2024-2025 La Nina

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

This is actually a very rare aspect of a warming climate that we sometimes see with a record snowstorm following record warmth. The warmth in the preceding months in New Orleans was more impressive than the cold which followed during January. November 2024 was one of the most anomalous warm months there at nearly +3.0° above its previous warmest November.

Time Series Summary for New Orleans Area, LA (ThreadEx) - Month of Nov
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2024	70.2	0
2	2020	67.3	0
-	1985	67.3	0
4	1978	67.1	0
5	2015	67.0	0
6	1973	66.6	0

We saw a similar occurrence in NYC in January 2016 with the record snowstorm following the most extreme warm month on record with December 2015 going +13.3° and the first 50° December warmer than most Novembers. That December was a record breaking 6° warmer than the previous warmest December.

Time Series Summary for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY - Month of Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2015	50.8	0
2	2023	44.6	0
3	2001	44.1	0
4	2021	43.8	0
5	1984	43.7	0
6	2006	43.6	0
7	2011	43.3	0
8	1998	43.1	0
9	1982	42.7	0
10	1990	42.6	0

Another occurrence of this rare phenomenon happened back in 2011 in Newark NJ. They experienced their warmest reading on record reaching 108° in July 2011. Then their  biggest October snowstorm on record a few months later.
 

Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Jan through Dec
Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending.

1	2011	108	0
2	2001	105	0
-	1993	105	0
-	1966	105	0
-	1953	105	0
-	1949	105	0

The one common denominator with these events was that they were isolated in nature and the snowstorms didn’t represent a new normal. As NYC still hasn’t had a snowstorm as big all this time after. And Newark is yet to have another October snowstorm like that one again. So my guess is that this isn’t the beginning of a shift to much snowier winters in New Orleans. And the warmth records will continue to be more impressive vs the cold ones over time. 

I think brooklynwx's comment was tongue in cheek, not to be taken literally. Almost like a nod to the fact that its kind of silly to attribute EVERYTHING to CC as some do. This winter saw below avg snow in many areas that will likely see their snowfall averages stay steady or rise if their mean winter temp continues to slowly rise. Every winters pattern is different. I imagine the entire flavor of this thread would be focusing on different things had the winter been warm as most predicted.

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

I think brooklynwx's comment was tongue in cheek, not to be taken literally. Almost like a nod to the fact that its kind of silly to attribute EVERYTHING to CC as some do. This winter saw below avg snow in many areas that will likely see their snowfall averages stay steady or rise if their mean winter temp continues to slowly rise. Every winters pattern is different. I imagine the entire flavor of this thread would be focusing on different things had the winter been warm as most predicted.

I'm not intending to refute any person in what you are saying - I wasn't part of the discussion...  However, one thing that bothers me a bit about what is becoming a kind of cozy mantra to hide behind:  ... "silly to attribute everything to cc"  

Here's a philosophy worth the thought - everything that exists in reality, IS happening in a realm of CC.  

So I'm not sure how that can really be disconnected from any given event or anomaly's profile.   It is in fact more mathematically sound to suggest that everything has attribution - profiling what took place really becomes a matter of how much of it can be identified, versus how much was hidden by offsets that obfuscate the observation. 

You know ... being submerged under water, one cannot ever claim a moment of dryness.  

Just trying to offer a bit of objective reasoning to the discussion.

[LibertyBell]

53 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I'm not intending to refute any person in what you are saying - I wasn't part of the discussion...  However, one thing that bothers me a bit about what is becoming a kind of cozy mantra to hide behind:  ... "silly to attribute everything to cc"  

Here's a philosophy worth the thought - everything that exists in reality, IS happening in a realm of CC.  

So I'm not sure how that can really be disconnected from any given event or anomaly's profile.   It is in fact more mathematically sound to suggest that everything has attribution - profiling what took place really becomes a matter of how much of it can be identified, versus how much was hidden by offsets that obfuscate the observation. 

You know ... being submerged under water, one cannot ever claim a moment of dryness.  

Just trying to offer a bit of objective reasoning to the discussion.

it makes sense that everything is affected but to what extent we can't exactly quantify at this point in time.

