Volcanic Winter

I have a nice moss carpet in my backyard, anyone want some pictures? It’s kept festive with a charming mix of acorns and squirrel droppings. 

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Wow this is so peaceful and serene.  Is this considered a lagoon?

Crater / caldera lake. Reminds me of Mazama:

5 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

 I think it's a dormant volcano and that view is exactly the reason I want to do it.  What a view!  Do you want to visit Iceland again now that volcanic activity seems to be on the rise there?

 

We’ve been five times since 2017, we have it bad for that place. Even my wife who doesn’t have the same geology passion as me has grown to love Iceland as much as me. I’ve traveled a lot in my life and Iceland has pretty much emerged as the location I can’t move on from. Convergence of a lot of hobbies and things I enjoy, I guess. 

6 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

There was actually a trek up to a volcano in the package I was looking at, I think that would be fun to do.

I’m really hesitant to hike up active volcanoes, but an infrequent eruptor should generally be fine unless it’s clearly flashing buildup activity. 

Last year I hiked up an adjacent peak to Hekla in Iceland and that was a close as I dared to get. Absolutely absurdly beautiful out there, and was very awe inspiring to see such a legendary volcano up close. 
 

14 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

I saw a caldera from an ancient explosion while out there, but don't recall the name of it. We even experienced a strong aftershock while there. I had spent time seeing a number of the Hindu temples (many in ruins) and a Buddhist temple.

Was it the Batur caldera by any chance? 

3 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

I saw a caldera from an ancient explosion while out there, but don't recall the name of it. We even experienced a strong aftershock while there. I had spent time seeing a number of the Hindu temples (many in ruins) and a Buddhist temple.

All beautiful, it’s a gorgeous place. I’d love to go for that as well. 

Both Samalas / Rinjani  and Tambora are just visible from one another on a clear day. Site of the two largest eruptions of the last millennium, both VEI 7. Indonesia is extremely prolific in its ability to create monstrous explosive volcanism. 

The fact you saw ancient calderas is part of why I suggest this about Agung. There are some exceptions, but looking at a volcanoes neighbors is a good way to learn about its activity and potential. A lot of volcanic systems progress in cycles, with large scale caldera collapse and destruction of the magma chamber being sort of the final stage. Agung could do that eventually. 

5 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

I was there. It's a fabulous place.

I’d go to see Gunung Agung in person. Beast of a volcano. Could be a future high level VEI 6 to 7 caldera candidate. 

I can only imagine how fun this place was through that event. I only really got to experience 1/29/22 and that wasn’t a huge deal outside my area and LI. More a NE storm. But was still very fun to track with a lot of last minute uncertainties, and at least something for much of the metro. 

1 hour ago, MJO812 said:

So are we canceling winter in December?

No, but I’m warning you now I am prepared to cancel it by March. 

29 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Again...THANK YOU! I do not understand why the immediate knee jerk reaction for some is that if you dont believe that 50s in winter are the new normal in Minneapolis or it will never snow in NYC again, you dont believe in CC. Look at my above exchange with Libertybell...Liberty quotes a post on CC is real with a response, it sure is, my budding trees proves it...I discuss the well-documented flowering of trees in Jan 1932...and im told one random year in the 1930s doesnt prove anything. . Um Im not TRYING to prove anything, but yet your one random year of budding tree proves CC. No, your budding trees proves an excessively warm December pattern in a strong El Nino.

 

And I am well aware winter warming on the east coast is greater than MI, and Im sure the ocean plays a big role. I love our more stable climate in MI, but what I do find hard to believe is that everything on the EC is happening worse and worse every year. The 2010s were NYC snowiest decade on record and the 1950s were the LEAST. NYC never really seemed like a wintry place to begin with. They are a place that can get annihalted with a good snowstorm when the ingredients are right & I have no doubt that it wont be long before they do get a monster snowstorm as they are due (and of course when this happens, the usual crowd will freak and bombard with posts "just because we got this storm CC is still very real" and on and on). But I have to learn to just let the usual crowd be. As you have said, pretty much every one on here knows CC is real, there is just a group who can differentiate weather from climate and another group who will post every anecdote or non-fact checked story they can find. It would be fun to go back and read posts from Dec 2006-Jan 2007. I wonder if budding winter trees and snowless days were the new climate (before we were bombarded with a bunch of harsh winters the following decade). 

My only real contention here is that people constantly reference “snowfall” as the end all be all, and I definitely understand that in a “results” sense. 

But there’s more to a winter than purely snowfall, at least from my perspective. While it’s true NYC isn’t the most wintry location in the CONUS by comparison, I also don’t really think using snowfall is the only way to evaluate that. Going back to prior decades shows a much colder DJF average than what we’re seeing today. NYC definitely had a Humid Continental Climate by definition, whereas now it does not. The line between CFa and DFa is thin so disregard that in a vacuum, but the actual DJF averages were substantially colder. Definitely a much more wintry temperature profile. 

