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1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

Are all signs of the Western drought gone, Chris? No more dangers of empty reservoirs, lakes dry, visible lake bottoms, etc.?

 

Intensification of the hydrological cycle continues in California with rapid shifts from record rainfall to record droughts. 

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0140-y

Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California

Mediterranean climate regimes are particularly susceptible to rapid shifts between drought and flood—of which, California’s rapid transition from record multi-year dryness between 2012 and 2016 to extreme wetness during the 2016–2017 winter provides a dramatic example. Projected future changes in such dry-to-wet events, however, remain inadequately quantified, which we investigate here using the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble of climate model simulations. Anthropogenic forcing is found to yield large twenty-first-century increases in the frequency of wet extremes, including a more than threefold increase in sub-seasonal events comparable to California’s ‘Great Flood of 1862’. Smaller but statistically robust increases in dry extremes are also apparent. As a consequence, a 25% to 100% increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events is projected, despite only modest changes in mean precipitation. Such hydrological cycle intensification would seriously challenge California’s existing water storage, conveyance and flood control infrastructure.

 

 

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Past couple nights I actually radiated down to near average lows, feels like a tremendous feat! 22 right now, average low is 21. Same as the night before. 

It’s really wild how much of a struggle it is for us to hit our average low temperatures anymore. It seems like it’s far easier for daytime highs to be NN/BN than low temperatures. 

This has something to do with excess moisture in the air / humidity blocking the ability to properly radiate heat at night? Just the sheer persistence of AN nightly lows is interesting to me. 

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8 minutes ago, Volcanic Winter said:

Past couple nights I actually radiated down to near average lows, feels like a tremendous feat! 22 right now, average low is 21. Same as the night before. 

It’s really wild how much of a struggle it is for us to hit our average low temperatures anymore. It seems like it’s far easier for daytime highs to be NN/BN than low temperatures. 

This has something to do with excess moisture in the air / humidity blocking the ability to properly radiate heat at night? Just the sheer persistence of AN nightly lows is interesting to me. 

It was such a beautiful night, completely clear, not  a cloud in the sky and a beautiful crescent moon visible well into the morning!

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31 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Are all signs of the Western drought gone, Chris? No more dangers of empty reservoirs, lakes dry, visible lake bottoms, etc.?

 

Unfortunately, even with flooding reservoirs, this volume will not last the entire year.  Much of it is wasted, as flood waters spill into areas not used for potable water uses.  What seems to be the key, in California, is enough "stored" water, in the form of snow in the mountainous areas.  

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15 minutes ago, Volcanic Winter said:

Past couple nights I actually radiated down to near average lows, feels like a tremendous feat! 22 right now, average low is 21. Same as the night before. 

It’s really wild how much of a struggle it is for us to hit our average low temperatures anymore. It seems like it’s far easier for daytime highs to be NN/BN than low temperatures. 

This has something to do with excess moisture in the air / humidity blocking the ability to properly radiate heat at night? Just the sheer persistence of AN nightly lows is interesting to me. 

What was your lowest temperature so far this season?

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21 minutes ago, Volcanic Winter said:

Past couple nights I actually radiated down to near average lows, feels like a tremendous feat! 22 right now, average low is 21. Same as the night before. 

It’s really wild how much of a struggle it is for us to hit our average low temperatures anymore. It seems like it’s far easier for daytime highs to be NN/BN than low temperatures. 

This has something to do with excess moisture in the air / humidity blocking the ability to properly radiate heat at night? Just the sheer persistence of AN nightly lows is interesting to me. 

The climate models indicate that the minimums rise faster than the maximums as the climate warms. This is evident across the region with the winter departures so far. The higher moisture is probably an important piece of the puzzle since the greatest increase in minimums is up near the Great Lakes. More clouds and warmer lake temperatures keep the minimums up more relative to the maximums. 
 

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12 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The climate models indicate that the minimums rise faster than the maximums as the climate warms. This is evident across the region with the winter departures so far. The higher moisture is probably an important piece of the puzzle since the greatest increase in minimums is up near the Great Lakes. More clouds and warmer lake temperatures keep the minimums up more relative to the maximums. 
 

B15AFE2E-3593-4229-9964-1A2756E14F04.thumb.jpeg.2b1a7f228082a3f03d4efbe71a608551.jpeg
 


E0F86F5B-73CA-44D9-A25D-42D79D1089F1.thumb.jpeg.313acd393e4c9a04fd5151a1d2c50cbc.jpeg

I think its more evident in summer. 

