TheClimateChanger

Too bad January hath not 30 days.

Can anyone explain this? I don't dispute the finding... that is, that climate-driven warming threatens agricultural productivity in Central Europe. My question is with these depictions of historical agroclimatic zones. If you just looked at this reconstruction, you would think the period 1501-1525 had similar regional temperatures to 2001-2018, and 1926-1950 was similar to 1601-1625, one of the coldest times of the Little Ice Age, and, bizarrely, even colder in the western parts of the region of interest. My problem is this... these reconstructions make zero sense based on hundreds of years of climatology. I realize there are regional variations, but I think it's implausible that this part of the world would have experienced similar agroclimatic zones to the recent past during a time when global temperatures were more than 1C cooler than the present. If we look at recent years, which have been as much as 1.5C of warming from the late 19th century, these periods were probably 2C or more cooler based on most reliable reconstructions. 1926-1950 was also a period of relative warmth globally on a millennial or multi-millennial timeframe, with some stability or even modest cooling in the ensuing decades, only for another large step-up in temperature to occur in the latter parts of the 20th century. More caution should be had when combining proxy data and instrumental records. I feel like if 1926-1950 and 2001-2018 were calculated in the same manner as the earlier periods, there should be a lot more oranges and reds in the earlier period, and the most recent should be blood red. Something is off here. Like I said, I don't dispute the finding AT ALL. However, to me, the graphic is casting a misleading view and literally flies in the face of hundreds of years of scientific understanding of the earth's climates - an understanding and knowledge that even predates the discovery of the greenhouse effect.

One thing to note. Even in the places with large departures, most locations are not having Top 10 coldest Januarys. And these values will continue to moderate in the coming days. West Virginia is an exception with most sites currently having Top 10 cold Januarys, but a lot of those stations have significant site/elevation changes - from valley cities to elevated airports, shorter PORs and gaps in the records. That's also been the location with the largest departures relative to normal, as shown on the map. Although it does suggest that something else is going on with the position of the anomalies, other than moderation from the Great Lakes. If that was the cause, you would expect relatively warmer anomalies over western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with the predominant northwest flow off the Lakes. Why would the warming be more significant on the Coastal Plain? It looks more like the relative position of the jet stream, blocking ridges and troughs, have a more significant impact. The relative lack of snow cover along the Coastal Plain relative to inland locations also playing a significant role. Central Park has a mean monthly snow depth of 0.3 inches, while Charleston, West Virginia has had a mean monthly snow depth of 3.4 inches, and has had at least an inch on the ground since the 5th with most days having several inches.

That’s the current steam flow map. I didn’t realize how dry it’s been in the Pacific Northwest, as well. Lots of streams at record low flow for today’s date. Isn’t it usually wet up there during La Niñas?

Let's take a look at some of the precipitation totals in the areas of drought improvement. Wheeling, West Virginia Fort Wayne, Indiana Toledo, Ohio Zanesville, Ohio Peoria, Illinois Williamsport, Pennsylvania Albany, New York

Someone should do a little fact checking on these "drought monitors." If we look at the outlook released on December 31, 2024, we see they were calling for marked improvement to the drought situation across the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and New England, based on an expected active La Nina pattern with copious rainfall. This didn't actually happen. In fact, most locations are on track for one of the driest Januarys on record. Yet, the drought miraculously improved! "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

These are for Pittsburgh, to be clear.

If the month ended today, it would be 4th driest & 10th coldest on record. Precipitation looks minimal this week, so likely to finish among the Top 10 driest Januarys. Temperatures looks somewhat milder, so we will probably fall in the rankings for coldest Januarys.

Looking at 1901-1902, we see some of these same irregularities. What I suspect is happening is they are measuring the change in depth, but used to report depth to the nearest tenth of an inch. So a 0.2" snowfall might represent a change in depth of 0.4" to 0.6" and appear as a jump of a Trace depth to 1" today. Of course, the 1936-37 are anomalous even then. Because it's not physically possible for the depth to increase with no snow at all! It actually turns out, however, that 1901-1902 was not a bad winter at all in Moline. January was bitter cold with a solid snowpack in place for the final 12 days of the month. The meteorological winter (DJF) mean temperature of 21.4F ranks as 32nd coldest (out of 151 years). Incredibly - and highlighting the absurdity of these numbers - the number of days during meteorological winter (DJF) with at least 5" of snow on the ground is tied for 16th most on record. Special recognition of 1892-1893 for ranking second on this list, despite missing the entire month of December. Anyways, 27 days of 5"+ snowfall (including 21 with at least 6") in a winter where 11" fell.

