Winter 2020-2021

[The 4 Seasons]

7 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Move to NNE?

Well if the mid-atlantic is up to the Pike now then NJ/NYC climo is up to Maine. No good. Rain.

[Ginx snewx]

3 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

For interior elevated SNE there should be almost continued snowpack. Well let me rephrase that. There used to be that. But in this new climate it is becoming impossible to accomplish. As the mid Atlantic climate has made it to the pike region now. There also should be plenty of ice and ice storms 

lol wut

[dryslot]

Just now, The 4 Seasons said:

Well if the mid-atlantic is up to the Pike now then NJ/NYC climo is up to Maine. No good. Rain.

I don't think you or I will be alive when and if that would happen.

[Ginx snewx]

5 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I don't think you or I will be alive when and if that would happen.

Couple of meh winters and its climate change. We tried to tell him we were due. Guess he forgot the mid 70s 80s

[CoastalWx]

8 minutes ago, The 4 Seasons said:

Well if the mid-atlantic is up to the Pike now then NJ/NYC climo is up to Maine. No good. Rain.

Is it east of the river too?

[dryslot]

Just now, Ginx snewx said:

Couple of meh winters and its climate change. We tried to tell him we were due. Guess he forgot the mid 70s 80s

There were some very lean winters back in those years, Some very bad ones.

[ORH_wxman]

16 minutes ago, dryslot said:

I don't think you or I will be alive when and if that would happen.

It won't happen....even the borderline realistic worst-case warming scenarios have around 5C of warming over the next couple hundred years....a place like AUG is about 12-13F (7C) colder than EWR/NYC in the winter.

There's some crazy predictions of like 6-10C on the higher end of RCP 8.5 scenarios out to 2200-2300, but none of those actually pass the smell test....mostly because RCP 8.5 itself is almost impossible to achieve based on their assumptions of energy use over the next several decades.

[The 4 Seasons]

9 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Is it east of the river too?

East of the river is basically Florida. 

[Ginx snewx]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

It won't happen....even the borderline realistic worst-case warming scenarios have around 5C of warming over the next couple hundred years....a place like AUG is about 12-13F colder than EWR/NYC in the winter.

There's some crazy predictions of like 6-10C on the higher end of RCP 8.5 scenarios out to 2200-2300, but none of those actually pass the smell test....mostly because RCP 8.5 itself is almost impossible to achieve based on their assumptions of energy use over the next several decades.

Imagine 2017 2018 was only 2 years ago

[dryslot]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

It won't happen....even the borderline realistic worst-case warming scenarios have around 5C of warming over the next couple hundred years....a place like AUG is about 12-13F (7C) colder than EWR/NYC in the winter.

There's some crazy predictions of like 6-10C on the higher end of RCP 8.5 scenarios out to 2200-2300, but none of those actually pass the smell test....mostly because RCP 8.5 itself is almost impossible to achieve based on their assumptions of energy use over the next several decades.

Yeah, Not happening.

[Typhoon Tip]

Ah...that declaration is available to question - imho... 

The climate models ( if that is what we are basing declaratives off of in present context ...) have routinely verified too slow in predictive environmental observations due to climate change. 

I don't see how that necessarily stamps an imprimatur of certitude on any numerical temperature expectancy ...even in worst case scenario of 5C ( to whomever mentioned that number); the "worst case" scenario could end up wrong too...  In fact, magnitude and timing become difficult to un-entangle ... 'was the system just fast, such that the result at the end time frame was based on time error alone, or was the system just more responsive, so time was default wrong by missing the responsivity of the system'  - you don't know which   and climate as a science, particularly wrt to 'changing' ( regardless of cause mind you - this is not conflation with AGW or just GW...), is clearly proving to have error sandwiched somewhere in between either of those unknowns. 

Heh...you know, as a digression - if one is insightful that should immediately suggest ... maybe we ought not be mucking around with such a complex system? muah -hahahaha

It's an inexact science.  We can't say that climate bands won't "leap" based upon thresholds ... suppose at some crucial 3.5 C we witness an event ahead of the climate model et al timing. An unknown trigger effectively pops the band up some 500 km to the N with > 50%, non-returning residence ... I'd almost argue that is at least substantively probabilistic to occur too - as we see "tipping points" as a phenomenon in nature in general - we'd be neolithic incompetent to assume the climate won't do that.  

