TheClimateChanger

I was doing some research and discovered a tornado outbreak on this date in 1889. A tornado struck downtown Pittsburgh around noon, destroying a building under construction and killing 14. Later in the day, a tornado struck Reading, Pennsylvania, destroying a textile mill, killing 33 people. A tornado struck Brooklyn, New York, causing extensive damage, particularly to the Naval Yard. Tornado damage was also reported in York, Williamsport, Carlisle, and Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It appears at least 20 distinct tornadic circulations struck Pennsylvania. Additionally, the suspension bridge at Niagara Falls was felled by the winds, although I have not found evidence of this being attributed to a tornado. Based on the description, this would rival, if not exceed, the outbreak of May 31, 1985. A stark reminder that tornados can and do hit at any time of the year in this part of the world. Looking at observations from the day, high temperatures ranged from the upper 40s to mid 50s in the affected regions. With January heat waves increasingly seeing temperatures reach the 60s and even 70s in the Mid Atlantic (I believe there was a recent case where Washington, DC nearly hit 80F!), it would be interesting to see what kind of damaging tornados could be spawned with the right atmospheric ingredients.

Yeah, that's probably the closest analog - although it's much warmer now IMO. Both 1990 & 1991, at the time were considered very warm, but 2024 beat them by 2+ degrees at PIT airport. I was doing some research, and was reading an article published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in early March 1993, talking about how it was just a normal winter, but felt much worse due to the prior several being milder and less snowy than normal. Of course, less than two weeks later, the Superstorm would hit, and coupled with other snowfall that month, would send the final seasonal total to one of the higher amounts on record. Maybe we just need another volcanic eruption like Pinatubo to give us a bit of help in our bleak climate state. About solar maximum. Curiously, I was reading "Climate Through the Ages" by C. E. P. Brooks (1926), and it's amazing how much our knowledge has improved. Believe it or not, but, at that time, high solar activity was believed to be correlated to colder weather, ostensibly by depletion of stratospheric ozone [a potent greenhouse gas] outweighing the small increase in irradiation. They did not believe carbon dioxide had a large impact on climate, due to Angstrom's experimentation, which suggested it largely absorbed radiation at wavelengths that were already saturated by water vapor absorption. Of course, that experiment was in a vacuum tube, and not representative of the earth's atmosphere. That myth still gets trotted out time to time from so-called contrarians.

Here's what the most recent full run of the GFS is suggesting over the next 15 days. Will be interesting to see how accurate (or inaccurate) this is.

I compiled a regional map of all snowfall totals from each airport that provides snowfall measurements [or in a couple of cases, NWS office sites] through yesterday:

10 years, eh? Removing duplicated storm dates, this was the seventh largest two-day storm on record for the Queen City dating back to the late 19th century. This was the largest storm since 2008, and that one edged this by the smallest of margins (0.1"). There have been only 2 storms on record that produced more than 1" more than this event over a 2-day period (1996 & 1998). From 1917-1978, there were no storms that produced more snowfall than this in any 2-day period. You may never see this again in your lifetime. Hell, with the warming client and already marginal subtropical climate of Cincinnati, this very well could be the heaviest storm for perpetuity.

One for the record books in the Queen City. Removing duplicates, this appears to be 7th largest 2-day storm ever recorded. It was the largest 2-day storm since 2008, and that one eclipsed this by only 0.1 inches. Only 2 storms have recorded greater than 1" more of snow in any 2-day period. From 1917 to 1978, no storms of this intensity were observed. This is about as big as it gets in the home of Skyline Chili. (1) 18.3 inches, 2/4/1998-2/5/1998 (2) 14.4 inches, 1/6/1996 - 1/7/1996 (3) 11.5 inches, 12/8/1917 - 12/9/1917 (4) 11.3 inches, 1/16/1978 - 1/17/1978 (5) 11.0 inches, 2/17/1910 - 2/18/1910 (6) 10.7 inches, 3/7/2008 - 3/8/2008 (7) 10.6 inches, 1/5/2025 - 1/6/2025

21Z SREF mean for PIT was 7.5”, with a range of 0” to just under 17.5”. Interestingly, while the mean was 7.5”, all of the solutions showing more than the mean, were above 10”.

I think that was just the highest official gust. Certainly was quite windy though regionwide that evening, with a lot of power outages.

Ah, yes, you are correct. So yeah, expect comfortable indoor conditions.

Looks like the GFS is suggesting some drying east of the ridges.

Certainly looking promising for a widespread 6"+ snowfall for much of the southern half of the State. On the college football weather front, as both Hard Rock Stadium and the Cotton Bowl are open-air (although Hard Rock is partially enclosed for fans), looks like there should be no major weather concerns. Forecast for Miami on Wednesday shows abnormally cool weather with low temperatures perhaps dropping below 50F and highs in the upper 60s, with fair weather. I expect Thursday to be similar but perhaps with some rebound in temperatures as a storm gathers over the Gulf of Mexico. In northern Texas, a sharp cool front will move through with chilly weather through Wednesday. Early indications for game day are similar conditions with some moderation - 40s to near 50, game time temp could dip into the 30s. Weather looks mostly fair, albeit chilly, at this point. At this time, it doesn't look like weather should play a significant role in either matchup.

My speculation of a PSU/OSU natty looking considerably stronger after another round of play. Anyways, on the weather front, looks like a round of snow on the way for much of Pennsylvania, particularly in the south. The 00z GFS is illustrative, showing possible snowfall over the next 144 hours.