[roardog]

35 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

it makes sense that everything is affected but to what extent we can't exactly quantify at this point in time.

I agree. The atmosphere is such a complex system. Humans adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that wouldn’t otherwise be there obviously has to have some impact. I mean, that’s obvious, right? Would the 37 degrees outside where I am right now be a different temperature if not for the extra greenhouse gasses? Who knows. That’s why everyone disagrees on this subject. 

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Climate change is also an easy way of coming up with a non-scientific explanation. There is usually a pattern or feature that is responsible for why X happens, but saying the whole earth is 2 degrees warmer or whatever, is something that is used a lot. It's also a little exhausting always having to conversate CC to the weather being discussed. Rarely are we getting down the science of meteorology.. Climate change is not making the PNA be negative, or making there be more La Nina's, or the NAO running positive. All 3 are responsible for the significant dip in annual snowfall in the East, US lately. We haven't spent much energy coming up with what is actually causing these indices to be so. 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I'm not intending to refute any person in what you are saying - I wasn't part of the discussion...  However, one thing that bothers me a bit about what is becoming a kind of cozy mantra to hide behind:  ... "silly to attribute everything to cc"  

Here's a philosophy worth the thought - everything that exists in reality, IS happening in a realm of CC.  

So I'm not sure how that can really be disconnected from any given event or anomaly's profile.   It is in fact more mathematically sound to suggest that everything has attribution - profiling what took place really becomes a matter of how much of it can be identified, versus how much was hidden by offsets that obfuscate the observation. 

You know ... being submerged under water, one cannot ever claim a moment of dryness.  

Just trying to offer a bit of objective reasoning to the discussion.

Im not singling out any one person. And I agree that is a good statement: "everything that exists..is happening in a realm of cc". But IMO some take everything an extra step or really grasp at straws. I have no doubt that if it was a cold, snowy winter we would hear a number of reasons why this was cc (after all, we heard that a short decade ago lol). 

I always feel I need to reiterate (tho I shouldnt have to), i have no problem discussing cc because where I live the true effects are relatively minimal. I get 4 distinct seasons, some winters are harsher than others and it can still snow from Oct-May. I suspect many new englanders feel the same. The best stretch of winters my areas have seen in recorded history were well in the cc era, and the shittiest stretch well before that era. Weather always tended to go in cycles well before cc altered patterns. So its just another piece to the puzzle and in just 4-5 months people will already begin trying to piece together guesses for winter 2025-26.

As for your analogy...It is true that a person submerged under water cannot claim a moment of dryness. But how weird would a report of this person submerged be if it completely focused around how they got under water rather than the fact they were under water.
 

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Im not singling out any one person. And I agree that is a good statement: "everything that exists..is happening in a realm of cc". But IMO some take everything an extra step or really grasp at straws. I have no doubt that if it was a cold, snowy winter we would hear a number of reasons why this was cc (after all, we heard that a short decade ago lol). 

I always feel I need to reiterate (tho I shouldnt have to), i have no problem discussing cc because where I live the true effects are relatively minimal. I get 4 distinct seasons, some winters are harsher than others and it can still snow from Oct-May. I suspect many new englanders feel the same. The best stretch of winters my areas have seen in recorded history were well in the cc era, and the shittiest stretch well before that era. Weather always tended to go in cycles well before cc altered patterns. So its just another piece to the puzzle and in just 4-5 months people will already begin trying to piece together guesses for winter 2025-26.

As for your analogy...It is true that a person submerged under water cannot claim a moment of dryness. But how weird would a report of this person submerged be if it completely focused around how they got under water rather than the fact they were under water.
 

Lol.. well it doesn't matter to ask that question any longer, we're under the proverbial water. 

Anyway, yeah .. I mean it's just my reasoning on the matter.  Taken fwiw.    We cannot "un" integrate CC.  It is intrinsic to the environment, most importantly, at all times in perpetuity.  What we experience within that reality at times seems lesser outlandish, at others .. we observe unusual events.  It sort of then comes off like the explainer gets to believe it there was no CC contribution because 'we can't attribute everything'   This is spin to avoid acceptance when this occurs.

