Weather Acting Funny in Your Neighbourhood?

[DrJay]

No floods nor tornadoes here so maybe I shouldn't complain, but this spring (if you want to call it that) SUCKS! High of 45F today (norm is 69F), cloudy, rain. More of the same tomorrow. I can count on one hand (maybe even on Mordecai Brown's pitching hand) the number of really nice days we've had so far.

[SQUACKEE]

On of the worst springs in history here in Connecticut, cold and rainy.

[LopenUupunut]

Squackee, perhaps you should move to Finland. We're enjoying a nice normal spring here.

[SQUACKEE]

Squackee, perhaps you should move to Finland. We're enjoying a nice normal spring here.

mmm, well I am 50% from Norway so I might look you up, would be like going home, almost!

[jeremyp]

A week in Salt Lake and nothing but 50-60's and rain, rain, rain. Can't wait to get back to Florida: 92,92,92,92.

[jhc68]

Central Coast of California, mid-afternoon June 5... steady rain and 57 degrees... once in a while we get June rain but in my long, albiet unreliable, memory it is always a southern storm bringing warm, muggy weather. This is like a mid-winter day here.

Nothing normal weather-wise here in a couple of years. On the last day of March I drove south from SF bay area on hwy 101: near King City it was 80 degrees (way too hot for that time of year) yet lots of snow visible at low altitude on the Coastal Range only a very few miles from the ocean.

Last summer was downright cold and gloomy.

Meanwhile the huge snow pack continues to accumulate on the Sierras with the potential for unprecedented damage if a sudden thaw occurs.

[26mi235]

I have not lived there in 25 years but my memory is that in June southern California typically had the effects of cool moist air from the ocean and did not get consistently warm until later June. Similarly, while major rainfalls were not too common (the Dodgers did not get a rainout for the first 18 years [of Dodger Stadium or in LA, I cannot remember]), the predominant rain-type events were still Pacific systems. The warm, moist air with Mexican tropical storms did not usually develop until July and were not common until August. Another thing to consider where we are in terms of el nino/la nina cycle, which I think puts the western US in a different than typical pattern at this point (but I am too lazy to go investigate it right now).

[jhc68]

Yeah, the cool moist June air is Callifornia typical but it usually takes the form of marine layer overcast and drizzle and temperatures in the 60's.
Last weekend, though, there was steady rainfall for several hours and temps in the mid-50's... it was a real weather front coming in from the north. Some of the mountain areas above Monterey got 5 inches of rain. Very atypical.

[26mi235]

Yeah, the cool moist June air is California typical but it usually takes the form of marine layer overcast and drizzle and temperatures in the 60's.
Last weekend, though, there was steady rainfall for several hours and temps in the mid-50's... it was a real weather front coming in from the north. Some of the mountain areas above Monterey got 5 inches of rain. Very atypical.

I spent a winter/spring in above Monterey one year (all expenses paid ); it was rainy in February but better after that (and it hit about 100 on about Memorial Day and I think that it was similar in San Fransisco, which is very unusual).

[LopenUupunut]

Meanwhile, Finland receives an official heat wave warning.

[Daisy]

Some skeptics becoming less skeptical?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greensp ... rming.html

UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller and others were looking at the so-called urban heat island effect -- the notion that because more urban temperature stations are included in global temperature data sets than are rural ones, the global average temperature was being skewed upward because these sites tend to retain more heat. Hence, global warming trends are exaggerated.

After reanalyzing all the data they now say:

"that the spurious contribution of urban heating to the global average, if present, is not a strong effect; this agrees with the conclusions in the literature that we cited previously." The literature they cite is the basis for the conclusion that Earth has been warming in an unnatural way during the period of human industrialization.

[Daisy]

They're changing the diet of cows so they belch less methane.

It's the methane trapped in the permafrost that might be the biggest problem with regard to a positive feedback loop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opini ... ugman.html

(Note that Krugman says it CO2 from the permafrost, but I think he means methane)

It's started.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 76134.html

[Friar]

I was not dreaming of a White Christmas and glad of it. I've still got fall cleanup work to do (15 large trees 150 feet from my magnetic front door, 50 leaf bags so far).

The month has been hassle free. Cool (but not cold) and dry, like nothing I've ever experienced. My father used to tell me about his easy winters in DC and the early spring but I've never seen anything like that (in New England).
It will likely change soon here but right now I'm down with zero snow. And nothing in the latest forecast.

* 1/8 Still no snow and none in next week's rainy forecast. First time ever use of a leaf blower in January. I saw lots of shorts and tops down convertibles on the Blvd.

[jeremyp]

We in SW Florida just had 21 days in December over 80 degrees, and 2 more due. Best "winter" in my 6 years here.

[bad hammy]

It's summertime at Lake Tahoe.

The calendar doesn't show it. But just about everything else does - and that's not good for most people trying to make a buck up here.

Lines are out the door at ice cream shops, the miniature-golf course is bustling, and mountain bikers are tearing up and down the parched mountainsides under balmy skies.