The problem with tipping points is that... once the ballast momentum is moving, it takes proportionally more momentum to countermand the effect and bring it back to the previous stable dynamic - which in itself is opening the door to fractals and chaos and other "synergistic" effects. 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

It won't happen....even the borderline realistic worst-case warming scenarios have around 5C of warming over the next couple hundred years....a place like AUG is about 12-13F (7C) colder than EWR/NYC in the winter.

There's some crazy predictions of like 6-10C on the higher end of RCP 8.5 scenarios out to 2200-2300, but none of those actually pass the smell test....mostly because RCP 8.5 itself is almost impossible to achieve based on their assumptions of energy use over the next several decades.

 I follow climate change minimally but I've seen some of these ridiculous predictions since the 1990s, we've now hit a point where we're almost nearing the threshold of those predictions. Some garbage 1998 article said that by 2025 or 2030 temperatures would warm some outrageous amt. Which of course they have not.  If anything the relatively minor sensible weather effects of climate change in the northeastern quarter of the country should please many in New England because it seems that big storms are more frequent because there's more juice in the atmosphere. We saw measurable snow in 7 or 8 consecutive calendar months last Winter here, in a Winter that goes into the record books as way warmer than average.  Also many areas most snowless winters tend to be long ago. Moral of this post isn't to debate effects of climate change, its to advise against unreasonably pessimistic scenarios that just won't happen. As it is, in many areas of the Great Lakes & New England, snow averages have been rising, not falling.

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Couple of meh winters and its climate change. We tried to tell him we were due. Guess he forgot the mid 70s 80s

Or why snowfall norms will bump up all over the Northeast next year, as 1981-90 gets replaced by 2011-20.

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Ah...that declaration is available to question - imho... 

The climate models ( if that is what we are basing declaratives off of in present context ...) have routinely verified too slow in predictive environmental observations due to climate change. 

I don't see how that necessarily stamps an imprimatur of certitude on any numerical temperature expectancy ...even in worst case scenario of 5C ( to whomever mentioned that number); the "worst case" scenario could end up wrong too...  In fact, magnitude and timing become difficult to un-entangle ... 'was the system just fast, such that the result at the end time frame was based on time error alone, or was the system just more responsive, so time was default wrong by missing the responsivity of the system'  - you don't know which   and climate as a science, particularly wrt to 'changing' ( regardless of cause mind you - this is not conflation with AGW or just GW...), is clearly proving to have error sandwiched somewhere in between either of those unknowns. 

Heh...you know, as a digression - if one is insightful that should immediately suggest ... maybe we ought not be mucking around with such a complex system? muah -hahahaha

It's an inexact science.  We can't say that climate bands won't "leap" based upon thresholds ... suppose at some crucial 3.5 C we witness an event ahead of the climate model et al timing. An unknown trigger effectively pops the band up some 500 km to the N with > 50%, non-returning residence ... I'd almost argue that is at least substantively probabilistic to occur too - as we see "tipping points" as a phenomenon in nature in general - we'd be neolithic incompetent to assume the climate won't do that.  

The problem with tipping points is that... once the ballast momentum is moving, it takes proportionally more momentum to countermand the effect and bring it back to the previous stable dynamic - which in itself is opening the door to fractals and chaos and other "synergistic" effects. 

There's also unknown negative feedbacks....ala Hansen et al's "Day After Tomorrow" scenario where we see a mass Northern Hemispheric cooling event via the AMOC gone haywire.

My original point wasn't really to take the "realistic" worst case scenario numbers as ironclad....more just add some relative probabilistic logic to the idea that Maine would become like NYC/EWR. The worst case scenarios require some "questionable" assumptions about energy use (such as reverting to so much coal that we have a 7-fold increase from current-day usage....this despite that coal has likely already peaked globally circa early/mid 2010s)

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

 I follow climate change minimally but I've seen some of these ridiculous predictions since the 1990s, we've now hit a point where we're almost nearing the threshold of those predictions. Some garbage 1998 article said that by 2025 or 2030 temperatures would warm some outrageous amt. Which of course they have not.  If anything the relatively minor sensible weather effects of climate change in the northeastern quarter of the country should please many in New England because it seems that big storms are more frequent because there's more juice in the atmosphere. We saw measurable snow in 7 or 8 consecutive calendar months last Winter here, in a Winter that goes into the record books as way warmer than average.  Also many areas most snowless winters tend to be long ago. Moral of this post isn't to debate effects of climate change, its to advise against unreasonably pessimistic scenarios that just won't happen. As it is, in many areas of the Great Lakes & New England, snow averages have been rising, not falling.

