Spring/Summer '24 Banter and Complaint Thread

[IWXwx]

I figured we should start this thread since we're well into met spring and quickly approaching astronomical spring. I combined the seasons due to the decreased traffic here in the summer. I have selfish reasons because this is about the only thread in which I post.

I was checking this map out and am dreading the northwest trend.

[IWXwx]

Security cam footage of the Leipsic, OH tornado on Tuesday. Wipes out the barn at the 0:55 mark:

 

[Stebo]

10 hours ago, IWXwx said:

I figured we should start this thread since we're well into met spring and quickly approaching astronomical spring. I combined the seasons due to the decreased traffic here in the summer. I have selfish reasons because this is about the only thread in which I post.

I was checking this map out and am dreading the northwest trend.

I would love a NW trend, then I don't have to travel to Ohio on purpose.

[michsnowfreak]

Everyone better hope for widespread clear skies on April 8th. 

[Brian D]

16 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Everyone better hope for widespread clear skies on April 8th. 

Yeah, I cringed a bit when I put up my forecast. Fingers crossed for stellar viewing.

[TheClimateChanger]

 Summer is almost certain to be a scorcher. Just looking over the numbers for some recent summers, and it's insane. At Toledo, 3 of the top 5 hottest summers have occurred this decade [and it's only 4 years old]. At Mansfield, Ohio, the top 2 hottest summers have occurred in the past 4 years. At Akron-Canton, ALL of the top 5 hottest summers have occurred in the past 8 years. Cleveland has lucked out a bit on the summer heat front, but still 4 of the top 8 have occurred in the past 14 years, and 5 of the top 8 have occurred in the past 19 years. These are all long period of record sites.

Despite all this, we'll still hear about how much hotter it was in the 1930s! 

[Lightning]

On 3/9/2024 at 1:20 PM, michsnowfreak said:

Everyone better hope for widespread clear skies on April 8th. 

I am planning to do a day trip, during that time, depending on the cloud cover expectations.  Gonna be last minute planning like storm chasing 

[roardog]

29 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 Summer is almost certain to be a scorcher. Just looking over the numbers for some recent summers, and it's insane. At Toledo, 3 of the top 5 hottest summers have occurred this decade [and it's only 4 years old]. At Mansfield, Ohio, the top 2 hottest summers have occurred in the past 4 years. At Akron-Canton, ALL of the top 5 hottest summers have occurred in the past 8 years. Cleveland has lucked out a bit on the summer heat front, but still 4 of the top 8 have occurred in the past 14 years, and 5 of the top 8 have occurred in the past 19 years. These are all long period of record sites.

Despite all this, we'll still hear about how much hotter it was in the 1930s! 

As has been discussed a gazillion times on here, the 1930s heat was different than what we’ve experienced in recent years. Recent years warmth is due to higher dewpoints causing warm lows. The 1930s heat is low dewpoint record highs. The only years of my life that might be comparable are 1988 and 2012. 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, roardog said:

As has been discussed a gazillion times on here, the 1930s heat was different than what we’ve experienced in recent years. Recent years warmth is due to higher dewpoints causing warm lows. The 1930s heat is low dewpoint record highs. The only years of my life that might be comparable are 1988 and 2012. 

A gazillion times is an understatement. Those who have a one-track agenda when it comes to weather will always simply use whatever works best for them at that specific moment (mean temp, most/least hot maxes, most/least cold mins, station/instrument placement, snow depth vs snowfall, snowfall was less at a station 100 miles away, "since 1970...", etc etc...or if ALL else fails, "I dont trust that data for X reason"). Consistency is never a strong suit . The same passion that is used to reiterate that a snowy season in a milder winter was STILL a milder winter is completely MIA when it comes to acknowledging a deadly heatwave during a dustbowl year that wasnt the hottest summer on record.

 

Heatwaves of the 1930s-50s have yet to be matched locally. Very interesting era in weather (puny, mild, low snow winters and scorching heatwaves, also a lot of tornadoes). Those summers, while still high on the list of hottness, often had a few good cool downs and more importantly cool nights. Very interesting that we have no problem getting a roller coaster in temps during Winter, Fall, & Spring but summers anymore are full of stagnant days, humid nights, and warm humid days lacking extreme heat. As summer is also the season where mean temp is increasing the most, I plan to do some closer looking into those warm summer nights this year.