Nowhere, however - at least from the shoreline - can you see snow.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1MLGS7.DTL

[26mi235]

The last four years we have averaged an annual total exceeded the old record (because one of the years was so far above the old record that the other three high levels led to a higher average). However, it was warmer than 'average' because it snows more here in the middle of winter when it snows.

However, this year it is probably my warmest winter so far in the 23 years living here. We have had almost no snow (4.4 inches vs average of 20.4) and there is nothing on the ground (the last three years we had snow continually on the ground from the beginning of December through into March). HDDs so far: 2650; Normal: 3201. And the next three days are supposed to average over 45 degrees (F, of course).

[gh]

The real answer of course is that weather is always acting funny (whereas climate normally is not). Weather operates on geologic time and we have no idea what's "normal" during out pitifully small lifetimes. Just as every generation of adults since Oog & Ogg has been lamenting the fact that the kids are going to hell in a handbasket, I'm sure Adam turned to Eve and said, "have you noticed that the weather here in Eden has really sucked lately?"

I remember in the late '50s my mother leaning over the proverbial garden fence and having a discussion with the next door neighbor (or in mom's case, neighbour) and saying, "the weather just hasn't been the same since they started that nuclear testing."

[Daisy]

I'm just posting this from another thread. Seems more appropriate here.

So you are a snow bound Badger.

Normally, yes. But this year we have the magnolia already.

The only Wisconsin Badger for TnF I can think of is Pat Matzdorf.

You probably know of Suzy Favor Hamilton. And more recently Matt Tegenkamp and Chris Solinsky.

In my northern Badger garden, snowdrops, early crocus and a few Scilla sibiricas are blooming, the earliest in my memory, the hyacinths and tulips coming out, daffodils not quite yet. What is a pom? Should I feel honored or scream bloody murder ?

P.S. Once mump completes the list, I will re-post the alpabetized thing again, complete with corrections.

Well, Madison is a bit further south but here are a few measures of how unusual the weather it is. Despite the fact that we have the ten normally warmest days of the month to go, this March has (in comparison to the years since 1950):

1 Has four times as many Cooling Degree Days (excess of average daily temperature above 65) as the previous 62.
2 In only four years has April had more CDDs
3 The average temperature is already more than 8 degrees higher than the next highest March and if the forecast for the rest of the month holds, we will end up 12 degrees above the average and higher than the highest April over the period since 1950.

[26mi235]

Well, weather is always acting funny, as gh says. However, there tends to be bounds, and the more days that are included the harder it is to get far away from a 'norm'. However, March in Madison is getting to a rather unusual level. Here is what I wrote on another thread:

Daisy posted the main part, so I will just add:

Such long periods of above normal also has the implication that maybe normal has changed. In fact, Madison has been warmer than average every month since October. We will almost certainly have the warmest heating season, less than 6000 HDDs, with the record before of 6395.

[DrJay]

Record highs-for-date this week in Colorado. It was 84F in the Springs yesterday, tying the record. Average high-for-date 62F.

[Conor Dary]

Record highs-for-date this week in Colorado. It was 84F in the Springs yesterday, tying the record. Average high-for-date 62F.

Apparently our ex-governor is enjoying the Colorado weather.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 7608.story

[Daisy]

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math - Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is.

by: Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone.

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today's market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of it underground, you'd be writing off $20 trillion in assets. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it looks like you can't have both.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... h-20120719

[gm]

...and that make clear who the real enemy is.

MAN!!! KILL THEM ALL!!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Daisy]

...and that make clear who the real enemy is.

MAN!!! KILL THEM ALL!!!

That was part of the title, not my commentary. The interesting part is that if these numbers are correct will the oil industry be willing to sit on the reserves instead of selling it to burn.

I guess we could save it for plastics.

[lonewolf]

BS

[Daisy]

BS

True, biodegradable synthetics would probably be a better way to go than using the oil for plastics.

[rsb2]

What part is BS, Lonewolf? Scientific confirmation, please.

[j-a-m]

Read only the first paragraph of the linked Rolling Stone article; and that's enough for me to skip the rest and call the article BS. The article says "the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99"; that shows zero understanding of statistics, and whoever makes such a claim has no business being making any scientific claims.

[Daisy]

that shows zero understanding of statistics

Not zero understanding, there is a method to it, just simplistic.

[j-a-m]

Not zero understanding, there is a method to it, just simplistic.

Simplistic is putting it nicely.

[Daisy]

Not zero understanding, there is a method to it, just simplistic.

Simplistic is putting it nicely.

How about too colloquial? Presumably the writer is assuming his audience is not a bunch of statisticians.

[j-a-m]

How about too colloquial? Presumably the writer is assuming his audience is not a bunch of statisticians.

In accordance with the forum rules, this is my last post on this matter: The statistical claim is bogus, and that's still putting it mildly. Presumably, the writer either assumes he can get away with it precisely because his audience is not familiar with statistics, or he actually believes his own BS claim.

[jeremyp]

Sitting in South west Florida as a Cat 1 Hurricane is due to sweep by in the next 24-48 hours. We live right on a canal so pray the water surge stays below 7 feet.

[Helen S]

Let us know how that praying thing works for you this time.

[jeremyp]

Let us know how that praying thing works for you this time.

All I had to do was channel King Canute.