"Integral" to any paradigm means that without it, the paradigm does not exist.  The fact that it paradigm exist in this case and context, precludes the possibility that CC did not contribute.   Philosophy course work is like this... an annoying sentence structural popsicle headache...  

I tried to intimate ... and probably not very well, that it's all a matter of how obviously evident CC coherence is/was... There are processes that offset ... "masking" for lack of better word, the integral nature.   

Right now out the window... it is 46 F.  There are no leaves on the trees, and the snow has just recently left the front yards of SNE's interior countryside.   We've had a couple days recently over 60, a shallow front corrected the temperatures back to "reality".   And so the thaw/seasonal change is underway.  It looks completely unremarkable.   CC is embedded in that unremarkable setting.  

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

The JF 2025 MEI comes in at -0.8C.

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I think brooklynwx's comment was tongue in cheek, not to be taken literally. Almost like a nod to the fact that its kind of silly to attribute EVERYTHING to CC as some do

Every weather event that occurs is in some way influenced by the average global temperatures around the time of the event. You wouldn’t expect the real world weather events to be the same during an ice age as they were during the PETM. So the background climate temperatures during each era sets the parameters or range of possibilities for the individual weather events. 

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Every weather event that occurs is in some way influenced by the average global temperatures around the time of the event. You wouldn’t expect the real world weather events to be the same during an ice age as they were during the PETM. So the background climate temperatures during each era sets the parameters or range of possibilities for the individual weather events. 

You have to break it down to hyper discrete logical pieces to a lot of readers because they don't understand the abstraction of it in the generalized prose you provided above.   For lot more readers of the hoi polloi than we may think, when some example acts say more like 1978 ... "it must not have been influence by CC then".  

That sort of misconception is exposed when you read their content - that's why I spent the time to write that out in hyper specificity above.  

[bluewave]

32 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

You have to break it down to hyper discrete logical pieces to a lot of readers because they don't understand the abstraction of it in the generalized prose you provided above.   For lot more readers of the hoi polloi than we may think, when some example acts say more like 1978 ... "it must not have been influence by CC then".  

That sort of misconception is exposed when you read their content - that's why I spent the time to write that out in hyper specificity above.  

Part of the challenge in conveying that these winters just aren’t as cold as the used to be is making the bar lower for what constitutes a cold winter. Updating the climate normals every 10 years normalizes how much warmer the winters are getting. The NOAA NCEI should probably settle on a baseline from before the rapid increase in temperatures prior to  1980 like NASA, Berkeley Earth, and other centers do for determining the global temperatures.The record winter warmth in recent years made this winter seem like a cold one in comparison. But the actual temperature rankings place this winter closer to the old average or even warmer. 
 

 

[GaWx]

 Interestingly, the Arctic (80N to the pole) is on the verge of having the coldest mean temp of the entire season so far (see image below). This is as of Mar 12. If it drops any more it will become the coldest of the season.

 There have been a good number of seasons with the coldest in Mar since 2017-8: 2017-8, 2018-9, 2019-20, 2020-1, and 2022-3. And 2023-4 only barely missed! Before that one has to go all the way back to 2008-9, 2005-6, 2004-5, 2002-3, 1995-6, 1985-6, 1984-5, 1983-4, 1975-6, 1969-70, and 1968-9 (going back to 1957-8) for the coldest in March. So, for the 60 year period 1957-8 through 2016-7 there were only 11 (18%) with coldest in March. In contrast, 5 of the subsequent 7 (excluding 2024-5) or 71% have had that. Yes, I’m cherry picking to an extent due to 7 seasons being a pretty short period. However, it does beat the prior highest of 4 of 7 (57%) seasons that covered 2002-3 through 2008-9. Also, it may rise to 6 of the last 8 (75%) if today shows a further drop. If so, that would compare to the previous highest 4 of 8 (50%) from the decade of the 2000s 

 Coldest daily mean is Feb 25. Mar 12th anomaly (about at normal) is the coldest daily anomaly since way back in August:

[Typhoon Tip]

some may find these projections and observations interesting ...