Similar story in Michigan. Grand Rapids fell a little short of 2012, but record-breaking warmth was widespread throughout the state. I think the most impressive thing about 2024 is near the uniformity of record-breaking warmth. Some of the prior records dated to recent years (2021, 2023, 2017), a number from 2012 but a few were as old as 1921 & 1931. Detroit Lansing Flint Saginaw Alpena Grand Rapids Traverse City Houghton Lake Marquette (Airport) Kalamazoo Muskegon

Record warmth regionwide. No doubt that 2024 will go down in the books as the warmest year on record in the Buckeye State. Cleveland Akron Toledo Columbus Dayton Zanesville Mansfield

Wow. 78.6F for a yearly mean. That’s hot!

I just mentioned them since they thought the climate was, more or less, stable during the period of recorded history. I'm sure they would agree that a significant change has occurred since that time if they had the benefit of hindsight. I was doing a bit more reading today - Climate Through the Ages, by C. E. P. Brooks (1926). Had to chuckle at this bit: According to the author, Hangzhou reportedly had a median date of April 9th for its last spring snowfall for the period 1131-1260, or nearly a month later than the decade ending 1914. Hangzhou is at 30N, with a climate similar to Columbia, South Carolina, and had snow in most Aprils during the heart of the so-called Medieval Warm Period. And there are people here that think it's reasonable to believe there may have been little if any snow in the Mid Atlantic in that era. According to Wikipedia, for the 1991-2020 period, Hangzhou averaged 2.8 days with snow in February, 0.8 days in March, and 0.1 days in April. This would suggest the median last snowfall probably occurs in early March [and perhaps even very late February]. For further context, the record low in April (since 1951) is 0.2C/32.4F. If this is true - and there's no reason for the author to have made it up - this would be suggestive not of a warmer climate at Hangzhou, but one much colder than today, during that era. This book was incredible. The prevailing thought has changed so much since 1926. They believed - as you can see from the last sentence of the passage above - that high sunspot activity led to cooler global temperatures! The book suggests that the slight increase in radiation was offset by the destruction of ozone, which was believed to be a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 since it absorbs radiation of different wavelengths than water vapor. The book discusses carbon dioxide, but minimizes the impact because of this "saturation" effect, but does acknowledge that it may play a warming role in the high atmosphere where water vapor is less extensive. This misconception is still trotted out today by some so-called skeptics. Here's a little context from the University of Texas from 2010: Century-old climate myth still making the rounds - UT News Literally, everything was backwards less than 100 years ago. No "Roman Warm Period" - they believed it was colder and wetter, with the mean storm track further south, promoting better conditions for agriculture in the southern Europe. Considering that the European "generalised temperature curve" below appears to zero at 1750 temperatures, imagine where it would be if carried forward to today.

Looks like a little subtle rotation showing up on radar, so a spin-up tornado certainly can't be ruled out.

Getting ready to post my now seemingly annual synopsis of record-breaking temperatures. From what I can tell, 2024 was a record-breaker pretty much everywhere.

Seems underdone. Map shows western Pennsylvania near normal, but the actual departure at Pittsburgh is +2.7F, likely to finish at least +3F with today factored into the mix. Which also secures an incredible, presumably record-breaking 18th consecutive month of warmer than normal temperatures in this record-shatteringly hot year which undoubtely far exceeds anything ever observed in even the lifetime of the oldest great-great grandparent of the oldest person alive today.

Climatologically, not really an outcome that can be discounted. Not unusual to see big storms sliding to our south, although that hasn't been the case in recent years [largely because it's been too warm in that area for heavy snowfall outside of the mountains]. And, of course, snowfall north of I-80 is complements of Lake Erie, with upslope enhancement in the higher terrain.

My point in looking at this history is just to point out that there was never any sort of consensus that the MWP was a massive global warming event. Some here - and comments on various social media sites - make it out to be like the PETM. In fact, the mid 20th century view was a departure from the prevailing scientific view of a, more or less, continuity of climate over the preceding 2500 years [a fact which Lamb points out in his 1965 paper]. But even looking at some of these old reconstructions [which tended to be for specific geographic locations], when we update for recent temperature data, they actually largely agree with the assessment that current temperatures are without precedence over the past 1200-1400 years [at least]. If we transported any of these 18th and early 19th century scientists to the present, they would undoubtedly be amazed by the climatic changes that have occurred in that interval. And, in any event, there does not appear to be anything that would suggest there was a 150-200 year period of no snow in the American Mid-Atlantic region 1,000 years ago. And, of course, we have actual modern reconstructions which integrate more data from throughout the globe, which do not suggest temperatures, on a global scale, anywhere near the present values. So any of these contrarian views are implicitly denying the scientific consensus, which itself is building off of this earlier scholarship. Actually, with the benefit of hindsight, it was probably human-caused warming that led to the characterization of the MWP/LIA, since the warming of the late 19th century and (particularly) the first several decades of the 20th century were so substantial that they led to additional research in past climate changes of the common era. Which also gets to the root of a second myth, which is that the various temperature records start at some record cold point. In fact, it appears the climate had moderated some, and by the early 20th century, was rather mild on a millenial scale, with the coldest temperatures of the second millennium likely occurred between about 1550 and 1750 CE.