LibertyBell

we got monster storms, but that was because we've been having wetter years, the winters haven't gotten colder. But if you want to talk about insects and ticks in winter, remember Feb 2018 I think it was, when we hit 80?!

Even stronger on the latest run (918 hPA)

whats the record for there, Chris? This last one was 944 there!

1000 trees down in the UK with Ciara (they officially name their major storms, which we should also be doing.) Pressure down to 944 hpa there, it was 970 when it passed through here.

Your measurements back my intuition. Also it seems that positive NAO during negative NAO cycles are more likely than negative NAO during positive NAO cycles. There's another factor that is tilted even more strongly towards less snow, which is that it isn't enough to have a negative NAO, you also need to have a west-based NAO. That probably lowers a favorable NAO pattern for snow to even less than 36%! We do have rare winters like 1960-61, 1993-94 and 2002-03 where you can get a lot of snow without the cooperation of a negative NAO though. The Pacific needs to be great, which it isn't right this winter. As per your sea ice data, is this the kind of extreme winter we're going to need to see normal sea ice coverage up north? In other words, how do you get a pattern where it's very cold up there AND very cold down here also? And when was the last time that happened, 1978-79? Also how does the sunspot cycle factor into your calculations. I am sure you are aware that we are going to reach the peak of the cycle next year, as we have extremely hot and dry summers every 11 years or so, going back to 1933, 1944, 1955, 1966, 1977, 1988, 1999, 2010, so the next one would be in 2021. Do you think the SE Ridge flexing its muscles so strongly this winter is an early sign of the upcoming summer and especially Summer 2021 being extremely hot and dry (we get those 11 year peak heat summers with triple digit highs because the summers are dry as well as hot, a lot of rain would mute the highs.)

the 30 incher with 100 mph winds in NFLD was amazing too, it looked like Sapporo, Japan there with 15 ft snow drifts creating snow tunnels that cars had to drive through

the biggest storm I can recall was that overperforming SWFE that didn't change to rain until the end, we got 2.5-3 inches here with that one.

yea I dont know the snow physics down south but even Atlanta got measurable snow over the weekend. They dont seem to be as track dependent as we are, probably because we have an annoying ocean just to our south. Think about it, no storm track has passed to our south this entire winter. Every single storm has tracked to our north!

2015-16 was a veritable snow and cold paradise compared to this winter lol.

I wonder what they didn't get that we got?

why are these mild patterns so stable and last for months while cold snowy patterns only last a few weeks at most? 2010-11 is celebrated as a prolonged cold and snowy winter and it was pretty much just a 5 week deal. And in 1995-96 we were in and out of cold and snowy weather. Never in my memory did we have a cold snowy pattern that was anywhere close to how mild and snowless this winter has been or the likes of 1972-73, 1989-90, 1997-98, 2001-02, etc.

a la 1989-90. what a sucky winter that was- cold dry December, record warm Jan Feb Mar and an insignificant snowfall in early April lol.

Thanks! I saw some very interesting predictions for temp patterns going forward. Basically, we are warming from the pole "downwards" in that the greatest positive anomalies are occurring the further northward you go. Northern VT is projected to be about 10 degrees F warmer by 2070? At 40 N latitude on the east coast this is projected to be about 5.5 degrees F warmer.

highest temp ever recorded in Antarctica- 65.1 and accelerating ice melt saw a 130 ft tall slab of ice fall into the ocean recently.

what are the projections for Antarctica? They just recorded their highest temp ever recorded and accelerating ice melt.

Antarctica just saw its highest temp ever recorded- 65.1 and a rather large slab of ice just fell into the ocean there (it was about 130 ft tall.) On another issue,. I just saw a 30 min documentary on HBO about the Fukushima disaster and what they revealed was horrendous. Because of the impending 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan has been rushing to clean up after the fall out from Fukushima and they've done a really bad job. They hired unemployed and homeless people to do the "clean up" and since 70% of the area that is affected is forested and mountainous, it cant be cleaned properly. The workers weren't even wearing protective gear and weren't told about the dangers, they were in their street clothes. And they piled up 16 million black bags of radioactive contaminants in public areas and told people it was "safe" to come back even though the area is constantly being recontaminated whenever there is heavy rain and runoff. The Japanese government has tried to downplay the dangers and raised the maximum safe exposure 20x from 1 milliseviert like the rest of the world to 20 millisevierts, which scientists and medical researchers say represents a 30% higher risk of getting leukemia after 5 years of exposure, which compounds yearly (so it's 60% higher after 10 years.) They told their workers not to worry about the clean up and to just make the area "look good". Meanwhile children still have to go for yearly cancer checks and the food has to be regularly screened. The researchers who went there to see what was going on found some areas with up to 70 milliseviert radiation levels (areas along the path of the Olympic torch!) The former prime minister who was in charge when Fukushima melted down said that the reactor should never have been built and the tsunami changed his mind because he didn't listen to scientists who told him not to build it back in the 90s. The current government has hired propaganda people because they dont have the numbers to back up how horrendous this so-called "clean up" has been, they are just trying to show their best face for the Olympics (which might be derailed anyway because of coronavirus.) The former reactor is still contaminated and prone to further accidents and has to be doused constantly with sea water, which creates its own set of problems as the contaminated water has been mixing with the ground water and making it back into the ocean. A nuclear chemist said the area isn't safe for being in for more than 30 min or so. I guess this is why Japan has just commissioned 22 new coal plants :-( Saw a recent report showing lower life expectancy and higher rates of asthma in areas with industrial fossil fuel plants like in coastal Rhode Island. Local residents have now organized and are politically focused on moving these plants out of their neighborhoods! On a more positive note, the UK has passed a law to ban all fossil fuel powered vehicles by 2035 and NY is considering doing the same thing for 2040.

do you think February follows suit and we end up like 1989-90 on the back end?

Right, I saw a graph showing a general rise of rainfall since 1975 and less evaporation occurring, it seems to be a trend. I'm pretty sick of the rise in rainfall that's occurred here since about 2000.... like literally sick. I have to take allergy medication now twice a week even during the winter (when it doesn't snow and it rains instead.)

Correct, and Great Lakes ice coverage is only 5%..... lake water levels have been getting higher too.

there's really no abnormally cold air anywhere. I think we pull a perfect game/no hitter and go the way of the great snowless winters like 1972-73, 1997-98, 2001-02, etc. Although 1997-98 did have one meaningless wet snowfall event on the first day of Spring.

the waters are more polluted now because of fertilizer and pesticide run off because of higher rainfall totals and the rise of red algae and lowering oxygen levels.

4.5 hours- hell going to London is faster than going to California! And it's a 5 hour difference vs 3 time zones to get to Cali!

and ice coverage in the Great Lakes is 5% and the lake waters are 3 ft above normal- actually they've been rising for a few years and people are having to move away from lakefront properties or raise them. Everyone talks about sea level rise, well lake waters are rising too! do you think we could be done early with the pollen problem this year? I already see some budding occurring and my daffodils are coming out.

They've had many more since, I wonder if something really big is in the offing, or if we've seen that already with the 7.7?

I wonder if this is a portent for a very dry very hot summer with a strong SE Ridge. I thought that was going to wait until 2021 when we reach the peak of the 11 year cycle, but it may start a year early and we could have two back to back very hot and very dry summers.