CPC   • Should the MJO manage to emerge over the West Pacific during Week 3, low-level westerly
wind anomalies over a warmer than normal West Pacific Warm Pool could result in a
downwelling oceanic Kelvin wave that would further erode the La Niña

 

 

[LibertyBell]

4 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

You have to break it down to hyper discrete logical pieces to a lot of readers because they don't understand the abstraction of it in the generalized prose you provided above.   For lot more readers of the hoi polloi than we may think, when some example acts say more like 1978 ... "it must not have been influence by CC then".  

That sort of misconception is exposed when you read their content - that's why I spent the time to write that out in hyper specificity above.  

The problem is there is needs to be a differentiation between what caused changes millions of years ago vs what's happening right now.  The rate of change is MUCH faster now, for one.  Also, I'm not sure humanity would survive if we went back to a Mesozoic era climate.  For most of the history of this planet it was actually uninhabitable.  Multicellular organisms only evolved in the last 600 million years.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

53 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

The problem is there is needs to be a differentiation between what caused changes millions of years ago vs what's happening right now.  The rate of change is MUCH faster now, for one.  Also, I'm not sure humanity would survive if we went back to a Mesozoic era climate.  For most of the history of this planet it was actually uninhabitable.  Multicellular organisms only evolved in the last 600 million years.

 

huh  I was just discussing this over in SNE's March thread.    It's the rate of change that is the killer.  

Part of that abstraction is that if the rate of change in the climate, exceeds species' adaptation rates ...   one of two things happen:

a,   extinction

b,   diaspora into an alien ecology, which is usually not good for the new ecology ... because it in itself does not posses the capacity to adapt to the change of having hordes of arriving opportunistic climate refugees.   And I mean "clime refugees" not just human beings but all migrations up and down the biological kingdom.

Eventually enough food pyramids collapse and then, even the superior adaptation of human kind can't keep up.  In fact, that is already happened... The Serbian climate refugees of the early 2000s.   If enough of this happens... then you get into breaching geopolitical boundaries, leading destabilization.  Wars have begun that way... and it becomes a domino scenario kicking off.  Civility goes first ... organization is a construct of convenience and begins after dust settles; reconstruct after the shit stops hitting the fan.  That's on the other side of the CC induce firewall - metaphorically speaking.  What lies out there...  when the ability for "greener pastures" may take a 1,000 years to recover

[LibertyBell]

12 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

huh  I was just discussing this over in SNE's March thread.    It's the rate of change that is the killer.  

Part of that abstraction is that if the rate of change in the climate, exceeds species' adaptation rates ...   one of two things happen:

a,   extinction

b,   diaspora into an alien ecology, which is usually not good for the new ecology ... because it in itself does not posses the capacity to adapt to the change of having hordes of arriving opportunistic climate refugees.   And I mean "clime refugees" not just human beings but all migrations up and down the biological kingdom.

Eventually enough food pyramids collapse and then, even the superior adaptation of human kind can't keep up.  In fact, that is already happened... The Serbian climate refugees of the early 2000s.   If enough of this happens... then you get into breaching geopolitical boundaries, leading destabilization.  Wars have begun that way... and it becomes a domino scenario kicking off.  Civility goes first ... organization is a construct of convenience and begins after dust settles; reconstruct after the shit stops hitting the fan.  That's on the other side of the CC induce firewall - metaphorically speaking.  What lies out there...  when the ability for "greener pastures" may take a 1,000 years to recover

 

I have had this kind of thing happen around me for many years I call it *match* when someone else says or writes the same thing as I do, at nearly the same time.  Sometimes it even happens with TV shows lol.  Even word for word sometimes. Maybe consciousness is entangled between like minded people?

About your scenarios, this is why many believe we're going to be reduced to pre industrial levels.  It's nature having the last laugh, we mess with it, it finds a way to achieve a balance, at our expense of course.

What you outlined in b, I find rather fascinating, it's like being on the boundary of a whole new world isn't it?

