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TheClimateChanger

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  1. I didn’t say anything about 1889-1890 not being warm. The claim was made that there was no urban heat island effect or industrial revolution in that era. All I said was the data would indicate there was a significant urban heat island effect, and my knowledge of history would indicate the industrial revolution was in full swing by that point.
  2. Yeah, that map really isn’t showing that much snow for most places. Normal to below in a lot of places. Just lots of pretty colors because it’s 840 hours.
  3. I see no evidence of this in the data. If anything, Detroit used to run more above the surrounding observations in 1890 than it does today. People act like it was some pristine wilderness back then. Detroit already had a population over 200,000, increasing to nearly a million by 1920. The city stations were often sited either on heat-contaminated rooftops, or on heat-contaminated window shelters. And there were large blast furnaces spewing copious amounts of heat and pollution in many of the cities. Furthermore, most of the so-called urban heat island effect is explainable by the fact that cities developed along river valleys and/or lake/coastal Plains, whereas the suburbs and rural areas tend to be situated in elevated upland locations away from these features. Of course, rural/ex-urban White Lake (elev: 1,000'+) is going to be cooler than Detroit (elev: 660 feet). Here's December 1889. Detroit was about 3 degrees warmer than the other two Wayne County sites, 3 degrees warmer than Ann Arbor, and 4 degrees warmer than Ypsilanti. KYIP usually runs warmer than Detroit Metro Wayne Airport, and none of these locations are that much cooler than the airport. There were only 3 warmer locations - Chelsea (Washtenaw), Hanover (Jackson), and Benton Harbor (Berrien). The first two clearly have solar radiation issues, as their high temperatures are WAY out of line with the other sites. Benton Harbor is on the other side of the State.
  4. Don, with all due respect, I think the whole planet is in the early stages of a transition toward a lower snowfall regime. Buffalo possibly not included, at least for the time being.
  5. I'm wondering if the lack of a cryosphere will moderate any pattern change? I mean there's almost no ice anywhere on the Great Lakes - record breaking lack of ice cover. Even parts of the Upper Peninsula and arrowhead of Minnesota, which ALWAYS have tons of snow, have minimal amounts on the ground. Surely this, coupled with the high sun angle of late February scorching the bare earth, will make it tough to get any meaningful arctic air this far south and east?
  6. I would probably still argue the 1960s were the golden era. Some of the older figures are less reliable due to changes in snow measurement procedure over time: Snowfall measurement: a flaky history | NCAR & UCAR News Plus, taking a wider regional view, the 1960s are a clear favorite. Here's decadal snowfall at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: 49-50 to 58-59….27.5 59-60 to 68-69….47.8 69-70 to 78-79…..35.2 79-80 to 88-89…..32.5 89-90 to 98-99….31.7 99-00 to 08-09….25.1 09-10 to 18-19……33.7 19-20 to 20-29……15.9 so far
  7. This is insane. Neither Shippensburg, nor Harrisburg, has had even a single winter with snowfall in excess of their 1960s decadal mean since 2003, when 70.9" was observed at Shippensburg and 52.5" at MDT.
  8. Wow, who would have guessed there was that much snow in south central PA over a decade? This is for Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, southwest of Harrisburg. The average shown (57.4") is inflated by the exclusion of 1963-64 due to "missing" data for June. But summing up the monthly averages gives 53.9 inches. And even assuming the missing data for December 1968 & January 1969 was actually zero, gives an average of 51.5 inches. That assumption might seem plausible given the meager totals at CXY, but it's not accurate - as that data truly is missing from xMACIS for the Shippensburg Co-op.
  9. Mild and wet. Low temperatures, in particular, were very elevated, but admittedly nothing record-breaking. 8th wettest at Pittsburgh. However, as I previously indicated, it has been the 6th warmest winter to date in the threaded record, and warmest overall since 1949-50. A couple of sites in the CWA with shorter PORs are both in 1st place [DUJ and PHD], with all of the climate sites in the top 10. Of course, the older records were observed in varying locations with differing instruments and site exposure. Snowfall has been fairly anemic but not record-breaking yet. Currently 28th least accumulated snowfall through February 1, according to xMACIS (although I did note a few errors in their snowfall dataset). It is, however, the least snowfall observed through today's date since the winter of 1994-1995. Last winter was in 44th place for least snowfall as of February 1, but a near shut out for the remainder of the winter moved it to 8th least for the season as a whole.
  10. Much higher than expected. Forecast this morning was for 43F:
  11. International Falls reached 53F, breaking the January monthly record by 4F.
  12. Geez, just checked the climo report and it actually made it all the way to 53F, beating the monthly record by 4F.
  13. Wow, that’s pretty crazy. I checked this morning and the forecast for INL was 44 or 45. Looks it got several degrees warmer than expected. MSP missed its monthly record by 1F, although it did shatter the daily record by 9F.
  14. Unfortunately, we'll never know how much fell at Toledo and Cleveland since there were no snowfall observations. Toledo Cleveland
  15. Interesting. At least in January & February 1878, it looks like it was a pretty solid winter for Detroit. Nearly 15" of snow on today's date in 1878, with a two-day total of 15.7 inches.
  16. Detroit has been a snow magnet this winter. Somehow you guys have only had 2" less than Erie (which averages 104.3" annually) on the season-to-date, on the downwind side of Lake Erie.
  17. Still a far cry from needing to mow the lawn. I see dandelions after every warm spell in recent winters in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Here’s one from December:
  18. Looks like summers have been pretty hot too. 7 of the top 15 (since 1879) have occurred on or after 2002, and 10 have occurred on or after 1991. All of them within a degree of the mythical dust bowl summer of 1936. Further, of the years with the most maximum temperatures at or above 80, 5 of the top 10 have occurred since 2007, and 7 of 10 since 1991.
  19. Nonsense, probably already high grass. This December was 3.4F warmer than January 1932 in Detroit - were you mowing the lawn on Christmas?
  20. In any event, I have a fair idea of the magnitude of warming since the city office continued to report weather conditions through 1979. It averaged 2.6F warmer over those nearly three decades, and even more so on good radiational cooling nights. There were likely many 5F nights that would have gotten to zero or below at the airport.
  21. I guess you missed where I also noted 400-500 feet in elevation gain. That would be like using NWS White Lake [at nearly 1000'] for Detroit records. A good chunk of the so-called urban heat island effect is simply because cities tended to develop in river valleys or on lake/coastal Plains and the surrounding suburbs and rural sites are in more elevated upland locations.
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