AVERAGE ANNUAL 90F+ DAYS PER DECADE AT DETROIT

1880s-   5
1890s-   9
1900s-   6
1910s-  11
1920s-   9    
1930s-  17
1940s-  16
1950s-  15
1960s-  11
1970s-  12
1980s-  13
1990s-  12
2000s-  10          
2010s-  16
2020s- 12 (only 2020-23)

 

Heres an interesting stat - Average annual max temp by decade

1880s-  93
1890s-  95
1900s-  93
1910s-  96
1920s-  95    
1930s-  99
1940s-  98
1950s-  97
1960s-  95
1970s-  96
1980s-  95
1990s-  96
2000s- 94          
2010s-  96
2020s- 93 (only 2020-23)

[TheClimateChanger]

Here are Detroit's hottest summers on record. Just look how unbelievably hot it was in 1933! I guess I was wrong!

Cue rant about Urban Heat Island Effect in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

[TheClimateChanger]

Just for the record, when you compare the raw data from Flint and Saginaw to Detroit, a good chunk of the difference (admittedly, not all - but a good chunk) is completely explainable by the fact that the old Co-op data was not gathered on a midnight-to-midnight time frame, but rather late afternoon.

A 5 pm observation time adds about 1F to the mean temperature relative to a day ending at midnight. Obviously, this is not a problem in the Detroit threaded record since it's always been a manned weather bureau station [with a midnight to midnight day].

Understanding Time of Observation Bias | Climate Etc. (judithcurry.com)

[TheClimateChanger]

Some of the co-op data has also, unfortunately, been manipulated.

If we compare the raw data from Saginaw to the "official" records, we see numerous instances of mistakes and/or temperatures just completely made up and not borne out by the actual observation. It looks like there's potential issues on the 14th, 23rd and 29th from July 1936. The high on the 14th on the record was observed as 92F, curiously below the set max of 98F on the previous day. I've seen this in the past and the temperature is often bumped up the high temperature, assuming the observer somehow reset the temperature device afterwards. Of course, I would surmise that the set max was simply incorrectly reported and it is showing the max set on the prior day, but bumping it up one day to the day it impacts. In this case, they simply made up a 104F high on that date! Unbelievable - that's the sixth hottest temperature observed at Saginaw, and it wasn't even observed. The high was clearly reported as 92F! I mean maybe you could make a case for adjusting to the set max, but simply making up a value - what?!? And not only making up a value, but generating one of the hottest readings in the entire threaded record from thin air.

Same thing on the 23rd. High reported as 79F, but goes in the "official" books as 85F. Not only 6F above the actual observation, but 5F above the reported set max from the prior day. Again, it's one thing to bump it up to the set max. But why make up a reading?!?

On the 29th, they bumped the observed high of 70F up to the 77F set max from the prior day. Reasonable, but again relies on the assumption that the observer was reporting the set max from that day - and not the prior day's set maximum. That's how it was supposed to be reported, but you can see how that could be screwed up. Easier to mess that up than somehow reseting the max thermometer a second time without reporting it, IMO.

Also, while not a big error, the high on the 10th is clearly reported as 106F, not 107F as shown in the "official" records.

Admittedly, the 104F on the 14th is more in line with surrounding observations, but it's worth noting that a sharp cold front passed through that day, and would have made it to Saginaw earlier. It could have generated a wind shift off of the bay into the city. Either way, there shouldn't be record temperatures made up from thin air without justification. The effect of all these errors, irregularities and/or adjustments is to bump up the monthly mean high by 0.8F and the monthly mean average by 0.4F.

The "adjustment" to the 29th also has the effect of deleting what would be the third coolest maximum temperature on record for July 29th in Saginaw.

So we're going to delete the 70F high because it was maybe (possibly) 77F the previous day when the observer reset the thermometer? Not even certain about that, but maybe. I mean I can see making those adjustments to the climate record [USHCN, GHCN] since there's an explicit adjustment for TOBs, so you want to make sure it's being applied properly. But these are unadjusted values presented for informational purposes only - not for any sort of climate research. What in the world is the justification for adjusting the ThreadEx values?

 

[michsnowfreak]

8 hours ago, roardog said:

As has been discussed a gazillion times on here, the 1930s heat was different than what we’ve experienced in recent years. Recent years warmth is due to higher dewpoints causing warm lows. The 1930s heat is low dewpoint record highs. The only years of my life that might be comparable are 1988 and 2012. 

For a visual aid, see above. It's like talking to a brick wall. Mean temperature vs max temps are two different things. It would be like comparing six 2" snowfalls to one 12" snowstorm. 

 

Last summer the hottest temperature at DTW was 90°. To be honest I would prefer a hotter dry summer over a warm humid one.

 

Considering last year was overall a very pleasant summer in an era of hot summers, and we have an El Nino transitioning to La Nina, I definitely am expecting a hot summer this year. But it would be interesting if we could actually get heat waves and some cool shots instead of just steady warm and humid.