What happens after mass extinctions is rapid evolution, completely different from what existed before of course.  Remember the K-T event? We went from massive ferns and giant reptiles dominating the planet to flowering plants, feathery birds who evolved from the dinosaurs and tiny mammals who rapidly evolved into brainier ones by consuming high quantities of nuts, protein rich, mind you.  These nuts did not exist before the K-T event happened.  So mammals would likely have remained tiny rat like creatures if an asteroid did not hit the Yucatan.

By the way, something I find so fascinating about nature regulating the environment, birds still have that gene that made the dinosaurs so huge, but it's been turned off.  Why? Natural selection of course; the environment had become inhospitable to creatures the size of dinosaurs so the dinosaurs who survived-- the birds-- had that gigantism gene turned off.

 

b,   diaspora into an alien ecology, which is usually not good for the new ecology ... because it in itself does not posses the capacity to adapt to the change of having hordes of arriving opportunistic climate refugees.   And I mean "clime refugees" not just human beings but all migrations up and down the biological kingdom.

[GaWx]

20 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Interestingly, the Arctic (80N to the pole) is on the verge of having the coldest mean temp of the entire season so far (see image below). This is as of Mar 12. If it drops any more it will become the coldest of the season.

 There have been a good number of seasons with the coldest in Mar since 2017-8: 2017-8, 2018-9, 2019-20, 2020-1, and 2022-3. And 2023-4 only barely missed! Before that one has to go all the way back to 2008-9, 2005-6, 2004-5, 2002-3, 1995-6, 1985-6, 1984-5, 1983-4, 1975-6, 1969-70, and 1968-9 (going back to 1957-8) for the coldest in March. So, for the 60 year period 1957-8 through 2016-7 there were only 11 (18%) with coldest in March. In contrast, 5 of the subsequent 7 (excluding 2024-5) or 71% have had that. Yes, I’m cherry picking to an extent due to 7 seasons being a pretty short period. However, it does beat the prior highest of 4 of 7 (57%) seasons that covered 2002-3 through 2008-9. Also, it may rise to 6 of the last 8 (75%) if today shows a further drop. If so, that would compare to the previous highest 4 of 8 (50%) from the decade of the 2000s 

 Coldest daily mean is Feb 25. Mar 12th anomaly (about at normal) is the coldest daily anomaly since way back in August:

Related to the above, here are the means for the Arctic by season 1958-2025:

Winter, summer, and annual: bulk of winter/annual warming just since 2005 while summer hasn’t warmed at all

Spring, autumn, and annual: autumn has warmed 2nd most of the 4 seasons but
bulk also just since 2005 while spring’s more modest warming mainly only since 2010:

[chubbs]

22 hours ago, bluewave said:

Every weather event that occurs is in some way influenced by the average global temperatures around the time of the event. You wouldn’t expect the real world weather events to be the same during an ice age as they were during the PETM. So the background climate temperatures during each era sets the parameters or range of possibilities for the individual weather events. 

Our winter temperatures are well correlated with global temperatures. When global warming accelerated around 1970 our winters followed suit, roughly 1F per decade winter warming in our region since 1970. The last 2 ninos have spiked global temperatures. We had a notable change in our winters after the last nino. It would not surprise me to see another shift after the recent nino. Not sure what the shift will be, given large variability in local winters and our new global temperature range. We pull our winters from a deck of potential outcomes. With each passing year we know less and less about the individual cards in the deck.

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

Our winter temperatures are well correlated with global temperatures. When global warming accelerated around 1970 our winters followed suit, roughly 1F per decade winter warming in our region since 1970. The last 2 ninos have spiked global temperatures. We had a notable change in our winters after the last nino. It would not surprise me to see another shift after the recent nino. Not sure what the shift will be, given large variability in local winters and our new global temperature range. We pull our winters from a deck of potential outcomes. With each passing year we know less and less about the individual cards in the deck.

Charlie, Your global temp graph contrasts quite a bit to the Arctic (80N+) that I posted just above this, which shows it flat 1970-94 vs yours for global having ~0.35C of warming 1970-94.

*Corrected

[FPizz]

Should we shut this thread down and move over to the 2025-26 one? This pretty much is a cc thread now.

[GaWx]

38 minutes ago, FPizz said:

Should we shut this thread down and move over to the 2025-26 one? This pretty much is a cc thread now.