 

It is the reason we will never have that +10 July that posters are looking for. The temperature is too stable between 75 and 90 24 hours a day

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4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

It's interesting Don, we never heard the term "atmospheric river" back in the 80s, 90s, 00s, or even the 10s.... it only started being commonly used now.  In previous decades we used to just call them Pacific coastal lows.... why is this term being used more frequently now and why don't we use this term for Atlantic coastal lows too?

 

Methinks "Atmospheric Rivers" is a media created term, and it stuck.  

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10 hours ago, EastonSN+ said:

I think CPK getting to 50 inches is tough to do historically so perhaps not a great benchmark. From 1970 through 1999 CPK reached 50 inches 3 times, ironically 2 in the warmest period of the three (1990 through 1999).

In fact in that 30 year period, only 3 years total went above 30 inches. By contrast, CPK went above 30 inches 13 times since 2000!

In summation, it will be hard to determine who is right for the foreseeable future, since we are likely within another low snowfall period. 

We shall see.

 

Just looking at this again, CPK had 7 30+ snowfall winters from 55 through 69. More similarities between that period and 00 through 18.

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18 minutes ago, the_other_guy said:

I think its more evident in summer. 

 

It is the reason we will never have that +10 July that posters are looking for. The temperature is too stable between 75 and 90 24 hours a day

At least we could have more summers like 1993 and 2010 where we get higher highs and lows that are reasonable.  I hate humidity and love dry heat.

I think this will happen when we get on the other end of the AMO cycle and stop having so much rainfall.

 

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4 minutes ago, NEG NAO said:

Thanks!  See this is the kind of stuff I miss:

WINTER OF 1987-88

Jan. 4, 1988 - The City woke up on Monday to 5.8" of snow that fell overnight.  Four days later a steady light snow fell throughout the day, accumulating an additional 5.4"

 

Not a lot of snow and a very average winter, but this is perfect winter weather.

 

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19 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

Methinks "Atmospheric Rivers" is a media created term, and it stuck.  

The term was created by a team of MIT scientists in the 1990s.

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/ap-top-news/2024/02/01/a-look-at-atmospheric-rivers-the-long-bands-of-water-vapor-that-form-over-oceans-and-fuel-storms

Their work was published in 1992: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/92GL02916

They described the phenomenon as "atmospheric rivers" or "tropospheric rivers" due to the amount of water transported (often the equivalent of the Amazon River).

 

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9 minutes ago, NEG NAO said:

1990-91 was such an underrated winter.... I remember these storms vividly, especially the one in February which was a huge surprise- a 36 hour snowstorm!

WINTER OF 1990-91

Dec. 28, 1990 - Today's 7.2" snowfall (which began late last night) was the largest accumulation in nearly four years (since January 1987) - and the biggest December snowfall since 1960.  Snow ended shortly before 11 AM.   

Jan. 11, 1991 - 5.7" of snow accumulated during the afternoon and evening before changing to rain overnight as temperature rose into the mid-30s (close to one inch of rain fell).  Despite the changeover it was a record amount of snow for the date.

Feb. 26, 1991 - A surprise snowstorm dumped 8.9" of wet snow, the biggest accumulation in eight years (since 17.6" buried the City on Feb. 11-12, 1983 ).  Because the temperature was just above freezing for much of the day the snow didn't accumulate much on the streets or sidewalks.  This was the winter's third snowfall of five inches or more.

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31 minutes ago, the_other_guy said:

I think its more evident in summer. 

 

It is the reason we will never have that +10 July that posters are looking for. The temperature is too stable between 75 and 90 24 hours a day

I think it’s only more evident during the summer since people have their windows open. But the rate of minimum temperature increase since 1981 is nearly double during the winters in the Northeast than the summers.

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1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

Some of these late 80s early 90s winters weren't so bad, we would kill to have a winter like the one I described in the previous post (1990-91).

That was the first time CPK breached 20 inches in four years. Unfortunately it was followed up by a 12.6 winter. In total part of a 10 year stretch of below average snowfall winters.

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3 minutes ago, bluewave said:

I think it’s only more evident during the summer since people have their windows open. But the rate of minimum temperature increase since 1981 is nearly double during the winters in the Northeast than the summers.

9E77E6C8-AF30-4A2B-8E81-A6642AFF1648.thumb.jpeg.b115887e448ae334c526c55e26691425.jpeg


184D5CA9-FCE6-49F9-B111-BE547826417E.thumb.jpeg.11f6b2505d91332c9a65de0cf41d3ef6.jpeg
 

 

 

 

But if you go by "hot days"-- defined as the number of days with the most highs of 90 or higher, that peaked in the 90s didn't it? Do you think we'll challenge those records again at some point?

 

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