 

[Baum]

live look at CC (wo) man come August. Note: some may find this content hot or offensive.

[TheClimateChanger]

4 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

For a visual aid, see above. It's like talking to a brick wall. Mean temperature vs max temps are two different things. It would be like comparing six 2" snowfalls to one 12" snowstorm. 

 

Last summer the hottest temperature at DTW was 90°. To be honest I would prefer a hotter dry summer over a warm humid one.

 

Considering last year was overall a very pleasant summer in an era of hot summers, and we have an El Nino transitioning to La Nina, I definitely am expecting a hot summer this year. But it would be interesting if we could actually get heat waves and some cool shots instead of just steady warm and humid.

 

Looks like you guys are doing alright. 4 of the top 16 years in the past 13 summers [with a 150 year period of record]. At least it's not the 19th century. I don't see a single year before 1916.

[TheClimateChanger]

On 3/13/2024 at 5:57 PM, michsnowfreak said:

For a visual aid, see above. It's like talking to a brick wall. Mean temperature vs max temps are two different things. It would be like comparing six 2" snowfalls to one 12" snowstorm. 

 

Last summer the hottest temperature at DTW was 90°. To be honest I would prefer a hotter dry summer over a warm humid one.

 

Considering last year was overall a very pleasant summer in an era of hot summers, and we have an El Nino transitioning to La Nina, I definitely am expecting a hot summer this year. But it would be interesting if we could actually get heat waves and some cool shots instead of just steady warm and humid.

 

The so-called hottest summer on record was downright pleasant in Detroit outside of a single week. Even including the 7-day heat wave, it was a moderate summer and fairly mild by modern standards.

The mean temperature of 71.2F places 57th in the threaded record. In the past 9 years, only 2015 & 2023 have been cooler (and both by very small margins). By contrast, 2016 was nearly 4F warmer than 1936!

And to be honest, it makes much more sense to compare this to records observed at City Airport (DET) since that it was where the official temperatures were observed in 1936. On that metric, it was the 27th COLDEST summer out of 90 years of records.

Incredibly, removing one 7-day stretch would drop the summertime mean to 69.9F.  I know you can't do this, but it gives a much better reading of the overall character of the summer. And that was one of low humidity and generally mild weather, with cool overnight lows, punctuated by a few episodes of extreme heat, including one colossal 7-day stretch in early to mid-July. At these levels, you'd be looking at the 12th coolest of 90 years at DET and 44th coolest of 150 years in the threaded Detroit area records.

The 59.5F mean summer minimum is 5th lowest on record, out of 90 years' worth of observations at Detroit City Airport. That value has not been exceeded in recent decades since the volcanically cooled summer of 1992, and even then only by a negligible amount [59.3F]. In the threaded record, it's only 26th coldest of 150 years, as the coldest minima are dominated by the 1960s-1980s records from DTW when it radiated like a freezer at night [developed in low density suburb]. Still pretty cold either way. Ignoring the 7-day inferno [July 8-July 14], the mean minima the rest of the summer was just 58.4F, which would easily be the coldest on record at DET and would tie 1875 for 10th coldest in the threaded record.

Regarding the heat wave, you can pull up the old records and see the humidity and dry bulb temperatures at 3 periods each day. The mean dewpoint was probably around 55-55.5F, based on those observations. This is less than even the "frigid" July of 2009 when the average dewpoint at Detroit was a comfortable 56.3F. During the worst of the heat wave, humidity was generally very low. Under these conditions, the heat index would not greatly vary from the dry bulb temperature. Despite the extreme temperatures, there have been more dangerous conditions in recent summers when factoring in the cumulative effect of high dewpoints and temperatures. The most extreme heat indices in Detroit were experienced not in 1936, but in 1995, when triple digit temperatures were combined with dewpoints nearing 80F - rather than in the 50s.

The combination of generally moderate temperatures and very low humidity would have made the summer of 1936 more comfortable than the majority of recent summers in Detroit. If those same conditions repeated this year, and I tried to point out the upper 90s/100s as the result of climate change, you would no doubt change tune and attempt to rebut my assertion by going on about how cool and dry it was for the majority of the summer.

[WestMichigan]

8 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

The so-called hottest summer on record was downright pleasant in Detroit outside of a single week. Even including the 7-day heat wave, it was a moderate summer and fairly mild by modern standards.

The mean temperature of 71.2F places 57th in the threaded record. In the past 9 years, only 2015 & 2023 have been cooler (and both by very small margins). By contrast, 2016 was nearly 4F warmer than 1936!