Evaluating an area’s winter climate solely by snowfall averages is only half of it, IMO - and the early 2000’s - 2010’s were definitely a period that leveraged the warming in a productive way regarding snowfall. But as @bluewave has attested with data backing it up, it’s been something of a devil’s bargain as we trade consistency for “all or nothing” seasons. High snowfall or low to no snowfall, with a loss of near average. I definitely weigh consistency a bit more than going a couple years with almost nothing to then have a blockbuster season, but I also know others would take that trade so it’s purely a preferential thing for me (preferring more moderate winters / overall consistency). 

9 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Yess and when the steam heat turns on everything gets worse!

How strong or big of a dehumidifier do you need?

I’m definitely no home dehumidifying expert, I just bought a couple medium sized units off Amazon. I have one on my main floor and one that I use in the garage. My basement hasn’t really had humidity issues for one reason or another, I’m sure it’s more common to run one in your basement. 

But these basic units have done a great job for me and have been reliable. 

30 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

And yet some will say it's not as bad because it's not Dec 15.

Well +5 against the highest normals is terrible. 

But I guess you could be +10 or better like folks further west 

I mean the growing planetary heat imbalance is starting to cause accelerated warming, Dr. James Hansen put out a paper about this recently and it’s pretty harrowing.

I also like to remind people the last time the planet had over 400ppm of CO2, it was around 3C warmer. Temperature follows CO2 change rather nicely when looking back at paleoclimate, so unless physics have changed in the Holocene I’m unsure why that wouldn’t hold true now. Pre-Industrial CO2 was about 280ppm so the change to today is pretty massive. It’s also not CO2 in a vacuum as methane concentrations have been increasing rapidly as well. 

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

thanks that's really needed here.

It's been raining heavily since 2 am

I started using dehumidifiers a few years back and it was the best decision I ever made for my home. We had occasional light mold growth on the walls by our staircase and upstairs hallway, away from AC vents. Even with a good/new HVAC unit by itself my home humidity is too high especially in the summer. 

I also absolutely loathe humidity, so there’s that aspect of it too. 

I do greatly miss having something to track and be invested in, whatever the outcome. 

Yeah I mean, there’s no point in getting either dejected or overly hyped right now. Smart move is just wait and see how the next week to ten days evolve, and let’s go from there. We’ll know if we smell another rat by the second week of Jan, but anything before that is premature. 

Of course it’s still possible Jan sucks and Feb doesn’t, but nobody wants to go through all of Jan like this and have to pray for Feb, so that would only work as a pleasant surprise IMO. 

FWIW I’d be surprised if NYC goes all of Jan without something on the ground. I believe it’ll happen, but that’s not the same as suggesting we’re entering a great stretch or anything. But I think the city will see something rolling through Jan. 

40 minutes ago, Evie3 said:

Grew up on a dairy farm in Sussex county, near the former Monastery off of 202.  There was no 287 or 78, of course.  We sold our milk to the Ideal Dairy, which I think is still in business. I recall watching Green Acres as a kid and thinking it was about my parents LOL.  As a young child I recall a time in the early 1960s when Kennedy Airport (then Idlewild) was closed because of a bad snowstorm.  We had a 1 mile+ long driveway off of 202 and were snowed in for a long time - well over a week.  Thankfully we had a generator, fuel tanks and firewood but by the time someone came to plow us out we were running low on canned goods.  After that my mother (who grew up in Newark and was used to being able to walk around the corner to the store) started hoarding canned goods.  Even though we moved to the suburbs when I was 8 the canned goods thing continued, I don't think she ever really got over it....People find it hard to imagine that was New Jersey, but it was.  Who knows, it could happen again!  These things tend to be cyclical over long periods of time.

Thanks for sharing. Nevermind average snow totals, I would expect that snow would’ve stuck around longer with lower average winter temps especially in the colder semi recent decades. That’s something that I don’t often see discussed, not that we didn’t always have warmups after storms, but I’d be willing to bet snow stuck around longer in NJ in the 60’s, for example. 

In the El Niño thread I think they were posting a split lobe look with one lobe definitely over NA. But I suppose that’s just one model and one run, so who knows. We’ll need luck for sure at this point to get something to go right for a change. We don’t need to be in the deep freeze but we for sure need better air than what we’ve been choking down so far every day. 

1 hour ago, WinterWolf said:

Plenty good imo Jerry…the point was made.  
 

2010 had Boxing Day…other than that it sucked(and that buried NYC and NJ). Then it all melted a few days later with a warm and wet bare ground on NYE in ‘10. 
 

 

His ideas are piss poor at best.  He’s lost and downtrodden. 

I always thought of Boxing Day as a NYC/NJ event but looking at the snow map it really looked like a great NE storm as well. From this forum I always got the impression it wasn’t fondly remembered in NE. 

With that said, it definitely had a “temperamental distribution” of snow and there were some screw job areas, so I totally get if you were in one, ain’t looking back too fondly on it. 

