Volcanic Winter

Interesting food for thought, was having a discussion with ChatGPT about NJ climo during the LIA. It feels 40-60” per year would’ve been meteorologically plausible during the peak mid 16th-18th century years. Less boundary layer issues of course, probably less intense benchmark systems overall but less that are rain and many more nickel dime events throughout the winter. January thaws happen but much less regularly. Peak winters are 3-5F colder with some much more so, especially following the biggest eruptions that caused MAJOR climate perturbations like Huaynaputina 1600. Also of note it felt that if you transplanted 1/29/22 back into a peak LIA year and shift it 50 miles west, it’s a “storm of the century” type deal. I do recall the dynamics of that system being nuts. Eh, just in the spirit of banter - grain of salt, unprovable anyhow, etc.

I declare today a national day of mourning, “Pack Obliteration Day.” Repeat after me: ‘together our packs are stronger than stone, as we shovel our steps and uncover our homes, in unison let our voices say - Mother Nature, dammit, give us more snow! Before our packs grow sad, forever alone.’

That’s really incredible. Weather and climatology are so fascinating to me, so many variables at any given time producing innumerable outcomes - sometimes resulting in extreme permutations. I was born in the late 80’s so of course wasn’t around for the extremes of that decade. One of my first vivid weather memories however was the blizzard of 96… not a bad one to have. Was in Monmouth county for that as a kid.

Through today, my Tempest is showing an average of 30.9F for December with a low of 10.5 and a high of 49. Pretty crazy. AI says NJ averaged 22.7F in Dec 1989 with 5 days below zero recorded in Ocean County - that’s honestly wild if accurate. Trying to imagine these first 16 days but averaging 8 degrees less is kind of breaking my brain.

Appreciating the deep January vibes today. 15F at 8am and a pack in no rush to obliterate itself. At least the cold start to Dec had a worthy finale.

Had a crazy, extremely busy day and I’m insanely sore from shoveling out my parents and then my house. We had about 7 sloppy, heavy wet inches of snow. Seaside was about 4.5-5.

At my parents in Seaside shoveling them out, a good 3 inch here.

So far

I’m just NW of the Toms River dot on that map, I’ll let you guys know what I finish up with. Currently

Staying up for now, beautiful steady light to moderate snowfall. No wind, just peacefully falling small flakes. Pretty happy, this is needed.

Snowing beautifully, western Toms River / Manchester. 32 now. Upgraded to WSW just now for 4-6.

Snowing here in west edge of Toms River / Manchester. 33F now.

Good luck man, enjoy.

Yeah, SNE has been in rough shape as well. C/NNE have done much better. Tracks have not been right for the stretch of coast from NJ to LI to SEMa. Easy for Va to pile up nickel and dime events when everything is suppressed/shredded and weak, with no amplification to drive the waves northward. Happy this one appears to be working out.

Holding steady at 15F here, nice cold ground ahead of this little event. Looks like SEMA is gonna pick up the most in NE and I’m happy for those guys, they’ve been getting screwed as much as the NYC area lately. Hopefully this is a nice little event for everyone. I think LI down to my area should do pretty solid, hopefully it ticks up for NYC also.

Wow, temp is cratering past two hours. 13F

15 and falling

The brine they used nearly destroyed my 2019 WRX that I commute with, caused a major oil leak that nearly took out my engine if I had let it go another couple miles before stopping the car. Shop said 100% the salt brine corroded the lines etc. My fault for not washing enough, but I certainly don’t neglect to wash my vehicle. What they do in NJ is entirely excessive - yes I understand the population density warrants precaution but they take it to a degree that’s just not warranted for the weather.

Have to get something to dig and amplify, everything is either cutting north and missing SNE even or squashed and weak, passing off VA. Not gonna work for my area through SNE (CT) and everywhere in-between. Flow needs to calm down a tad, like the past few years it’s been fast again which isn’t helping anything to amplify in the right spot.

Yup, got down to 24 where I am, now up to 30.

