Volcanic Winter

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

No words needed.

16 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Maybe most of SE Asia!  How much more powerful would it have been than the tsunami that hit SE Asia on Christmas Eve 2004? That killed hundreds of thousands of people!

Can energy release of different types be compared?

 

Yes! I’ve seen eruptions computed into joules and compared to earthquakes, but that kind of mathematics is far beyond me. It’s possible though, and I’ve seen multiple eruptions compared to earthquake energy releases (and nuclear events like Tsar Bomba). 

25 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

This is all fascinating stuff and the idea that impact events can stimulate volcano formation!  I have heard about the Australia event is that the one that might have created a genetic bottleneck? I thought it was in New Zealand but it could be either.  It supposedly wiped out 10% of the hominids alive at that time and created the largest volcanic eruption we know of on this planet?

 

Toba Catastrophy Theory. The Toba eruption 75kya was 3-5x larger than the most recent Yellowstone supereruption. It was as big as 5000 cubic kilometers of erupted material which is mind boggling. For reference, Mt St Helens was about 1.2 cubic kilometers of erupted material and a low end VEI 5. If you want to know why I have such a burning interest in volcanology, the scale we’re talking about here is precisely the reason. It’s beyond comprehension and not even really all that long ago, 75kya is geologically last week. Events of similar magnitude will occur again, though of course not likely tomorrow.

With that said, the genetic bottleneck component is disputed. There’s absolutely no doubt an eruption that monstrously large would’ve had a huge climate impact, however it’s not always that simple. There is evidence that Toba erupted huge (I mean HUGE) lava fountains around the circular caldera ring fault and then the primary ash column would’ve been something called a co-ignimbrite plume. This is sort of a secondary eruption column that follows a less explosive episode and creates strong thermal updrafts that lofts material high, but not quite as high as a primary explosive (plinian) sequence. Semeru had an eruption a couple years ago that demonstrated co-ignimbrite plumes well.

Long story short, it may not have had as enormous an impact as the volume alone would suggest as climate disrupting gases may not have completely and consistently reached the stratosphere. We don’t really know for sure, but this is plausible. It definitely caused a volcanic winter don’t mistake me, I’m just speaking about the absolute magnitude of the event. 

The evidence against comes from a lakebed in Africa which shows little climate disruption from this time period. However, playing devil’s advocate we know even very large volcanic eruptions tend to regionally have varying impacts. Averaged globally there are pronounced effects, but certain regions may be more or less impacted than others. So it’s interesting but also not conclusive IMHO. There is probably more evidence and discussion about this nowadays, I haven’t read into Toba in quite a while. 
 

Regardless, an eruption that large - hominids at the time weren’t having very much fun. Indonesia would’ve been absolutely destroyed. 

19 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Oh, you must mean the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane which made landfall near Cape May, NJ as a Cat 4 and went due north and hit Manhattan as a Cat 3, the only major hurricane to ever make landfall in NYC.  It came in at low tide (but still had a very high surge.)

 

And yep, that’s the one I was thinking of! Conflated the dates with Tambora, which of course is pure lol as that stuff is always on my mind. Thanks!

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

Yep, at our latitude the westerlies usually speed them up.

1815 was Tambora and the first Year Without a Summer.

There was a hurricane in 1804 that sliced through Central Long Island and up the CT River Valley in early October and it was so cold that we changed to sleet on the backside with temps in the mid 30s.  It was a Cat 2 at landfall.  Rated as F2 prior to the SS scale because back then tornadoes and hurricanes were rated on the same scale.

The hurricane you're talking about was probably the Great Massachusetts Bay Colony hurricane which may have been a Cat 4 at landfall (or at least Cat 3.5-- which is 130 MPH) which hit in the late 1700s (I forget the exact year.)

That Pre Columbian hurricane speculation about the 1400s is that it was either a really big hurricane or a megatsunami (which could either happen from a big earthquake near the Canary Is. or the impact of an asteroid.  The latter has already happened; Chesapeake Bay was created from an impact, the asteroid split in two parts and the second part fell into the ocean just east of Toms River.)

