thread anyway. We do have a climate change forum afterall. But I figured I would throw in my two cents given the discussion went on as long as it did in here. 

 

It's slow season, I love hearing the respectful forum thoughts on the issue.  But man, ORH, your thoughts always seem extremely thought-out and reasonable. 

[dryslot]

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Vacay home in 10 years. He’ll retire in 25 years to FL. He’ll be ADATT by then.

Dr Scooter?

[Hoth]

23 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Attribution studies can help tell us what is more likely with AGW. Hurricanes aren't one of them. Flooding rains would be more likely but actual floods that occur from them are less damaging than they used to be due to flood control measures we have that are far superior to the early and middle 20th century. You may have seen my reference to the ORH 1955 floods and I made a comment how we'd never see that again due to the flood controls put in after that storm. Still, heavy flooding rains are more likely to occur so places that don't have better flood controls are going to see worse floods than they used to. So are heat waves...those are significantly more likely than prior to AGW. Heat waves are the highest confidence occurrence in the attribution studies for obvious reasons...higher temps = more heat waves for most. In New England and most of North America, drought has become less likely compared to the early and middle 20th century...but will it stay that way? The literature is mixed...it says southern parts of North America should see increased droughts in the future while further north will not. 

We cannot ever attribute a single event to AGW because as Tip said, climate doesn't control the weather. It just gives us guidelines for the probability of such events. 

The single most dangerous aspect of AGW is sea level rise. The other stuff is small potatoes compared to that. Sea level rise can make storms worse even if the storms themselves aren't more frequent or stronger...like hurricanes in my previous above example. The hurricanes aren't more frequent or stronger, but they produce a worse storm surge flood due to SLR (sea level rise). So what maybe a category 2 used to do for storm surge flooding, now it only takes a category 1 because sea level is higher. 

I do joke with people sometimes on how the media is pretty awful at parsing the differences though....like I will joke by saying "can you imagine the media storm if we had another period like 1938-1955 again?"....for those who don't know, that was the most prolific period for landfalling hurricanes on the east coast in our records. Of course, back then, you couldn't blame it on AGW, but I'm not convinced that wouldn't be the runaway story this time even though the literature doesn't support that narrative. But scary sells ratings...it doesn't need to be accurate. 

I tend to be less cynical than many on AGW only because most of the projections that are really scary assume what we call the "RCP 8.5" scenario which is continuing the emissions climb to extremely high values...and these values are pretty unrealistic IMHO. For example, it assumes the coal industry will be 7 times bigger by 2100 and assumes no major headway on green energy...something that is already happening. Solar is already becoming cheaper than coal. It is not likely that we will reverse this trend and decide to go back to more coal and less solar. Market forces will keep turning us toward solar and other green energy as it becomes cheaper. 

None of this means we shouldn't do anything to push it along quicker or that we should be totally complacent. It just means I find the worst case scenarios unrealistic from a scientific standpoint. 

All of this really doesn't belong in this thread anyway. We do have a climate change forum afterall. But I figured I would throw in my two cents given the discussion went on as long as it did in here. 

 

Thank you, Will. Much appreciated.

[CoastalWx]

Center harbor down slopes off Ossipees. Can’t do.

[dryslot]

Down slope dendy.

[CoastalWx]

At least Brian avoids a lot of the downsloping. He’s a bit removed from the effects of E and even NE flow. 

[ORH_wxman]

19 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Center harbor down slopes off Ossipees. Can’t do.

Ossipee lake off to the northeast. That's your spot if you want to be on water.

Or you could just say screw it and go full weenie and get a place on Rangeley Lake or Mooselookmeguntic. But your swimming season would probably be cut by a month or two up there. 

Cant beat the winters though. 

[powderfreak]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Ossipee lake off to the northeast. That's your spot if you want to be on water.

A spot along the water, downwind of the strong NE gales in NE bombs... can only imagine if that lake is frozen, the drifting into your area would outweigh any downsloping.  Scouring the ice, burying your backyard.

[ORH_wxman]

6 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

A spot along the water, downwind of the strong NE gales in NE bombs... can only imagine if that lake is frozen, the drifting into your area would outweigh any downsloping.  Scouring the ice, burying your backyard.

Ha, reminds me of reading about the blizzard of '77 in BUF. Epic winds from the southwest that buried BUF....the actual snow that fell in the storm was only like 12 inches but it blew a ton of snow from a mostly-frozen Lake Erie into the city and created like 30 foot drifts. Lol. 

It looked like something out of the day after tomorrow and it was because of the fetch of wind off a mostly frozen lake.  

[HoarfrostHubb]

Down to 49.3F at 11PM.   We rad

[ORH_wxman]

3 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Down to 49.3F at 11PM.   We rad

Even ORH is down to 52. Gonna be a lot of 40s tonight I think over the interior. 

[Ginx snewx]

4 hours ago, JustinRP37 said:

Wow I never once said that you must agree with me. I am. It fascist either, I’m an open market guy. I do have to say though that having been in the coal remediation industry, that is one fuel we should never need to burn unless absolutely necessarily. However, saying climate scientists don’t know anything about climate is like telling an oncologist, “yeah you don’t know that for sure doc”. We will adapt, I have firm beliefs that humanity will persist, but note, that doesn’t mean we all will survive. And many will experience true issues in their lifetime. Many areas that are within a few feet of sea level in coastal areas have already begun to flood regularly. These areas will likely need relocation. There are many positive effects of a warmer climate, but one shall not gloss over the big negatives either. My current field is vectored diseases and we are seeing a large increase worldwide. 

And for the record, I’m not an alarmist, I’m just pro reducing water and air pollution, which you don’t get from burning bunker fuel and coal. 

That was in reference to the Nature article. Otherwise who told climate scientists that? Are vectored  diseases proven to be linked to climate change? Just asking

[dendrite]

16 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Even ORH is down to 52. Gonna be a lot of 40s tonight I think over the interior. 

52/45 with 6kt sustained. Not bad.

[powderfreak]

We tried to tell them?  Don’t want to be ACATT but the models were pretty adamant on 40s for the interior. 

[ORH_wxman]

11 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

We tried to tell them?  Don’t want to be ACATT but the models were pretty adamant on 40s for the interior. 

Yeah pretty impressive for this type of setup in summer...not the typical +5C shot across the bow like we might see in late August that produces temps in the 40s

 

[Damage In Tolland]

Yes.. great job by Herb , Dendy and the 18z GFS last Thursday. You guys nailed the 40’s. Hat tip to you