11 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

I believe they had their snowiest January on record in 2022

Yeah, I was too far north for the early Jan major event that plastered them. Had nothing but virga. Did better in the event the following week that was more area wide. And then 1/29 bullseyed here. 

I live in probably the best position for the southernmost extent of central Nj / suburban metro. As soon as you go a few miles to my south snow falls off a cliff especially as the coast begins to recurve toward the southwest and you lost the longitude advantage for coastal scrapers like 1/29. According to a gov site regarding the pine barrens the northern edge that I reside on is supposed to average about 21-24 inches, which is probably correct but I’ve never kept a tally over the years. To my east it also drops off with more marine influence. 

But I’ll eventually move northward again, aiming for the Sparta area. Wife and I developed a love for winter hiking and there’s much so much more in NNJ, and it’s a better base to go north into NY and NE. 

24 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

We need an ice age

Call it the Brooklyn Glaciation. Leave your freezer open, maybe you can be the point source. 
 

BTW to be pedantic we are still in an ice age so long as ice remains at the poles. We are however in an interstadial or a recession toward a glacial minimum. 

This is why the LIA was so fascinating as it was a period of glacial growth within an interstadial. I’ve read some smart individuals (this is speculative, take it as such) state the LIA may have been the beginning of the slide toward the next stadial (or colloquial “ice age”) that was aborted by human factors. It would have been a slow descent as glaciers grow much more slowly than they melt, so the LIA “ending” in 1850 doesn’t necessarily disprove this idea IMO. Still subject to decadal variability. But by the 1900’s, it may have been overridden by the growth of CO2. 

CO2 levels throughout paleoclimate have correlated to global temperatures. There’s a natural ebb and flow from a multitude of geologic processes, and now we’ve essentially overridden nature and hijacked the controls on a very short timescale. 

This is why people who argue against AGW by bringing up “natural planetary cycles” are actually half correct. But they’re also (and more importantly) half incorrect, and are missing very necessary contextualizing information. 

1 hour ago, SACRUS said:

 

Dec 2010 (Boxing Day) Blizzard

 

https://www.weather.gov/okx/Meteorology12262010

My favorite snowstorm of my adult life. Yes, I prefer it to Jan 16 for several reasons, some not weather related. 

Feels truly special in this period of warm, low snow Decembers. Especially given the Dec 09 event we’ve talked about a few times recently, having back to back Dec majors like that  

09-2015 was a very special period of winter weather / winter vibes for me. Coincided with a lot of major moments in my early adulthood (getting married, buying a house, etc). 

My wife and I were probably going to be moving up to NNJ within the next couple years (was looking near Sparta actually, I have friends in Montague & wife Hopatcong). We’ve developed a major passion for winter hiking and NNJ is just much better for that as well as being a better springboard to going north in the winter for hiking trips (went to Danbury last Feb, though it was hardly winter lol). Down the road I want to retire in New England (wife is onboard!), probably either Vermont or NH. 

I have family in Mass (Boston area) and my wife has family in and around Rochester, but we want to be away from the city life we both grew up in. Too many damn people here. 

21 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

January to February 2021 was a nnj special stretch. Loved that winter 

Got to break in my WRX on the Feb 1st storm. Was fun 

My Christmas lights are keeping the vibe despite the uncooperative weather. It honestly helps, though there’s no replacing the real thing:

I echo @North and West’s sentiments:

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday with friends and family! 

38 here now, let the warmup commence and make way for bigger, better, and snowier things looking toward the new year! 

Unfortunately I’ve been struggling with some bad circumstantial depression this year, and I just wanted to thank you guys for being such a lovely intellectual distraction. I’ve really grown to love this place that has become such a major part of my daily routine. 

All the best guys! 

1 hour ago, eduggs said:

I like your write up.

I also lived through the 80s and 90s. I remember several frustratingly low snow years. I agree from a snow perspective it's impossible to know for sure how much influence a changing base state has vs. just being in a bad stretch. One thing that does stand out, however, about recent years is the warmth. The 80s had cold periods even when it didn't snow. Outside of 2015 it hasn't been cold recently. Ice is forming later (if at all) and melting sooner. Growing seasons are lengthening. Many places are exceeding 99th percentile frequency statistics for warmth parameters. While we can't know for sure how much our average weather has been affected by a changing climate, I'm personally convinced that it is now observable over our lifespans. 

This is a point I think about myself often when people bring up low snow stretches from earlier periods. 

It’s not just snow totals in a vacuum, though snow for all intents and purposes = the results the majority of us are looking for and ultimately care about. That aside, these earlier periods seem to have offered much in the way of significant cold, something that we’re just not seeing the equivalent of today. 

The cold pushes we do get, like last Xmas, seem to be notably short lived and almost always followed by significant warmups instead of a return to near normal. I would wager that’s a different failure mode than what was seen in earlier “low snow” periods (the presence of preclusive temperatures and loss of marginal events as a result). 

If anything, it seems we’ve introduced a new failure mode (or at least one that was less common) into whatever decadal cycles may have already influenced northeast snow (temperature issues).

Just IMHO / my perspective.