There was a paper that came out maybe 7 or 8 years ago that was showing what snowfall averages would be across the US by the 2030s/2040s. The numbers were laughable....using their percent reductions by region, it would put ORH somewhere in the mid 30s inch range and BOS in the low 20s.

If you took all of ORH and BOS winters that were torches (say more than 2F above average)....they'd average well above those projected values. I remember at the time running the numbers...I think BOS was like around 28-29" for their top 10 warmest winters and ORH was around 48-49".

Sometimes these papers just don't pass the smell test....makes you wonder how they get through peer review. But then I have to remind myself that many of these people aren't scrutinizing snowfall the way some of us sickos do...they are probably more concerned with temps, and then throw the snowfall in there to perk up the paper. But still....if you're gonna throw in snowfall, make sure your numbers look realistic.

 

As for the midwest/Great Lakes....they are in one of the areas of the CONUS that has seen the least winter warming in the last 30 years....the upper plains/upper Rockies actually has a cooling trend since the late 80s/early 90s....the Great Lakes and upper midwest are more like flat. It is definitely a result of these more commonplace AK ridges that we've seen the past 10-15 years....they really drive the cold air south into the northern plains/rockies and lakes....New England has been on this at times but not to the extent as the midwest/plains.

[Typhoon Tip]

55 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

There's also unknown negative feedbacks....ala Hansen et al's "Day After Tomorrow" scenario where we see a mass Northern Hemispheric cooling event via the AMOC gone haywire.

My original point wasn't really to take the "realistic" worst case scenario numbers as ironclad....more just add some relative probabilistic logic to the idea that Maine would become like NYC/EWR. The worst case scenarios require some "questionable" assumptions about energy use (such as reverting to so much coal that we have a 7-fold increase from current-day usage....this despite that coal has likely already peaked globally circa early/mid 2010s)

Did anyone ever notice in that movie how they had the anime of the oceanic conveyor going in the in the wrong direction in that scene where Dennis Quade is explain' things ? 

....that is ...in addition to that movie intrinsically being a bad direction, notwithstanding

Cli-Fi is an important sub-genre in my opinion, but the key to making a convincing plot is to make it suspend disbelief - peddling in absurdities ...ain't it. They tried to impose like 1,000 years of climate change into three days...  

There are "jolt" events in geologic history that have been inferred using reanalysis of gas/isotope from trapped air in ice corse or caves or whatever .... some in as little as a 100 years ... but three days?   That takes a special sort of gullible beef-wit to suspend lunacy there -

[Ginx snewx]

Gulf stream is slowing 

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Did anyone ever notice in that movie how they had the anime of the oceanic conveyor going in the in the wrong direction in that scene where Dennis Quade is explain' things ? 

....that is ...in addition to that movie intrinsically being a bad direction, notwithstanding

Cli-Fi is an important sub-genre in my opinion, but the key to making a convincing plot is to make it suspend disbelief - peddling in absurdities ...ain't it. They tried to impose like 1,000 years of climate change into three days...  

There are "jolt" events in geologic history that have been inferred using reanalysis of gas/isotope from trapped air in ice corse or caves or whatever .... some in as little as a 100 years ... but three days?   That takes a special sort of gullible beef-wit to suspend lunacy there -

Yeah I think the Younger Dryas event about 13,000 years ago was the most cataclysmic climate event in the past 50 or 100 thousand years....and there's some evidence is may have produced mass cooling of several degrees C in as little as a few decades.....still off by a few orders of magnitude to the movie's days or a couple weeks if we're being generous.

[powderfreak]

53 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Gulf stream is slowing 

I thought it was just “Awakening”?

[HIPPYVALLEY]

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah I think the Younger Dryas event about 13,000 years ago was the most cataclysmic climate event in the past 50 or 100 thousand years....and there's some evidence is may have produced mass cooling of several degrees C in as little as a few decades.....still off by a few orders of magnitude to the movie's days or a couple weeks if we're being generous.

Aren’t there some climatologists that claim the last Ice Age came on very quickly based on ice core samples? 

[ORH_wxman]

23 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Aren’t there some climatologists that claim the last Ice Age came on very quickly based on ice core samples? 

Historically there have been some crazy swings in temperatures in the ice cores and sediment cores. The Holocene has actually been unusually stable compared to previous epochs. 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

9 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Did anyone ever notice in that movie how they had the anime of the oceanic conveyor going in the in the wrong direction in that scene where Dennis Quade is explain' things ? 