Very fascinating stuff, thanks for that!! And yep I’m familiar with the Chesapeake impactor which fell during the Eocene something like ~33mya. Was a 1-2km bolide IIRC, certainly wouldn’t be a great time for us would that repeat today!

Have you heard about the Australasian Strewnfield from less than 1mya?? It may have impacted an active volcano on the Bolaven Plateau in SE Asia, and subsequent lava flows buried the crater. It’s an insane possibility and one of the most fascinating subjects in recent geologic history. It was a relatively large impact event. Here’s a paper on it I read recently:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1904368116

And of course the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis had me hook line and sinker for a while, just because the possibility of a large airburst event significantly bigger than Tunguska only thousands of years ago is extremely intellectually appealing. But it’s heavily, heavily contentious and it’s not necessary to explain the Younger Dryas cooling excursion. The final pulse of melting from the Laurentide shutting down the AMOC is sufficient to explain that. Of course it could’ve still happened and simply not been the primary driver of the cooling episode, but again the supposed platinum anomalies found at Clovis culture sites from the time period are heavily disputed in literature. I always find that in and of itself kind of crazy, that material is either “there” or it isn’t. But I suspect that’s a major oversimplification. That sort of material analysis isn’t really my forte. 

12 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

In spite of all this, the NYC-Long Island-NJ area was hit by a megahurricane sometime in the 1400s in the "pre Columbian era."

 

I had heard this in passing, do we have any estimations on intensity? Speculation?

I had also read a very strong hurricane hit our area in I believe 1815 (or thereabouts, just going from memory). 

Seems like for a hurricane to maintain serious intensity up to our latitude it must have tremendous forward speed to dampen any weakening before landfall, which I believe checks out with estimations at least for the 19th century storm I read about. 

Weren’t the great LIE hurricane and Great Atlantic hurricane of ‘38 and ‘44 also very quick movers? Again, that sort of appears to be a pre-requisite for high intensity hurricanes up to this latitude, which does make sense. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the Little Ice Age and have wondered for a long time what winters here would’ve been like , especially the earlier period 4-500 years ago, prior to colonization. 

I mean, if you take ~1C off the 1850-1900 baseline, you’re talking the possibility that the entire EC was extremely snowy. The only real contention here that makes sense is that it may have been colder and significantly drier, so perhaps averages weren’t too crazily different. But I have to believe during the coldest and stormiest decades of that period, this area had to be regularly pulling down 40-60 inches and probably had multiple seasons above our snowiest of the past hundred years or so. Again, perhaps the cold was offset by drier air overall and the region saw more frequent less amplified systems that perhaps didn’t drop snow as heavily as amplified storms do today with the oceans the way they are now. I had always heard the North Atlantic was an icebox during much of the LIA. 

If you go back to before the start of the Holocene (which wasn’t that long ago, crazily enough), the Laurentide ice sheet extended to NYC’s present location. Glaciers are compacted snowfall that doesn’t melt the rest of the year and compiles over centuries and millenia. Go back far enough and the area might just be the winter wonderland I dream of .

But seriously, I have to imagine there were periods of the LIA that were extremely prolific for snowfall throughout the Mid Atlantic and New England. 

This is an excellent article from my favorite science blog on the internet (covers much more than just volcanology) that discusses this subject and touches on the LIA with some interesting speculation. It’s a very good read. 

https://www.volcanocafe.org/ice-age/

13.8, think that’s my low on the season so far. 

Welp, was nice while it lasted. Fun week. 