The Hayli Gubbi eruption: Reddit link I’ve been fairly preoccupied and trying to stay on top of all these volcanic developments and catch up in various threads here. Rest assured if anything really major happens on the volcanic front I’ll do a write up about it - though Hayli Gubbi erupting fits that bill as this doesn’t happen often (long dormant system suddenly waking up due to magma from a neighbor system), and this may not be fully over depending on what’s going on down below. I would also say there’s been some decent pulses of SO2 this year and last (Raung!) now into the stratosphere from all this activity. Not as much in total as say, El Chichon (and certainly nowhere close to Pinatubo), but enough to possibly have some effect. Was just reading about how cluster of VEI4’s may have had some impact in the 2009-2011 winters, which isn’t typical. Underscores that there’s a lot of interplay we don’t fully 100% understand, but I’ll always maintain volcanoes have a much bigger impact on climate than most realize. And we’re learning a lot of past historical climate disturbances were the result of multiple eruptions clustered together instead of just one, even Tambora had a massive precursor in 1808/9ish. But to be very clear anything from this year / last would be on the lowest end of impact, if at all. But still possibly something in total. Let’s see what happens going forward. Lot of systems showing unrest! edit: more links https://watchers.news/2025/11/25/hayli-gubbis-first-eruption-in-at-least-12-000-years-grounds-flights-across-india-and-the-middle-east/ https://watchers.news/2025/11/25/intense-earthquake-swarm-at-galapagos-fernandina-volcano/

Kilauea is doing sustained summit eruptions and recurrent lava fountaining - not to sell it short, spectacular lava fountaining. Apparently Kilauea is under increased magma supply right now from the hotspot and it’s putting it to good use filling in the 2018 caldera. Mount Rainier is just normal rumblings of its hydrothermal system, if it were to progress to something more the activity would present quite differently IMO. Very likely absolutely nothing other than standard activity. Laki Laki has had the biggest eruptions in its know history this year, it too potentially being under a period of increased magmatic supply. Several substantial sub-plinian blasts, I think combined definitely VEI4 territory. Big story right now is in Africa, a volcanic vent that’s been dormant through the Holocene - Hayli Gubbi just had a substantial eruption, possibly a small 4 or large 3 but a very gassy for the size due to the type of magma. The SO2 plume was actually similar to the early estimates of the MUCH larger Hunga Tonga eruption, which goes to show how eruption size doesn’t ALWAYS dictate the amount of gas reaching the stratosphere. Erta Ale, a very active system with a famous lava lake, had a bunch of its magma drain out and apparently form a lateral dike that extended under Hayli Gubbi, hit a pocket of stale, gassy magma, heat it up, and cause it to erupt. Super fascinating. Still ongoing too. We’ll see what happens. This theoretically could progress as I don’t think we really know what’s sitting under that system. The Afar region is poorly studied and monitored outside Erta Ale which is a big tourist attraction, well relatively speaking. The danakil depression / Afar region is super hazardous topography, very hot and very alien looking. Lot of crazy volcanism. Fernandina in the Galapagos is having a major swarm right now, that’s a very cool volcano that had a substantial and unusual basaltic plinian caldera eruption in the 1950’s. I think a large VEI 4, but still somewhat unique and was quite an intense (fast) event. We’ll see what happens. Lots of stuff going on right now, we’ll see how everything progresses.

Managed to time getting to Iceland this year during a crazy blizzard in the capital! Felt very similar to a nor’easter of yesteryear, but not as much wind (surprisingly). This was just a gentle but very steady and heavy snowfall, I mean on our balcony I counted 17 inches. They claim a bit less “officially” I think, but I definitely saw amounts up to 20ish walking around Reykjavik at the end. https://www.icelandreview.com/news/reykjavik-snow-depth-may-set-early-winter-record-expert-says-photo-gallery/ https://imgur.com/a/SDxRGlR

2.6'' here in western Toms River. My parents in Seaside haven't been having much fun, though thankfully they're nearly a full block in from the ocean and behind some well constructed dunes. All things considered this ended up fairly gnarly.

Already 42 here, crazy how this feels given the endless barrage of summer to near summer lows.