....that is ...in addition to that movie intrinsically being a bad direction, notwithstanding

Cli-Fi is an important sub-genre in my opinion, but the key to making a convincing plot is to make it suspend disbelief - peddling in absurdities ...ain't it. They tried to impose like 1,000 years of climate change into three days...  

There are "jolt" events in geologic history that have been inferred using reanalysis of gas/isotope from trapped air in ice corse or caves or whatever .... some in as little as a 100 years ... but three days?   That takes a special sort of gullible beef-wit to suspend lunacy there -

Well, now we have this: https://www.space.com/earth-magnetic-field-dent-anomaly.html

[Typhoon Tip]

11 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Well, now we have this: https://www.space.com/earth-magnetic-field-dent-anomaly.html

That 'south Atlantic anomaly' stuff has been known for quite some time ...years and years... It's part of the normal geo-dynamics of this planet going back eons.  The magnetic field as we know it is a smoothed representation of a complex intertwined spaghetti of local field anomalies and distortions that average out to a the superstructure that we see depicted in Science Channel informational shows and/or text books and so forth, that shows this nice parabolic canopy of polarity extending into space.  ... just commenting here - not intending to be heavy handed with it...

If any one of these local-field distortions takes on bigger SD than the background noise, it will show up as a 'south Atlantic anomaly' but it doesn't really bear 'threat' in the same sense of that movie's silliness ... so saying, "well, now we have this ..." hahaha not sure that logically follows other than searching for drama. 

 

[michsnowfreak]

On 8/20/2020 at 1:59 PM, ORH_wxman said:

There was a paper that came out maybe 7 or 8 years ago that was showing what snowfall averages would be across the US by the 2030s/2040s. The numbers were laughable....using their percent reductions by region, it would put ORH somewhere in the mid 30s inch range and BOS in the low 20s.

If you took all of ORH and BOS winters that were torches (say more than 2F above average)....they'd average well above those projected values. I remember at the time running the numbers...I think BOS was like around 28-29" for their top 10 warmest winters and ORH was around 48-49".

Sometimes these papers just don't pass the smell test....makes you wonder how they get through peer review. But then I have to remind myself that many of these people aren't scrutinizing snowfall the way some of us sickos do...they are probably more concerned with temps, and then throw the snowfall in there to perk up the paper. But still....if you're gonna throw in snowfall, make sure your numbers look realistic.

 

As for the midwest/Great Lakes....they are in one of the areas of the CONUS that has seen the least winter warming in the last 30 years....the upper plains/upper Rockies actually has a cooling trend since the late 80s/early 90s....the Great Lakes and upper midwest are more like flat. It is definitely a result of these more commonplace AK ridges that we've seen the past 10-15 years....they really drive the cold air south into the northern plains/rockies and lakes....New England has been on this at times but not to the extent as the midwest/plains.

These are all good points.  On the one hand our low temps are "warming" more than our high temps (I use the word warming loosely, because it's not by much). But then on the other hand we've had 3 insane Arctic outbreaks since 2014, the likes of which we went about 45 years without a single comparable one in the mid 20th century.  The climate will continue to change and evolve, but I could go on and on with dozens of examples of why winters are going nowhere for northern locations. 

[tamarack]

14 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

These are all good points.  On the one hand our low temps are "warming" more than our high temps (I use the word warming loosely, because it's not by much). But then on the other hand we've had 3 insane Arctic outbreaks since 2014, the likes of which we went about 45 years without a single comparable one in the mid 20th century.  The climate will continue to change and evolve, but I could go on and on with dozens of examples of why winters are going nowhere for northern locations. 

That may be the case where you are but here the mid-late 20th had its share of deep could.  The local long-term co-op (Farmington, POR from 1893) has reached -30 or colder 30 times.  6 came in the 1970s and 8 in the 1990s.  The co-op has recorded 32 days with subzero maxima.  The 60s lead with 5, then 1910s and 90s each have 4 and 70s, 80s and 2010s with 3.  Records at CAR are similar, though they go back only thru 1939.  To me it looks like NNE, at least, has good representation thru the decades.  Even the nation's biggest UHI has set some all time records in the mid-20th, though Gotham has not gone below -2 since the freak cold plunge in mid-Feb 1943.  However, in early 1961 NYC recorded their longest run of maxima 32 or lower, 16 days with the highest temp of 29.  (And big snowstorms as bookends, 27.3" total at Central Park, 40-50 in NNJ.)