Indeed, if we look at the seasonal snowfall "futility" records at Moline, we find the following: As noted, 1936-37 is missing data. In fact, we can see a rather significant snowfall appears to have struck the Moline area in early December 1936, but is not reflected in the digitized records. Given the amount of precipitation noted, it is very likely this one event would bump 1936-37 out of the low spot. But the records in January have at least a couple dates where snow depth increases with no measurable snow recorded by the observer! Another date with possible rain to snow is also missing from February... So, yes, 1936-37 likely saw unusually sparse snowfall at Moline, but 9.9" - NO WAY, JOSE!

For those interested in futility records, caution is certainly warranted with older records. If we take Moline, Illinois, for example, we see snowfall through today's date appears to be 10th lowest. But note, there's one day missing for 1936-1937 (more on that later). The one day missing for 2024-2025 is today which isn't yet complete (but no snowfall is expected). If it can make it through the end of the month, that would bump up to 5th place. However, there are data irregularities and missing data affecting some of the older years.

This is why, in my opinion, a composite index factoring in winter temperatures, snowfall, average snow depths, and days of snow cover - similar to that proposed by user @beavis1729- is superior to an emphasis solely on reported snowfall, especially when factoring in site location changes and changes in measurement procedures.

We can also see how snowfall is not the best measure of the harshness of a winter, especially with the inflated measurements of the present. Again, if we look at Erie, we see the seasonal snowfall to date ranks as 7th most. By comparison, 1977 had 85.0 inches to date, and 1945 had 80.9 inches (but with 2 dates missing - more on that later). But if we compare this month to January 1945 & January 1977, we can see those months were miles harsher than the present one. In January 1945, xMacis registers a total of 31.7 inches; however, it appears to have deleted a large snowstorm from January 1st. Nearly 1" of liquid equivalent fell on the 1st, with a high of 36 and low of 10. Snow depth was 18" on the 2nd. Snow depths that month ranged from 13 to 26 inches, with an average depth of 17.1 inches. In January 1977, 29.1 inches of snow fell, with depths ranging from 4 to 18 inches all month long, and an average depth of 10.4 inches.

We can see a similar effect if we compare Toledo and Erie. At Erie, nearly 93 inches of snow has fallen this season, with a current depth of 1". At Toledo, 5.7" of seasonal snowfall has yielded an identical depth of 1 inch.

This has been a good month to see the impact of "fake" effect snow on snow depth. If we look at Erie, we see 31.3 inches of snow fell this month, with depth down to 1" despite temperatures largely staying below freezing for the month. Of note, 10" of snow cover on the 4th evaporated/sublimated down to 2" by the 10th despite temperatures remaining well below the freezing point over that entire stretch. Meanwhile, at Pittsburgh, snowfall has been less than half of that at Erie, but yesterday's snow depth was 5x larger, despite a similar temperature profile and lying more than 1.5 degrees south of Erie. Over the 4th through the 10th, while Erie's snow depth dropped 8", snow depth at Pittsburgh increased by 1 inch.

This is an interesting .gif of the MRCC average annual snowfall maps for 1961-1990 and 1981-2010, which was shared at UMich's Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, a NOAA Climate Adaptations Program. You can see snowfall decrease pretty much universally across the south half of the Midwest in the two time frames, while generally holding steady or slightly increasing in the north. Snowfall increased markedly across many of the traditional snow belt regions. The most recent annual snowfall map from MRCC shows these snowfall bands continuing to push northward. With the area of less than 6" sprawling out from the Missouri Bootheel to encompass much of southern Missouri and southern Kentucky. Will be interesting to watch this progression continue over the coming decades. I suspect the next update will show a marked acceleration of the trends.

Yes, they did register a trace on Wednesday, although it's not clear when that fell from the hourly observations. Must have been brief. Wasn't sure if it would snow today, but there are flurries flying here. Nothing at PIT. But it's of no consequence since the snow showers yesterday extended past midnight, so the streak has already continued through today.