 I haven’t yet because I’m following up prior posts ITT (continuity), including the current strat. reversal along with any potential after effects and also mid-March is still early to completely move on to 2025-6. After all, some like to get through March as the end of the cold season before completely moving on. I don’t see any harm in having two active threads for the next few weeks or so, which has already been the case for a number of weeks.

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

Charlie, Your global temp graph contrasts quite a bit to the Arctic (80N+) that I posted just above this, which shows it flat 1970-94 vs yours for global having ~0.35C of warming 1970-95.

The difference isn't that surprising because there are regional differences and 80N is a small part of the globe.  Did take a quick look however. First, my chart is GISS.  Found the chart below which compares: global, land and arctic warming. Here the arctic is 67N, not the same as the ar4ctic in your chart. Arctic warming didn't take off till around 1990, so there isn't much difference between global land/ocean and arctic for the 1970-94 period. Note however the much larger year-to-year variability in the arctic. That's one of the benefits of the global average, a good bit of the plus and minus natural variability cancels when averaged over the entire globe.

The global land average turns out to be a good proxy for the Northeast US. Global land has warmed by roughly 1.5C since 1970, or 2.8F. Winter is the fastest warming season locally, roughly 50% more than the annual average, so the 5F of winter warming we have experienced is close to what would be expected based on the global land average.

[LakePaste25]

1 hour ago, FPizz said:

Should we shut this thread down and move over to the 2025-26 one? This pretty much is a cc thread now.

I vote to keep this thread going. CC discussion (to some extent) is unavoidable when you’re talking about winter in the northeast. Only shut it down if it goes to constant back and forth arguing. 

[LibertyBell]

4 hours ago, chubbs said:

Our winter temperatures are well correlated with global temperatures. When global warming accelerated around 1970 our winters followed suit, roughly 1F per decade winter warming in our region since 1970. The last 2 ninos have spiked global temperatures. We had a notable change in our winters after the last nino. It would not surprise me to see another shift after the recent nino. Not sure what the shift will be, given large variability in local winters and our new global temperature range. We pull our winters from a deck of potential outcomes. With each passing year we know less and less about the individual cards in the deck.

Sounds like the warming happens in periodic jumps rather than a smooth rise.

Is the warming resulting in more extreme el nino events that cause this?

[chubbs]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Sounds like the warming happens in periodic jumps rather than a smooth rise.

Is the warming resulting in more extreme el nino events that cause this?

The recent nino jumps are bigger because man-made forcing is increasing more rapidly, mainly because air pollution is going down while greenhouse gases continue to increase.

[LibertyBell]

49 minutes ago, chubbs said:

The recent nino jumps are bigger because man-made forcing is increasing more rapidly, mainly because air pollution is going down while greenhouse gases continue to increase.

a vicious circle aka feedback loop

[Typhoon Tip]

the other way to look at that vicious cycle is that humanity has no f'n clue how it's actions will ultimately effect the global system.

oh we have an idea... but the details are unknown, and that is where the bombs detonate.   like ... taking out sulfer dioxide making co2 heat absorption more efficient ... triggering a global thermal burst.   

what the hell else has no prediction that's yet to be discovered -   weee

the greatest natural disaster ever to befall this planet's history may in fact turn out to be the arrival of human innovation

[michsnowfreak]

6 hours ago, FPizz said:

Should we shut this thread down and move over to the 2025-26 one? This pretty much is a cc thread now.

Yeah it definitely turned into another cc thread lol. No reason to shut it down, its already getting much fewer posts as winter nears its end. But definitely will want a 2025-26 thread to start in a few months. I do think each winter should have its own thread.

[GaWx]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Yeah it definitely turned into another cc thread lol. No reason to shut it down, its already getting much fewer posts as winter nears its end. But definitely will want a 2025-26 thread to start in a few months. I do think each winter should have its own thread.

It’s not all cc as the strat. warming is in play among other things.

[michsnowfreak]

2 minutes ago, GaWx said:

It’s not all cc as the strat. warming is in play among other things.

I know. Fizz and I were referring to the direction the posts in this thread have gone lol.