LibertyBell

How soon they forget that some of our greatest winters began after January 20th..... which is becoming more like the new norm.

This is exactly why I've been pondering the idea of what a warmer climate may mean, particularly since the oceans act as heat sinks and they get the brunt of it first. You can also see this with rising humidity levels/dew points and larger slower moving storms that dump much more precipitation. Bigger snowstorms and bigger rainstorms, and in general greater extremes.

interesting that it's right up there with 1976- a dry and cold winter! The 70s were lackluster for snow, with the exception of 77-78 which was much more like our current winters. 76-77 was particularly annoying, as was 78-79; both were very cold and we got scraped with the edges of snowfall. Chris, I wanted to ask if you had any info on the Oct 10, 1979 snowfall event. How did that hit DC and Philly and Boston and yet skipped over NYC and Long Island? Very early anomalous event, maybe the most exciting of that entire season

they get the snow but we all get the snow and wind. I hate dry cold windy weather- I have my house heat AND my space heater going at the same time.

I dont know about the other models, but the CFS doesn't do well until you're already at the end of the month prior to the month it's forecasting for lol.

yes but it's always for suffolk county, although I saw some flurries yesterday with clear skies!

while it's bright and sunny here lol

stuck this in the subforum also: I also think the various indices (ENSO/PDO/AO, etc.) are resulting in different outcomes and we should be very cautious when we use analogs older than about 30 years. There are some warm blobs in the oceans that seem to hang around from year to year. The gulf stream is also warming more quickly than other parts of the ocean (more bombogenesis and higher precip outcomes? we're already seeing it.)

I also think the various indices (ENSO/PDO/AO, etc.) are resulting in different outcomes and we should be very cautious when we use analogs older than about 30 years. There are some warm blobs in the oceans that seem to hang around from year to year. The gulf stream is also warming more quickly than other parts of the ocean (more bombogenesis and higher precip outcomes? we're already seeing it.)

2010-11 was great that way too

and that is a very stable pattern- once it sets in it's very hard to dislodge... cold Novembers around here have often led to winters like that.

I was so shocked to hear this. He had so much to offer, and such a wonderful life ahead of him. The best ones always go way too soon.....

haha I'm not a big fan of genetic modification of humans, seems a bit, shall we say, nazi-like. I'm not even a huge fan of doing it to other creatures (why must humans mess with nature? it always comes out badly for us.....)

lol@ 1995-96, that looks like the only winter since the turn of the century where all of the months were cold. Might be the last one we see in our lifetimes like that too. In the other 6 times that happened (all in the 1800s), it happened in pairs of 2 seasons each- interesting!

Have you seen the research that came out recently showing that the gulf stream is warming more rapidly than the rest of the Atlantic? Does this mean more rapidly bombing coastal storms and higher precip totals? I think we're already seeing this.

Yes, I already see that there's another cold shot scheduled for next weekend and milder temps are now pushed back until Thanksgiving?

well the history of doing this did begin in the "good ole" US of A.... after all, that is where Hitler got his ideas from.

ahh I see, FWIW I sometimes wonder what sentience really is..... and can be forms of intelligence other than biological? Consider the fossilized record of the planet a form of "memory". Perhaps in our search for ET we have to consider entities that are not biological. Not hunks of rocks per se, but things we would never consider as being "alive." Because by many definitions, something like fire can even be considered alive. I believe that the planet maintains ecological balance at any cost because that's the first law of thermodynamics and also because if it didn't life would have ceased to exist long ago. About the Gaia vs humanity thing, that cant be true either, because human beings are part of the system not against it. Mass extinctions being cases in point, have you noted how evolution explodes after a mass extinction event? The series on PBS/Nature showing how mammals started to evolve rapidly a scant 300,000 years after the Cretaceous mass extinction is a case in point. But nothing exists forever. The humanity caused mass extinction may lead to such an explosion in evolution, or it might destroy all life on the planet forever. It's too early to say which. Those of us who aren't tainted by greed and want sustainable renewables to become the new norm fight for the existence of the entire planet, but humanity's own short-sighted nature gets in the way. I do see a turning point though, where many many more voices have risen up against the status quo and perhaps a difference has been made there that will counteract all the dark money lined up against us.

this weekend may have the last arctic shot for a long time, and looks like the Euro will be right with its idea of a single Scandanavian high, rather than the dual blocking pattern of the GFS.

well cold and dry / mild and wet would be a sign of an AMO switch.....

Has the AMO switched back yet or is it forecast to do so within the next few years? I know we had a lot of cold dry winters back in the 80s, so it's probably not going to be as exciting as the last couple of decades have been.

Yep, I like to wait for 5 days out because the models seem to be on a huge roller coaster 7-10 days away. And some years are easier to forecast than others, this looks like one of the more difficult ones.

I think he means long range forecasting weeks and months in advance. It's better to wait until it's within 5 days, that's plenty of time for the sanitation dept too.

Yep, thats why I said Jan 20 to Mar 20 that's been the pattern this decade