I think you mean 1783-1784, which is when Laki was erupting. I was thinking of this as well recently, with the snow in southern Louisiana. The area around Broussard, Louisiana was originally called Cote Gelee (Frozen Hill) due to the snow covered sandhills and icy bayous found by the early Acadian settlers in 1784. Ice floes were reported into the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico, from the Mississippi River. The impact of Laki on these cold temperatures is not unquestioned, however. Recent research suggests natural variation played an important role. ENSO and NAO reconstructions show a pattern similar to that which occurred in 2009-2010, so I don't think we can necessarily discount the possibility that this was natural variation superimposed on a much colder base state than the present. The anomalous winter of 1783–1784: Was the Laki eruption or an analog of the 2009–2010 winter to blame? - D'Arrigo - 2011 - Geophysical Research Letters - Wiley Online Library

@donsutherland1 Here's another example of a denier seizing on the recent cold snap to promote their anti-warming agenda. First of all, the article mentions the Great Lakes, not the Upper Midwest. While there's a considerable overlap, much of the Great Lakes region is not in the Upper Midwest, and vice versa. Second, nowhere in the article do the predict the "Upper Midwest would become very warm by the year 2030, and millions of people would move there for the climate." There's a thought-provoking possible future headline, but it simply mentions the 21st century - which could be 2050, or 2080, or 2090. The only projection has a lot of caveats - "may cause a 4 to 9 F temperature increase in the region as early as 2030." Not really a hard and fast projection, given the "may" and "as early as" language, suggesting the rise may occur over a longer timespan that that. But the crazy thing is the lower end of that projection does not look far off. Here is the temperature trend at Toledo Airport, in Ohio, from 1989 to 2024. Now, the airport, a relatively small, regional one, is located in a mostly rural section of Lucas County, and therefore should have minimal impact from urban heating. A linear regression shows a warming of 2.9F from 1989 to 2024. A continuance of this trend over the next several years would likely bring total warming to around 3.5F by 2030. And this is fairly representative of much of the Great Lakes region. But a few comments are warranted: (1) Most recent years have been above the trendline. Should this continue, the slope of the regression line will increase. If we simply compare the first 5 years of data, we find a mean temperature of 50.1F, versus the most recent 5 years, a mean temperature of 53.7F, corresponding to a warming of 3.6F over those two periods. (2) This does not account for changes in instrument and siting. The HO-83 thermometer, which was in use from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, is known to have produced spuriously high readings. When the NWS switched to ASOS, with the updated sensors, a cooling of as much as 1F or more was noted. This suggests that the temperatures at the beginning of this dataset may be too high, which would have the effect of decreasing the slope of the trendline [and implied warming] for non-climatic reasons. (3) The graph starts at what was understood at the time to be a very warm period - no cherrypicking at all. The late 1980s and early 1990s were known as a very warm period with mild winters and hot summer temperatures. The Pinatubo eruption, however, did provide some temporary cooling in the 1992-1994 time period, perhaps ameliorating this factor. Regardless, the point is starting just 10 years earlier would probably produce a substantially higher warming trend. Overall, the forecast was not bad. It would appear that 4F warming from late 1980s base would likely be achieved by 2040. The higher rates of warming were probably based on projections of greenhouse gas emissions that did not come to fruition.

Looks like the coldest of any ASOS/AWOS site was Zelienople (KPJC). A very efficient site for radiational cooling. Unlike most larger airports and airfields, this one is located in a small valley. Coldest temperature was -16.6F, or rounded to -17F, which was observed for several hours. The AWOS does not report minimum temperature, so it may have been even lower in between 15 minute observations. Link: National Weather Service Washington County Airport (KAFJ) reached -16F. Another spot for good radiational cooling. Link: National Weather Service

I suspect the snowcover actually amplifies the diurnal range by having a larger cooling impact on low temperatures than on high temperatures, under ideal radiational cooling conditions. Also, some of those days likely saw non-diurnal temperature spreads due to reinforcing shots of arctic air, plus moderation into the overnight ahead of the reinforcing shots of arctic air.

Would have been a good opportunity for some entrepreneurial northern snowplow operators, as well. I would reckon there aren't too many of those down there.

There's plenty out there. Just go out there and make some Snow Buckeyes! Florida's snow will be melted in 2 days. Ohio has fared much better than most places.