LibertyBell

I remember a few years ago we altered the Saffir-Simpson scale because of this rounding mess (which is worse in that case because it's to the nearest 5 knots.)

The traditional tendency is for the likelihood to increase. In any case, is the 60+ period forecast to be more prolonged than it was the last time it hit 70 in January, Chris? I think that previous January 70 temp was in 2007?

Oh so that 30.2 is above normal in F, not temps in C lol. Still another massive anomaly, maybe close to the level of the 95 we had in early October?

No chance of 70 is there- too much cloud cover?

Are the relevant shortwaves and other features in a well-sampled region or still off the Pacific?

1966-67 would probably be on the extreme end of what one can expect- that was one amazing book end winter that won out by its sheer duration and became historic- somewhat like 2014-15? 1966-67 stands out compared to other book end winters because we actually got a major snowstorm down here in December, before the mild pattern ensued. I was compiling a list of winters that seem to match what you're looking for, with varying lengths of mild periods book ended by cold on either side to varying degrees, that I've experienced. Here are the ones that snapped back to cold: 1989-90 (very briefly and very late, in early April, with snow!) 1996-97 (mostly in New England, big bookend winter in Worcester and interior Mass., the April snowstorm was a mild bust down here.) 1997-98 a renegade snowstorm as winter was ending 2005-06 and 2006-07 I already discussed these in an earlier post 2014-15 I hesitate to even include this because the snap back to snow and cold was SO extreme and lasted so long, somewhat like 1966-67. 2015-16 almost as extreme as 1966-67 but the warmth came in earlier (December) and so did the cold- we had a 30" + snowstorm on Jan 20th and below zero lows for Valentine's Day! JFK became only the second location (besides Norfolk, VA) to experience a 40" snowfall season with an average winter temp above 40F! The last three winters were also somewhat bookend winters (2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19). The first two were more extreme than the last one. *the number of book end winters seems to be on the increase, perhaps due to the abnormal warming in the Pacific and Indian Oceans?

If you want to look at relatively recent winters with similar patterns, one to consider would be 2005-06. That one had cold and snow in the first 10 days to 2 weeks in December followed by warmth that lasted right through January. We went back to snow and cold again by mid February. The following winter, 2006-7, was similar, but with less snow and more mixed precip after the mild pattern broke. The cold that followed after was actually historic in its longevity (the first three weeks of April were colder than the first three weeks of January! It hit 70 on the 11th anniversary of the Jan 96 blizzard but did not hit 70 in April until the last week!) These very mild patterns seem to last from 6-8 weeks before they break. An exception to this was 1989-90, when the mild pattern lasted for three months. 2011-12 was another exception. But weren't those high solar years and we're currently near a minimum? If we follow the regular 6-8 week rule the mild pattern should break around Feb 20.....

On a related topic, look up the series Blue Planet 2 on BBC America. It's EXCELLENT. It shows the vast variety of life in the depths of the oceans and what warming is doing to them. The answer to deep sea drilling should be a perpetual NO! 90% of all life lives down there and life may have started down there and the life there is so magnificently alien-like that I cant help but think that actual alien life would be like that. They showed fish with transparent heads where you can see their brains through their skulls (so they can look up without having to move their heads, they can actually look through their skulls!), fish that communicate by flashing different patterns of lights (we still dont know what they are saying to each other) and fish discovered 6km down that have actual feet and walk on the ocean floor and one particularly weird fish with two different sized eyes, one that always looks down and the other (much larger) that always looks up! They showed a part about coral reefs and what bleaching is doing to them and all the species dependent on them including clown fish that actually build homes inside the reefs and keep them clean.

SWFE? Looks like a quick hit of snow before either changing to rain or if we're lucky ending as a period of drizzle.

whats up with the Euro anyway? is this all because of that "upgrade"?

around an inch in my other home in the Poconos.

MAM qualifies as porn. Sorry! ;-)

That reminded me of Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death!"

The unbelievable thing about 2015 was the negative double digit departure in the same year (February 2015) and also the fact that 2015-16 made a major comeback with a 30"+ snowstorm here in January and then a below zero low in February.

That was like right out of The Twilight Zone. There was this one episode called "Midnight Sun" where the earth was heating up because it had wandered closer to the sun. Ironically earlier that same year we had a negative departure month (February 2015) that was also a double digit anomalous month, but not quite on the same level as December 2015. Have we ever had two double digit departure months in the same year, aside from 2015? (Especially two double digit departure months going in opposite directions lol.)

wow sounds a lot like how I remember 1989-90 Funny how I remember 1989-90 better than I do 2011-12 lol.

How do you think the horrendous events occurring in Australia and the record warmth in the waters north of there will impact your forecast going forward? Even more extreme warmth than you expected?

I was thinking that too, this is almost like the winter version of our now all-too-common wet summers with humid highs of 88 and 89 and dew points above 70 or 75 on a regular basis and overachievingly high mins.

massive differences between historically backloaded winters like 2014-15 and 1966-67 vs a period of cold/snow in late winters like that one.

Sometimes we get a delayed response, like a la nina after an el nino can be very snowy- for example 95-96 and 10-11.

Maybe a 70 in there somewhere if we can get Jan 2007 style warmth.

I can see why I forgot that winter lol. We only got 1.5 inches in the October storm (still historic). I dont even remember the January event. Nothing in March? In quite a few of these extremely mild winter months we've had a renegade 1-3 inch event or two (I remember one in January 2006 that dumped 3 inches). Also, another mild winter, 2007-08, had a renegade SWFE that dropped 6-8 inches here around Feb 22, a positive bust which somewhat made up for the negative bust of the notorious "Heavy Snow Warning" fail in Jan 2008.

the ones that only had a period rather than a pattern flip were 1989-90 1997-98 2001-02 2011-12 The totals in those years speak for themselves, ugh. 2006-07 could have been a lot better for us, that was some pattern flip to cold and lasted a long time. The first three weeks of April were colder than the first three weeks of January lol it hit 70 in early January (on the 11 year anniversary of the Jan 1996 blizzard if I remember right) and didn't hit 70 again until the last week of April.

I see a lot of this. Based on leaked info, people in the current administration acknowledge climate change but think it's too late to do anything substantive about it. They come from the fossil fuel industry, so as long as they profit in the short term, they dont care about the long term damage being caused. And I see the argument about climate change being natural and not being caused by humans all the time. What they dont understand is that the timescales involved in whats happening now are much much quicker. Also, just because something that happened previously and was "natural" doesn't mean that was a good thing- mass extinctions are "natural" too (and the current one is human-caused.)

Freedom of Information Act requests have revealed a cozy connection between regulatory agencies and the companies they are supposed to be regulating. Some cases in point: DuPont and PFOA with the EPA Monsanto and the USDA Dow and the EPA with regards to chlorpyrifos Opioid manufacturers and the FDA Fossil Fuel industry and the EPA Ultimately the federal court system had to step in in most of these cases and resolve the issues in favor of the plaintiffs and against the regulatory agencies (or they are in the process of doing so.)