LibertyBell

Yeah it's not really much of a cooldown. I feel like we really turned the corner after that yucky day in the 40s last Monday. We wont see anything like that again until next fall, no matter the pattern.

Yes, it's very difficult to get highs in the 40s in May. I dont really care about climo though, 50s are 50s no matter what time of the year it is. Definitely better than April weather.

wind will be the bigger deal here, not the rain....got all my stuff tied down including my new plants!

I thought there was a report that there was a 6% reduction? Still just a drop in the bucket. Of more interest is this: Some good news coming out of all this (after being condemned by the UN) is both China and Vietnam are starting to close down those unsanitary wet markets. Axios and PBS interviewed world renowned biologist Sir David Attenborough and he talked about the connections between biodiversity, pandemics and climate change and how poaching of elephants and other imported animals from Africa to Asia impacts deforestation (because these animals move seeds from one place to another in the African forests). He is now 93 yrs old and he said that when he was growing up in the 30s, about 67% of the planet was wilderness, which was down to about 50% during the 90s, and now is down to only 25%. These forests are integral because they act as carbon sinks. He also mentioned that pandemics are becoming more common because of people cutting down more forests and venturing into areas where exotic animals live and coming into contact with new viruses. Also mentioned was the release of once dormant microbes from under melting sea ice in Siberia. He said that he thinks this pandemic will teach us lessons about how quick changes need to be made to thwart the oncoming climate crisis. He also mentioned that giving urban areas access to more nutritious food is vitally important (less processed food, less sugar, etc-- sugary food and fast food can become addictive because of the release of dopamine and has been implicated in the quick rise of diabetes type 2, obesity and high blood pressure in young people, which, along with asthma from air pollution, have been shown to be major pre-existing conditions involved in covid19 deaths) and reducing air pollution by continuing the switch to electric vehicles (no NO2 emission.) Update on the death figures- Johns Hopkins Hospital thinks that the number of people who have died from this virus in the US might be double the reported figures, because the number of people who have died at home has not been reported. The estimate of 25% infection rate in NYC may also be an underestimate. Research out of California indicates that if we loosen restrictions over the summer, the infection rate will become higher than it ever was by August. They say if we keep the restrictions as they are now, the infection rate will rise to above 30% but if we loosen restrictions the infection rate will be around 95% in August. The UK being slow to close things down, looks like PM Boris Johnson has changed his tune from being cavalier to much more cautious about opening things back up now that he's been hospitalized for the infection himself and is a newly minted father. The nations that shut down fastest did the best (like New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Germany, South Korea, Finland, Iceland, etc.) The most likely scenario and the one which China and Vietnam are now starting to shut down are the unsanitary wet markets and the importation of exotic mammals with exotic viruses that humans haven't come into close contact with before. 60 Minutes did a great piece on this last Sunday and China has started to shut them down after the UN singled them out these wet markets as a source for exotic viruses.

thats a typical climo pattern, because the fronts tend to slow down over the Mtns to our west and dump out that way.

lol this place would be crazy if this was winter and this was a snow event.

this belongs in the winter not now lol. I am seeing some unpleasant years (for spring and summer) showing up in analogs, like 1996. I wonder if this increases the chances of a wetter and more humid summer coming up with not much dry weather or heat. High lows, low highs, lots of humidity and rain ugh. The worst part is not having 2-3 sunny days in a row. I dont mind cool weather as long as it's sunny and dry. Whats causing all this storminess instead of just having cool highs drop in from the north and block storms to our west and south? Is that where the hot Gulf of Mexico factors in?

the local mets keep talking about this warm up starting in early May (70s over the weekend), why cant that last? Also, since storms move from west to east, why cant heat move from west to east too (like that heat thats just starting up in California.)

I like early April when we actually have a chance at snow, but mid April on, let it heat up.....

Goldberg still keeps talking about the pattern flipping in early May. btw, In the village I live in which has a pop of around 17 K, we already have 300+ cases. Not going outside anywhere. We have lots of stray cats outside and I just heard on the news that two cats have tested positive and they have symptoms of the virus. omg the cats might be more dangerous than the mice- and there are stray cats outside my house lol

Thanks for the heads up! Also a rare treat if you can wake up before 5 am..... in the southeast sky Mars, Saturn and Jupiter in that order......nice contrast in colors too!

true but it's killing me on allergies. Good thing I have a year's supply of Benadryl at home lol.

They used to be better. Remember Live Aid and We are the World and Freddie Mercury?

in Maine lol

if we dont hit 70 at all in April I'm going to root for moving the Earth to Venus's orbit.

is this in concert with the extremely warm Gulf causing all this severe weather? how are these cold airmasses able to get this far south so late in the season? I'm rooting for a solar flare to bake us now lol since longer days seem to be useless for warmth.

These are the times when I wish we had learned to modify the weather already.....scientists modify everything else, so why not this? as the old saying goes "everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it."

I thought there was "no cold air anywhere on the planet" all winter, where did this unwanted nuisance cold come from anyway?

we did have snow though, although it was brief. This cold absolutely sucks though, I'm still running my space heaters. I was hoping for it to get warm so I could evict these mice who came inside when I was having my bathroom plumbing redone and the contractor left without finishing the job. I got someone else to plug up the holes he left behind but the mice wouldn't leave and I tried everything- poison, glue traps, etc. The poison made me more sick than doing anything to the mice. I noticed that they seem to be more active when I turn my heat on so I turned it off and hoped it would be warmer outside by now so they'd just leave. But they haven't and the only other thing that keeps them in hiding is when I leave my light on all night and laying down plastic bags on my floor for some reason. Stupid useless creatures like this should be extinct...... The things I wouldn't mind seeing wiped off the planet are: mice/rats, mosquitoes, fleas/ticks, cockroaches, flies (of all types), centipedes/millipedes, etc. Why do all the useful creatures go extinct while the pests keep overpopulating? I even have cats roaming around outside and the dirty rodents somehow managed to avoid them. anyway I digress. I'm leaving for the weekend and turning my heat off completely and I have a new poison I'm laying down everywhere so hopefully everything will be dead when I get back. The glue traps killed a few of them but the rest somehow learned to avoid it. I'm also thinking of leaving my lights on a timer.

it was snowing pretty hard, not sure why it wasn't sticking in the city. Jersey Shore had 6-8", JFK had 4-5"

could have some snow even to the coast this week

no chance of severe weather on long island with southerly winds in April

why is the GOM so warm this year?

Yes, probably until the end of next week, then we warm up big time nationwide

it would probably be suppressed with our luck