LibertyBell

Did you go there to chase this next snowstorm?

Right and it's such a fine line in these patterns, the storm track is what makes or breaks a season.

Haha no it's okay, I know there are practical reasons why sourcing energy from space is difficult to do, but I think we're on the brink of doing something big (on multiple fronts.) Necessity is the mother of invention as they say.....

I remember those magazines and I loved them too! And I convinced my parents to get a subscription to Scientific American, Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazine when I was in 8th grade!

I like the Tip Over Point and their calculations for how much of the planet's resources humanity uses and we're using more than what the earth can produce so we are now using resources that were created in the distant past (in effect we're raiding the planet's savings account.) We started using more than what the planet can produce back in the 70s and now Tip Over Day is in July (and keeps getting earlier every year.)

No I mean the sun is always producing energy, we just need to be able to source that energy from space where it is unblocked by the Earth...the sun itself is not intermittent, the Earth is what makes that happen.

What was the cause for the extreme cold that made that monthly average a historic 25.5....was that the coldest December on record by average temp, Don?

Need a bird species identification please....just saw a giant hawk or falcon right outside my bedroom window sitting on an overhanging bare tree branch. It was a light to medium grey in color with a darker grey head a bright yellow downward curved beak and some spots on its chest. It was large I'd say larger than a crow and thicker too. We have other large birds here on the south shore (mostly sea gulls) but this definitely was not that and this is the second time this week I've seen this bird. I hope it doesn't go after all the cardinals, robins, blue jays, doves and mockingbirds we have here. One of my neighbors leaves meat outside for stray cats because she thinks they will chase away mice or eat them, maybe that's why this hawk or falcon is here? She left a huge piece of chicken outside the other day for the cats and then she complained that they stole the paper plate she left it in too..... lol. Maybe it was this bird that took it!

I don't know of anyone who actually wants a flash freeze, they cause horrible accidents across multiple vehicles.

Right this is the nuance they are missing. I can buy luck for isolated events and small deviations like 50 miles but not repeated huge global level variations like this.

Historically it seems that southeast winds are the worst for tree damage and power outages too (?)

I'm worried about power outages we had them in NE PA even with the storm just last week. Might have widespread power outages even with those lower wind speeds. I'd like to know how long these winds are supposed to last for and how cold it will be when the winds are peaking.

Wow 70-75 mph winds here and 77 mph on the Jersey shore and even 70 mph up by Scranton, Wilkes Barre and Hazelton would be truly horrendous. How long would these winds last for Chris (above 60 mph I mean) and what would be the temperatures around the time of the highest wind gusts? Thanks!

Wow I've not seen such a widespread area of 60+ mph winds forecast before outside of tropical season, both inland and near the coast. And 70+ mph for the city and Long Island. When was the last time we had something like this-- Sandy? Or have we had that since?

Chris, I see a lot of mentions of "luck" in our "great" pattern and I wanted to ask you, as an analyzer of patterns how much does "luck" play into patterns? I feel like there are certain nuances that are not captured by models (like the warm pool that you mentioned) that are far more important than luck. Because here's the thing-- luck can maybe account for one bad outcome-- but multiple bad outcomes in a row? No, there has to be something the models are missing and that is the nuance in the pattern or climate conditions that makes it not so great that I was referencing. Weather science by its very nature is imperfect and because we don't know all things and aren't omniscient I feel like we need to take a results based approach to what is or isn't a great pattern. The only sure thing is if a pattern produces for you then that pattern was great for you. Of course this is all relative in terms of what people mean by "great" and we must also allow for some variations like if there is a mix or rain/snow line nearby or if there is a grazer, etc. It's like with the storm last January, was that luck that the heavy snow only made it as far west as Queens and Brooklyn? I could see that accounting for maybe 50 miles but probably not more than that.

You're absolutely right but it's just one room and it's electric heat. The rest of the house is at 65. :-P I do like when it gets mild because then I don't turn it on and I don't usually have it on during the day if it's sunny even if it's cold outside and even if I'm home because I get a lot of sunlight from two sides (east and south) so it heats up very quickly regardless of how cold it is outside during the day.

That might be my favorite meme of ALL TIME lol

Thanks Walt, this is VERY important especially since the most traffic accidents occur in under 1" and 1-3" of snow!

Thanks! Was the AO very negative that month?

Yes, this is exactly the right way to do it. We're even seeing a slowing down of population growth in developing nations because of this. I like a proper balance which would be around 2 children per family, but not forced in any way, by family planning and education and better economies.

You're very right to be concerned, since these are big issues. Current mining is not always done ethically and there needs to be a better way of doing it without impacting the environment and the people who live where it's done. I was excited to read about underwater mining by autonomous drones which doesn't disturb the environment nearly as much nor does it negatively impact sea life. The issue is that with a higher adoption rate of EVs we will need to scale this up and then we'll see what happens to the environment. I'd like to see the development of solid state batteries which should reduce the need for rare earths (they are also in your cell phone batteries, which is like present day EV in terms of battery chemical composition.) On top of that a more recent issue has developed which is that these vehicles become a fire risk when it floods (lots of reports of this during Hurricane Ian in Florida.) All of this needs to be ironed out before they can be adopted on a larger scale than they currently are.

I get very passionate about environmental issues, health and population growth, etc. it's stuff I've been interested in since I was like 11 or 12. Maybe even earlier.... I remember getting into nature when I was in 3rd grade and getting a book that was about all the different phyla of animals and always watched a lot of PBS, they have some GREAT documentaries I've been watching since I was a kid.

Not without merit, there are scientific studies that have been done on them and proved that you are correct.

Big difference by human caused climate change is the rate of rise, which does not give nature time to adjust. The rate of rise is much higher now and will continue to increase.

Yup "climo" favors the timeframe between Dec 26-30