TimB

1988 is the 2012 for people older than me. Another year that comes to mind is 1995. Crazy thing about 1995 in Pittsburgh is we had an 8 day streak and a separate 7 day streak of highs in the 90s and a maximum temperature for the summer of 100 (haven’t hit 100 since) that was not part of either of those stretches.

Can’t honestly think of another reason to travel to Mississippi (or Alabama, or Oklahoma, or Kansas).

Almost certainly the last cold headline of the season. GFS was the only holdout denying summer’s arrival next week and it’s jumped aboard the summer train on its last few runs with the heat and, more notably, humidity. There isn’t a dewpoint below 60 from hour 219 on.

The following Saturday is also 70s with oppressive humidity (on the GFS) so you can wear shorts then...

Isn’t 1988 another one of those years we don’t speak of when comparing current conditions (like a certain year last decade and a certain year in the Dust Bowl era)?

Even if it’s mostly 70s, the GFS sends near-70 dewpoints pouring into PA later next week.

Model developers: “how can we make our new model sound as incredible as possible?” PR person: “say GFS-like physics”

That’s the thing, it’s not like we’re dealing with hour 372 here. Today’s GFS runs had some particularly wild swings in the D9 timeframe in particular.

You’re right, my comment was rather misleading. The GFS has come a long way. But in general, what I’m saying is I wouldn’t bet on any model that is completely out on an island when compared against pretty much every other model... ...especially if the model out on an island is the GFS.

Even using the 1991-2020 normals which weren’t yet in place, there were 23 months out of 72 (32%) from 2015-2020 that were below normal at my location, and never more than 4 in any of those years. I wouldn’t call that plenty.

I would guess something like looking at a particular WFO and seeing how many severe thunderstorm warnings or tornado warnings were issued, or combing through years and years of SPC watches and storm reports, to the extent that any of this stuff is on the internet for a significantly long period of time. It sounds like it would be tedious to impossible.

I’d be banking on the Euro because: 1) it’s the superior model and 2) the GFS is the only model that disagrees with that pattern evolution The inferior GFS isn’t suddenly going to score one on the mighty Euro.

My WFH since 2020 job has very little face to face (now zoom) interaction with clients and my wife’s WFH since 2020 job has virtually zero interaction on camera. So I can assure you I wear shorts when the temperature gets above an acceptable threshold, even on weekdays. Probably would wear something nicer on top and still wear shorts on bottom interacting with clients on camera because who sees below chest level in a zoom meeting?

The Euro does seem to agree on the cooler early part of the week. But not to worry, the GFS now has us at 65 for next Thursday so model agreement is coming back. Euro really delivers the goods (for those who like 70s or above). Edit: full on summer. Dew points look to surge into the 65-70 range by mid to late next week. Gross.

Yeah, it’s not as straightforward as other climate change-related issues and I agree with you on that. Especially considering that the “Midwest” includes Cleveland, Ohio and Dodge City, Kansas and everything in between, and obviously those two locations have two completely different climates. I’m just saying even if we could definitively say “climate change has ruined severe weather outbreaks by making them less common,” I don’t think anyone other than meteorologists and severe weather enthusiasts would shed a tear or be compelled to act.

The obviously very scientific iPhone weather app has me finally reaching 73 by next Thursday, but of course by then 73 is normal. Barring a pretty serious forecast bust, today will be day 7 of not reaching 60, meaning we’ll join 1989, 1960, 1954, 1929 and 1917 as the only years where we’ve gone a full week in May without hitting 60. Looks like a 25-30 year event to me.

Of course it’s always better when it’s the Euro showing the weather you want, or in this case everything but the GFS. I’d guess it will still fall short of 80 next Thursday afternoon but I’d probably put money on it not being 44.

I think you’re in luck: ...but maybe this is still a possibility:

And therein lies the problem. Most non-weather people (and especially anti-science people) won’t even notice that there is less severe weather in the Midwest than there used to be, let alone see it as an effect of AGW. Even if they do, this particular issue isn’t one that will make people say “we MUST do something.” On that subject, we’ve been fortunate not to have heatwaves like the one in Europe in 2019 literally frying people to death, but sadly it’ll probably take a few of these in quick succession to really get Americans on board with doing our part to stop AGW (and even that might not change a lot of people’s minds), and by then it’ll be way too late.

Ah, and that’s the problem. We all know when this pattern flips it’s going to flip hard and we’ll get very few days in that optimal range.

It’s probably the standard-bearer for cold in the second half of May in recent times. There were 4 consecutive days (5/18-21) where the temperature didn’t get above 52, we dropped to freezing on the 19th, 21st and 22nd and had a trace of snow on the 21st. I’d say one of those rare once or twice in a lifetime events and almost certainly not going to happen this month - the GFS has already joined the camp of most other models predicting things to go back to normal or even above by the second half of next week. Also, we hit 90 degrees 24 times in the summer of 2002, so a cold snap in May is meaningless.

On the one hand, I can get behind that. On the other hand, moving the goalposts cheapens the value of the increasingly rare colder than average month.

Think 2002.

Pittsburgh +2.7

We also know there’s at least somewhat of a seasonal component to this thing. South Dakota has similar leadership in a cold climate that actually has seasons and has failed miserably with covid. You just don’t hear about it as much because South Dakota is an afterthought to the vast majority of Americans.