[michsnowfreak]

44 minutes ago, tamarack said:

That may be the case where you are but here the mid-late 20th had its share of deep could.  The local long-term co-op (Farmington, POR from 1893) has reached -30 or colder 30 times.  6 came in the 1970s and 8 in the 1990s.  The co-op has recorded 32 days with subzero maxima.  The 60s lead with 5, then 1910s and 90s each have 4 and 70s, 80s and 2010s with 3.  Records at CAR are similar, though they go back only thru 1939.  To me it looks like NNE, at least, has good representation thru the decades.  Even the nation's biggest UHI has set some all time records in the mid-20th, though Gotham has not gone below -2 since the freak cold plunge in mid-Feb 1943.  However, in early 1961 NYC recorded their longest run of maxima 32 or lower, 16 days with the highest temp of 29.  (And big snowstorms as bookends, 27.3" total at Central Park, 40-50 in NNJ.)

Oh there were definitely some crazy cold outbreaks, but the Arctic blasts (aka polar vortex) that hit the Great Lakes and Midwest in  January 2014, February 2015, and January 2019 were unrivaled in severity from the mid 1930s to the late 1970s. Closest would have probably been January 1963.  Again, there were  certainly longer lasting Arctic blasts, I'm just talking about the severity of those. Even recently, Detroit set a more quirky record I guess you could call it, in that they went 13 consecutive days without seeing a temperature exceed 19ﾟ in late December 2017 through early January 2018.

[michsnowfreak]

I notice there's no fall thread lol, so I will ask In here. Looking for help from Connecticut folks again. I know there is no exact answer, but people who live there are better than looking at those broad brushed often inaccurate maps online. I'm planning a 4 day fall trip to Willimantic.  The area is so historic and I love history, so I want to do it close to peak color. When would probably be the best time to visit that area for the best fall color? 

 

Maybe my idea of "peak" is different than the official description, but they always say that average peak color in Southeast Michigan is mid or mid to late October, but lately it always seems to be late October. Likewise the trees don't seem to bloom until early and sometimes almost mid May. As if they slightly shifted later on each end of the growing season.

[tamarack]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Oh there were definitely some crazy cold outbreaks, but the Arctic blasts (aka polar vortex) that hit the Great Lakes and Midwest in  January 2014, February 2015, and January 2019 were unrivaled in severity from the mid 1930s to the late 1970s. Closest would have probably been January 1963.  Again, there were  certainly longer lasting Arctic blasts, I'm just talking about the severity of those. Even recently, Detroit set a more quirky record I guess you could call it, in that they went 13 days without seeing a temperature exceed 19ﾟ in late December 2017 through early January 2018.

As the realtors say, location, location, location.  Feb. 2015 was one of the coldest months on record in the Northeast, but it did so less with record cold days than with lack of anything but cold days.  Farmington set no cold minima records that month though its mean temp is 1.9° colder than any of the other 127 Februarys there.  We had 28 straight BN days, only one max above 28 (35°, briefly) and one min above +1 (4°).  Contrast that with Feb. 1979.  Following the late Jan. thaw (in my 10 Januarys in Ft. Kent, all 5 January days with lows 33+ came that month, 4 in the final week), in Ft. Kent we had 8 straight days with the "mildest" max at -2 with winds ranging from moderate to "must walk backwards" as otherwise a 30-40 gust would bring tears and first blink would freeze shut one's eyelids.  Boston had 10 straight days with minima 5° or colder, their longest such period. 

[weathafella]

I don’t thnk winter have warmed so much but it seems they have shortened.

[ORH_wxman]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

I don’t thnk winter have warmed so much but it seems they have shortened.

Sometimes I feel that way but then I think about how many cold Marchs and Aprils we’ve had recently...although this year March was finally a torch again but then April took a dump on our face. 

Its also funny, we were getting so many warm Novembers for a while but the last couple have been absolutely frigid including our coldest November day on record in 2018. Recently, February has been a torch too after a string of cold and snowy ones from 2013-2015. 

 

Going on a strictly empirical analysis, December has warmed the most in our area (about 0.5F per decade) while January (about 0.15F per decade) has warmed the least out of the winter months. 

If you want the one month that hasn’t warmed at all (at least quickly looking at ORH airport since it’s inception in 1947)...October is your month.