LibertyBell

I concur that the Great Filter may be ahead of us and that's why we haven't found any sentient intelligence in the universe. To be fair though, our detection methods are very limited and we have no idea what to look for. Life could even exist in interstellar space and if it were advanced enough, it would be indistinguishable from natural processes. I say this because we've already found advanced organic compounds in interstellar space. And life need not even be organic (or made of matter.) There are lots of possibilities......

There is much less pollution from using green technologies, especially in and near big cities. Reducing asthma rates is a big deal. I've looked at prices of EVs and generally find they cost much less than fossil fuel powered vehicles, and now have much longer ranges before they need to be recharged and can be charged much more quickly now too. The technology is developing very rapidly.

It reminds me of what happens on the world stage sometimes- like for example, the Saudis' war crimes in Yemen of starving and killing children didn't get the outcry that killing one journalist caused. When something terrible happens to thousands or millions of people I think it's harder to elicit sympathy from the general public than one terrible act against one human being. The human brain has its limitations unless one is trained to understand those limitations and find ways around them. And about harmful things like fossil fuels, our minds seem to put things on the proverbial back burner if we think the consequences are years down the road, and find it difficult to comprehend changes occurring more rapidly- which is exactly what's going on now. Our minds are prisoners of the moment. I believe politicians know and take advantage of how the human mind works to assert their own agendas. It's why thousands of scientific studies can be ignored by the general public in favor of some insignificant political diatribe that feeds into the public's distrust of authority.

Oh my bad, I thought you meant wave heights. How surfable were the waters around here during the Dec 1992 noreaster?

There might be some good surf on the Jersey coast with this!

I can see that happening, especially with this thing sitting and spinning in place for days. Would this qualify as our first noreaster of the season, and do you think that Dec 1992 would be a fair comparison (a lesser version of that historic storm.)

Interesting thing is, I've almost always had power outages in the summer and fall and never in the winter. The closest we came to a power outage in the winter here was the one we had in the first March noreaster out of four that we had a few years ago. But that one was mostly rain anyway. I've never lost power during a snowstorm (or even during an ice storm)- knock on wood!

I agree- thats what it takes for power outages around here.

Even that NAM has about 1.5" of rain here. 1-2" of rain with 50 mph winds would be quite the storm!

If this is going to be the pattern going forward, I could see it bearing fruit for wintry weather when wavelengths shorten later in the season. This could be another one of those backloaded winters if that's the case. December and January would be very stormy but would feature coastal huggers and inland runners.

It seems to me that if the current pattern continues, we'll see a lot of big storms hitting the great plains region to the upper midwest.

Another year with a hot and dry summer followed by extreme rains was 1999, the drought buster that year was Floyd in mid September. 2002 also had hot and dry conditions, I remember yellow lawns that year that looked like hay.

1966-67 would have been my favorite period of time on record had I been alive then, going from hot and dry to snowy and cold lol..... the closest comparison I can come up with is 2010-11 which featured similar extremes.

reminds me of Dec 1992!

Thanks Don, it's great that we're coming up with such a scale- perhaps we can compile a "Top 10" of heatwaves- I wonder how many of the ones we've experienced here in the NE would do on that list! Some big ones come to mind: Summer 1980, 1983, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2010, 2011. Those are just some that I've experienced- going back further we have the Dust Bowl era (especially 1936), 1944, 1948, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1966

I dont know if we can make general statements like that about all of humanity- I do think the average person has problems dealing with large issues and likes to break things down into simpler/smaller samples. Something that takes relatively large time scales or large distances in space is something the average person has problems with comprehending, but those who work in these fields and those who avidly read about them are better at handling them. The complications come in when monetary interests step in and muddy the waters and make it even harder on the average person and confuse them with outright lies.

Chris where was 1995 on this list? I remember we had almost zero rain in August and all those wildfires, but I dont remember when that drought finally broke. I do dimly remember there being a noreaster in October- maybe that's when the dry period finally ended? I think JFK has been even drier than ISP, because we missed out on storms that hit eastern Nassau and Suffolk.

Yes even though that 90 occurred a full week later, this record is far more significant.

Well, on October 2nd we made a new weather memory that superseded the one in 1983.

I find air pollution also steadily getting worse, with higher humidity and asthma rates going up and many more "bad air quality" days then before. I also found this: Air pollution linked to increases in violent criminal behavior More information: Jesse Burkhardt et al. The effect of pollution on crime: Evidence from data on particulate matter and ozone, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102267 Jesse Burkhardt et al. The relationship between monthly air pollution and violent crime across the United States, Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy (2019). DOI: 10.1080/21606544.2019.1630014 Jesse D. Berman et al. Acute Air Pollution Exposure and the Risk of Violent Behavior in the United States, Epidemiology (2019). DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001085 Journal information: Epidemiology Provided by Colorado State University https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-air-pollution-linked-violent-criminal.html https://phys.org/news/2019-10-exposure-air-pollution-violent-crime.html

I think we experienced some sort of heat burst because the temps actually rose while those storms went off to our east- got really windy as the temps rose too.

I have a feeling that within the next decade we'll have our first 100 degree day in either April or October- I wonder which is more likely ;-) Is this the historic late heat that you said was the one thing we hadn't seen so far? I have to wonder if this had occurred in early September, we could have challenged that 102 record from the 50s. It's disappointing that we had that annoying set up with cool air banked to our NE, otherwise we might have had a historic summer like Baltimore did, lasting all the way to October! I actually liked the lack of rain and all the blue skies, it made my allergies go away!

Would you say this is more rare or an April heatwave like we got in 2002 is more rare (which also peaked at 96 degrees.)

I actually loved September- it's the first time my allergies have been gone since last winter! Clear blue skies and low humidity- perfect weather! If we had rain only a couple times a month and had low humidity and clear skies the rest of the time, I would love that.

The latest 95 and 100 HI I have ever experienced here!