27 minutes ago, coastalplainsnowman said:

I think part of that is just the fact that it is the coast, and just the way it goes sometimes around here.    It also seems like this winter isn't so atrocious so far once you get away from the immediate coast.  The talk here has been so doom and gloom generally (edit: among the amateur / snow fan crowd like myself), that looking at the totals posted above, I was actually surprised to see how many within this forum's 'viewing area' are near or well over a foot.  Just asking aloud here, Is that map so far off from norms for January 21st, again, just away from the coast?  Even right at the coast, what's normal for this point in the season?  Can't be more than 6-8" at best.  

 

Fair points, but I just want to mention that averages include all seasons including La Niña “shutouts.” I guess we can debate if this Niño was too strong ultimately, but central based (the forcing has been CP, right?) Niño’s with periods of polar favorability should yield more snow than the reverse, and thus I don’t always personally agree with going by averages to contextualize a season. Some seasons are above average, or the average would be lower. And those seasons are generally favorable ENSO state with a cooperative polar domain. I say it like this because even back in the prior -PDO cycle decades ago we snowed regularly with an unfavorable Pac (-PNA), due to -AO/-NAO pulling its weight.

Just IMHO. 

And of course, it snows less at the coast than the elevated interior. But we still get snow here. We still have had outstanding seasons and outstanding single storms. But I do think WRT snow at the coast it’s more about temperature, because it needs to be cold to offset any imperfections with the synoptics of the storm or track itself. The coast is far more temperature sensitive than inland, elevated areas. We just had a BN week and the coast snowed twice. 

6 minutes ago, wdrag said:

NYC nearby interior suburbs. Tuesday night: small chance of icing from a bit of sleet or rain refreezing on frozen ground. Ensemble ice graphic added. Noting the EPS has the freezing rain as well. 

Sunday the 28th-Wednesday the 31st: One or possibly two hazardous wintry events of snow and/or ice. Vast uncertainty on when-what. While not favored for snow in NYC, I think there is a chance for a half inch of snow at CP as a start.  Pattern somewhat similar to that of Friday but without cold air in advance, so this will have to be with the departing mid Atlantic coastal low.  No attendant graphics at this time and no thread since I think the risk for light to moderate extensive event from BWI-ALB-BOS is inland from I95. I've seen yesterdays comments-stats on unlikely and we'll leave it at no chance snowstorm NYC but I do think a wintry event is coming, at least to our interior Sunday night or Monday. 

I add several graphics: One is the chance of ice Tuesday night. (maybe a better chance of ice pellets-snow flurries at the start in NYC than any ice?).  

And Tomer Burgs excellent graphics on the so called snow hole.  I'm on another group that discusses science. Snow holes are random.  DC-BWI-PHl are getting snow in this pattern and yet we may miss the rest of the winter but each event has its own set of difficulty.  RANDOM on the NYC snow hole-probably--just not enough stats on these snow holes. Another is apparently ongoing in MN.  

I'm pretty sure some on here were disbelieving the potential with Fifdays event and NO was right for NYC and probably again this period of 1/28-31, but I think it worth  monitoring. I'm pretty sure something wintry happens in NYC 28-31. No thread from me on this yet.  Additionally ensemble modeling continues pretty good qpf here the rest of month 1.5-2", the big 4+ flooding stuff in the Gulf Coast states. 

Just looking at snowfall to date the strip of purple to blue at the immediate coast from Boston all the way to DC is pretty crazy. I hadn’t realized the Cape & CT coast are pretty much in the same position as the immediate NYC metro. Shows how the warmth is a problem all the way to Boston along the immediate coast, though them doing a touch better is of course expected.

Really hoping something works out in Feb. 

This week has averaged 24.1 degrees for me, so a very wintry week. January MTD is 33.3, no doubt dragged down by this very cool week. 

Last January the month averaged 41.5 for me. 

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

You should change your name to Stormtracker Ant.

Seriously, ever since you became MJO812 we have not had MJO 8,1, OR 2 for more than a very brief period.

 

@40/70 Benchmark’s suggestion to change his name to MJO456 was legendarily funny. It still cracks me up. 

Poor guy, he needs a proper damn storm (as do we all!). 

