TheClimateChanger

It looks like we should see our seventh day of 70+ this month today. We also have had a couple other days in the upper 60s. A 7th day would match 2012 for most through the first 19 days of March. Prior to 1990, there had never been more than 4, even including records from downtown. Can't complain. March has definitely come in as a benign lamb if you ignore the high winds and tornados.

Wow, rough one across New Mexico and west Texas.

The first 17 days of March 2024 were a scorching blowtorch without precedence in the historical record. And it wasn't driven by minimum temperatures either. Mean maximum was more than 1F warmer than second place, and nearly 2.5F warmer than 1990 at Central Park.

I've been following this company on X. They are sending up balloons with sulfur. Of course, at this point, the amounts are orders of magnitudes too small to have any measurable impact on the climate. It's a great idea though. Maybe I need to find a partner?

Looks like we have a fifth tornado.

The comical thing is this only overlaps with 2 days from that Week 3-4 outlook that was showing a massive torch, and now they are saying the second half of March is going to be cooler. I can only surmise that CPC was expecting a cool start to March, followed by a much warmer second half?

They haven't done too well so far. The week 3-4 outlook you shared in late February has been much closer to the truth.

I hate that! A lot of TV meteorologists do that as well... de-emphasize the use of "normal" because they say it incorrectly implies other values are abnormal and instead use "average" or "mean." In fact, the NWS normals are not simple averages or means. In some cases, the two can be quite a bit different. There are adjustments for inhomogeneities [pairwise homogenization] and a lot of statistical work behind the scenes to smooth out the data, for instance. So, while calling them "averages" or "means" might be more intuitive for the casual weather viewer, it's not technically correct in the dictionary definition sense.

The 1921-1950 normal at Detroit City Airport (no DTW) was 27.5F. Prior to that period, the "normals" published were just the means of all data from the city and airport.

Normals are not simple averages. You are conflating the published normals with simple averages of data collected from different sites. The normals are - and always have been - corrected for biases and change in instrumentation, site location or other inhomogeneities. Here are two examples, but I'm sure the others are off as well. The 1931-1960 normal at DTW (as revised in 1967) was ~27.3F for the winter (DJF). Versus the corrected normal, this winter was approximately 0.2F above normal [not 0.4F below normal]. The 1941-1970 normal at DTW was ~26.6F for the winter (DJF). Versus the corrected normal, this winter was approximately 0.9F above normal [not 0.3F above normal].

A couple of tornado warnings now in effect east of Pittsburgh. In addition, a wind gust to 76 mph was recorded at Zanesville earlier, as well as a gust to 70 mph at Akron-Canton Airport.

The first 15 days of March have been very, with a mean of 58.3F - the 7th warmest on record. Last year saw the 2nd warmest period with a mean 3F warmer.

Records met or exceeded at all climate sites today, except DuBois. Low 80s common in the south and west parts of the CWA. PIT: 79F HLG: 81F MGW: 80F ZZV: 80F PHD: 78F

Definitely looking pretty intense in the Texas panhandle.

Keep in mind, using the traditional PDSI formula, you need to offset the increase in PET due to temperatures. If temperatures have risen 4-6F since the mid 20th century, then you would need about 3 or 4 more inches of rainfall each year just to offset the increase in PET [assuming an average annual precipitation in the low 40 inch range]. If you have been getting 50" or so, then it's still been overall pretty wet. But, at least, using the PDSI, if precipitation dropped back to 41-42 inches, that would actually a mild to moderate drought. Here's Grok's explanation: \

Not looking too good. Source: NCEI's Climate at a Glance.

I consider the nClimDiv PDSI values as the only reliable measurement of drought, but they are only published once a month. The calculation has been maintained in the same way for the entire dataset. The published Drought Monitor is not always reliable - there seems to be a human bias to verify forecasts, as opposed to purely basing it off of objective temperature & precipitation data. Other sources for the PDSI typically use the self-calibrated version developed in the recent past, which tends to minimize the effect of warming temperatures [temperature is a primary variable in the PDSI formula, due to its impact on PET]. This dataset is the only one that seems reliable when comparing to the past. Here is the divisional map. Southern New Jersey is second driest on record, nearing -5 on the traditional scale.

Wow. The nationwide average PDSI is -3.79, as of the end of February. 16th lowest on record.

It's a nationwide torch right now. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the warmest first 12 days of March on record nationwide. There's been record warmth all over the place.

“Not a cool summer.” I guess that’s one way to frame it. Looks like the hottest summer on record to me? The current hottest summers are 1936 & 2021, both of which were 1.67F above the 1991-2020 mean. This map shows more than half the country 2-3F above normal. Impressive signal for a model superblend three months out.