And to be honest, it makes much more sense to compare this to records observed at City Airport (DET) since that it was where the official temperatures were observed in 1936. On that metric, it was the 27th COLDEST summer out of 90 years of records.

Incredibly, removing one 7-day stretch would drop the summertime mean to 69.9F.  I know you can't do this, but it gives a much better reading of the overall character of the summer. And that was one of low humidity and generally mild weather, with cool overnight lows, punctuated by a few episodes of extreme heat, including one colossal 7-day stretch in early to mid-July. At these levels, you'd be looking at the 12th coolest of 90 years at DET and 44th coolest of 150 years in the threaded Detroit area records.

The 59.5F mean summer minimum is 5th lowest on record, out of 90 years' worth of observations at Detroit City Airport. That value has not been exceeded in recent decades since the volcanically cooled summer of 1992, and even then only by a negligible amount [59.3F]. In the threaded record, it's only 26th coldest of 150 years, as the coldest minima are dominated by the 1960s-1980s records from DTW when it radiated like a freezer at night [developed in low density suburb]. Still pretty cold either way. Ignoring the 7-day inferno [July 8-July 14], the mean minima the rest of the summer was just 58.4F, which would easily be the coldest on record at DET and would tie 1875 for 10th coldest in the threaded record.

Regarding the heat wave, you can pull up the old records and see the humidity and dry bulb temperatures at 3 periods each day. The mean dewpoint was probably around 55-55.5F, based on those observations. This is less than even the "frigid" July of 2009 when the average dewpoint at Detroit was a comfortable 56.3F. During the worst of the heat wave, humidity was generally very low. Under these conditions, the heat index would not greatly vary from the dry bulb temperature. Despite the extreme temperatures, there have been more dangerous conditions in recent summers when factoring in the cumulative effect of high dewpoints and temperatures. The most extreme heat indices in Detroit were experienced not in 1936, but in 1995, when triple digit temperatures were combined with dewpoints nearing 80F - rather than in the 50s.

The combination of generally moderate temperatures and very low humidity would have made the summer of 1936 more comfortable than the majority of recent summers in Detroit. If those same conditions repeated this year, and I tried to point out the upper 90s/100s as the result of climate change, you would no doubt change tune and attempt to rebut my assertion by going on about how cool and dry it was for the majority of the summer.

There is a subforum for this - https://www.americanwx.com/bb/forum/18-climate-change/  If every post you made wasn't 100% related to this subforum I wouldn't be complaining, but since that is all you do, take it over there will you.

[CheeselandSkies]

Eight years ago today, a localized tornado outbreak occurred across central Illinois. Synoptically the setup was pretty classic with the left exit region of the midlevel jet squarely over the area and a deep surface low. However marginal/"just-in-time" moisture was an expected issue with dewpoints only reaching the mid-50's by go time. However with cold air aloft and the excellent kinematics, it was enough. Although, my chase partner and I thought our tornado chances were done for the day when we pulled into the Casey's gas station on IL-116 at the west edge of Hanna City, ahead of the "tail-end Charlie" cell on the next cluster of storms north of the one that would produce the tornado just west of Springfield around the same time. The storm wasn't looking that impressive on radar and our plan was to gas up, get snacks and drinks, and let the storm roll over us, sheltering his car under the gas station canopy if there was hail and then shoot lightning on the back side on the way home (I never uploaded any of the video from before the tornado encounter until now, I'd forgotten how electrified the storm already was at that point).

It was at this point that several things happened in rapid succession. We felt a gust of warm inflow toward the storm still off to our immediate west (when, based on the prior radar presentation, we were expecting cool outflow), which should have been an "Oh s***!" moment but we just kind of shrugged it off "huh, that's interesting." What we didn't know was that the storm had just undergone a constructive cell merger. The radar updated to reveal, while not quite a classic hook on reflectivity, a definite RFD gust front curling back into an inflow notch, with an intense velocity couplet colocated with it, just off to our northwest! Both our cell phones alerted simultaneously with a WEA for a tornado warning, and the town's sirens blared to life! I'll let the video and its accompanying description tell the rest of the story...
 

I'm conflicted about counting this as my first tornado, since we weren't 100% sure of it in real time, and it cannot be confirmed from my imagery alone due to the intervening tree line at the ground. NWS ILX surveyed a 7.1 mile path of up to EF2 damage from northwest of Trivoli to north of Hanna City that matches up with the time and direction of our view. This was one of three EF2 tornadoes to occur with the event; the best-known is probably the earlier one that occurred near Good Hope.

