TheClimateChanger

This would be swell.

I know most here don't like data, but I had to re-run the numbers through six days of February torch - and it's not pretty. Up to 4th place now, matching the highest of any winter to date since 1931-32 [downtown city office], and a full 2 degrees warmer than any year at KPIT (2016 & 2002). And it looks like the rest of this week will likely be even warmer, especially with overnight lows.

Countywide averaging is not an adjustment, though. The countywide average can, in fact, be less than all official observing sites if the observing sites are located generally in warmer locations (low elevation, latitude). The county averages shown by NCEI are still often lower than the official temperatures. The actual adjustments are small and well-justified to eliminate known and recognized biases in the raw data. Berkeley Earth already recreated the warming trend without any explicit adjustments - instead treating variations in the data [when compared to data from surrounding sites] as a new station. Moreover, the U.S. is less than 2% of the earth's surface. Finally, if the warming was all made up from adjustments, then why do satellites, radiosondes, and more recent observations [largely unaffected by these old adjustments] all show strong warming over the past 4-5 decades? If the warming trend was not real, then wouldn't these new tools reveal that the earth really isn't actually warming? But instead, they all show warming - including the UAH satellite data analysis, headed by notable skeptics? Not to mention, warming is evident in physical changes which have been observed - remote sensing of Arctic and Antarctic ice cover, changing plant and animal behavior, etc.

There is no modern winter that comes close to 1944-45, at Erie or Buffalo. Sure, the snowfall amounts, while high, are not record-breaking. But it's clear they weren't measuring with the same diligence that they do today. There were several storms where the depth increased more than the reported snowfall at Erie, including one where depth jumps 9 inches on less than 2 inches of snow. NOTE: 6.6 inches missing from January 1 - should be 38.3 inches on month, per actual records. This is despite missing data on 4 dates. Unfathomable today. The missing numbers are 10" on 12/31, 18" on 1/1, 22" on 1/31 and 31" on 2/1. The bad thing is these numbers probably got flagged due to the bad snowfall figures. No. of days with snow depth of at least 12": 62, per xMacis [actually 65]. 2008-2024, there's been 64. No. of days with snow depth of at least 15": 50, per xMacis [actually 53] - this is more than the next 3 years combined. No. of days with snow depth of at least 18" - there were more of these in 44-45 than there are days of 12"+ in any other winter! [33, per xMacis - actually 36, which is more than the next 3 years combined] No. of days with snow depth of at least 20" [20 per xMacis, actually 22] No. of days with snow depth of at least 24" [9 per xMacis, actually 10] No. of days with snow depth of at least 30" [3 per xMacis, actually 4 - which is more than ALL other years combined]

Sorry for off-topic, but it warrants a response. There are plenty of places in the midwest that have seen snowfall drop precipitously over the past decade. Cleveland Columbus Toledo Saint Louis

The late 1980s to mid 1990s are the steroid era at first order sites: An Investigation of Temperature Discontinuities Introduced by the Installation of the HO-83 Thermometer on JSTOR In Tucson, It's Not the Heat, It's the Thermometers - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Suspect in Record Highs: New Gauge - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

For the record, I was playing around with the AWSSI last week, and 1997-1998 is the current full-season record low. Last winter appeared to be the second least. It's not a particularly easy tool to find rankings, but I checked several of the dud winters since 1950. It looks like the cold snap just before Christmas prevented last year from being the record low.

Part of a long-term trend that really took off in earnest around 2010.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Much higher than expected. Forecast this morning was for 43F:

International Falls reached 53F, breaking the January monthly record by 4F.

Geez, just checked the climo report and it actually made it all the way to 53F, beating the monthly record by 4F.

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.