Whatever happens from this point on, I’m grateful for the week of actual winter we had. Cool to cold, two separate mild snowfall events within a few days, and I’ve actually retained much of what fell going back to Tuesday. In a warm winter, this is pretty great. 

I agree with Justin that if you’re a turbo weenie and need more, take a trip north. My wife and I are going to Vermont or NH for my birthday in mid Feb. We’re going on a hiking / snow shoeing trip (and no matter where we go we’re definitely stopping by The Alchemist brewery, that’s been on my bucket list for ages!) and just want to get up into the mountains and into some deep snow. Really looking forward to it!

We’ve just been so damn unlucky the past two years it’s hard to be surprised by the fact that we’re staring down yet another warm and highly unfavorable period. All we can do is hope for some chances, a bit of luck, and that we’ll catch at least one more favorable period before winter’s end. 

At the very least the winter hasn’t been a complete shutout in the vein of last season. We’ll see where things go from here. 

I made it to 15. Surprisingly not my coldest season to date, which is 14. 

I hadn’t paid much attention to forecasted temps but I assumed I’d break that with the snowcover everywhere. 

Absolutely beautiful out this morning:

About 4 here. 27/25 right now. 

5 minutes ago, mikeysed said:

Yet Upton lowered amounts

 

That’s in feet. 

Lightened up considerably here now, very light snow essentially a flurry. 

However I’m thrilled to see that heavier band pushing north to you guys. Get it! I can share!

Moderate snow with noticeably fatter flakes than Tuesday. Probably will end up in a great spot here for this, 30/28 currently. 

Good luck up north, I really hope this does better than it looks to be and gets you guys a couple inches+.
 

It’s coming…

5 minutes ago, wdrag said:

A possible statistical 3AM reality check.  Chance of snow exceeding 1". Brown starts  80%.  I think where its brown, is also a very good chance of 2+.  The rest is yours to debate. It should snow an inch into Fairfield Litchfield counties. maybe spotty 2"?

Thank you Walt. Do you have any thoughts on where the NWS is getting their aggressive forecast from? Are they banking on high ratios or expect over performance? They must see something to issue the numbers they did. 

Just checked again and northeast NJ in the teal section of your map is still showing a forecast of 2-3 inches, as one example.

Mainly just curious if you have a read on this. Thanks for your time as always!

3 minutes ago, Allsnow said:

You will do really well with this today. 3-4 

Thanks man! Hope so, I’m well west of the Parkway so hopefully avoiding the mix at the immediate coast. We’ll see. Was hoping all of CNJ cashes in to make up for the first N only event. 

29/23 here now. 

Good luck dude!

45 minutes ago, dseagull said:

First flakes are falling here on Barnegat Bay.   31.7

While 4-6 is being called for, I'd be surprised if we don't mix for a period of time between 11 and 2 on the water.  

Everything else looks good for our biggest snowfall in the past two years.  Very interested in watching the live breakdown of where the IVT sets up and if any actual banding sets up for a brief bit. 

I saw earlier they expected mixing east of the parkway up to approximately Monmouth / Ocean line. Not sure if that’s still the case as things have shifted around prior to Go time, but I do think you’ll definitely see decent accumulation. Good luck!

No flakes here yet to your north, about ten miles inland on the TR / Manchester border. 

2 hours ago, SRRTA22 said:

No matter what we get, this week was AWESOME. Cold and snowy. 

Who cares how much we get...enjoy it 

Yep, I loved this week. I enjoy the cold and need more than just snow followed by immediate warmth. So regardless of relatively tame snow totals, this was such a refreshing week of actual winter for me and it’ll get me through if the remaining season is terrible and warm. 

4 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

Where are they getting these forecasts from. Models don't show more than 3" across the entire area. 

I would go with 1-3" area wide with local spots further south at 2-4"

Yeah that’s had me scratching my head. 4-6 inch WSW for me, but nothing is showing that. Must be betting on high ratio snowfall? Idk.