[cyclone77]

41 minutes ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Eight years ago today, a localized tornado outbreak occurred across central Illinois. Synoptically the setup was pretty classic with the left exit region of the midlevel jet squarely over the area and a deep surface low. However marginal/"just-in-time" moisture was an expected issue with dewpoints only reaching the mid-50's by go time. However with cold air aloft and the excellent kinematics, it was enough. Although, my chase partner and I thought our tornado chances were done for the day when we pulled into the Casey's gas station on IL-116 at the west edge of Hanna City, ahead of the "tail-end Charlie" cell on the next cluster of storms north of the one that would produce the tornado just west of Springfield around the same time. The storm wasn't looking that impressive on radar and our plan was to gas up, get snacks and drinks, and let the storm roll over us, sheltering his car under the gas station canopy if there was hail and then shoot lightning on the back side on the way home (I never uploaded any of the video from before the tornado encounter until now, I'd forgotten how electrified the storm already was at that point).

It was at this point that several things happened in rapid succession. We felt a gust of warm inflow toward the storm still off to our immediate west (when, based on the prior radar presentation, we were expecting cool outflow), which should have been an "Oh s***!" moment but we just kind of shrugged it off "huh, that's interesting." What we didn't know was that the storm had just undergone a constructive cell merger. The radar updated to reveal, while not quite a classic hook on reflectivity, a definite RFD gust front curling back into an inflow notch, with an intense velocity couplet colocated with it, just off to our northwest! Both our cell phones alerted simultaneously with a WEA for a tornado warning, and the town's sirens blared to life! I'll let the video and its accompanying description tell the rest of the story...
 

I'm conflicted about counting this as my first tornado, since we weren't 100% sure of it in real time, and it cannot be confirmed from my imagery alone due to the intervening tree line at the ground. NWS ILX surveyed a 7.1 mile path of up to EF2 damage from northwest of Trivoli to north of Hanna City that matches up with the time and direction of our view. This was one of three EF2 tornadoes to occur with the event; the best-known is probably the earlier one that occurred near Good Hope.

Yeah that was a fun event.  Got on the sup that would eventually drop the Good Hope tor early on and got a great glimpse of the incoming classic supercell structure.  I still kick myself for not staying in the original time lapse position longer, as the tornado ended up coming down very close to that location and would have made for an amazing time lapse.  Ended up positioning a bit further southeast to avoid incoming hail from vault moving in, and still got a great look at the formation of the wall cloud that dropped the tornado shortly after.  You can see it form around the 30 sec mark in the time lapse.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:50 AM, WestMichigan said:

There is a subforum for this - https://www.americanwx.com/bb/forum/18-climate-change/  If every post you made wasn't 100% related to this subforum I wouldn't be complaining, but since that is all you do, take it over there will you.

This is a good discussion for the banter thread. Much more topical than most posts that are made in the banter threads.

[Stebo]

On 3/16/2024 at 3:08 PM, TheClimateChanger said:

This is a good discussion for the banter thread. Much more topical than most posts that are made in the banter threads.

It is a better discussion for the climate change subforum, how about you take it there instead.

[Chicago Storm]

Anyone notice the Euro change that was made?

It still comes out earlier even with the DST change.

[Brian D]

On 3/19/2024 at 12:34 PM, Chicago Storm said:

Anyone notice the Euro change that was made?

It still comes out earlier even with the DST change.

They change there clocks over there at the end of March. So after Easter, they should be in sync with others.

[Chicago916]

Peeps in Southern WI going to enjoy the last bout of snow for the season on Friday? Glad that it'll pass North of here at least...

[Chinook]

METARs? What METARs?

[CheeselandSkies]

55 minutes ago, Chinook said:

METARs? What METARs?

We don't need no stinking METARs!

[Chinook]

6 minutes ago, CheeselandSkies said:

We don't need no stinking METARs!

When there's a data outage of some sort at NCEP/NWS, I always tell myself that somebody tripped over the cord to the computer, and they didn't plug it back in for a few minutes. It seems like there used to be more times when the NAM/GFS were delayed. I guess nobody trips over those cords anymore.

[madwx]

I'm going to be straight up not having a good time tomorrow

[CheeselandSkies]

51 minutes ago, madwx said:

I'm going to be straight up not having a good time tomorrow

Same.

[IWXwx]

12 hours ago, Chinook said:

When there's a data outage of some sort at NCEP/NWS, I always tell myself that somebody tripped over the cord to the computer, and they didn't plug it back in for a few minutes. It seems like there used to be more times when the NAM/GFS were delayed. I guess nobody trips over those cords anymore.