Volcanic Winter

Yeah. I genuinely don’t have any complaints given my latitude. We can do very well.

I lived in North Brunswick prior and grew up in central Monmouth. I honestly do alright by me. I’m very recessed from the ocean and on the western border of TR and Manchester. On my Tempest, my overnight lows are readily well below the city. Already been down to 19F this Dec. from a temperature standpoint being near the Pine Barrens helps tremendously and I tend to avoid immediate coast ocean influence with the exception of extreme onshore flow. I do miss north / south oriented storm cutoffs and the consistency of snow up north, but playing the lottery of coastal bombs often leaves me more than satisfied. 1/29/22 we got 16 inches and for the month wasnt far off 30 IIRC at my house. I’ll take it. If the ACY storm was further north a hair I would’ve added quite a bit more to total. I love playing the coastal bomb lottery here bc once in a while it pays off beautifully. With that said, I have long term plans to move into upstate Ny or NE. And I work just outside Newark, so I end up participating in more north NJ oriented events anyway. I def wouldn’t want to live on the extreme coast as my parents do, I definitely live in a sweet spot for the southern part of central NJ. The temperature difference from My house to theirs is rather extreme at times, and I tend to get much more snow than them.

The increase in number of 50+ degree days is very, very telling. It’s also much greater than I would’ve anticipated, that’s a huge jump.

The point is historically we have a colder climate here, so it’s frustrating for someone who loves snow and cold. Of course things are different today when we have accelerated warming relative to other areas of the country. NJ I believe is 2.9F over pre-industrial? That’s huge. We’re not Canada but neither are we the southeast. I think it’s reasonable to expect to have “a winter,” but of course between subjectivity of what that means and warming that’s becoming less and less reasonable. Not to get tangential; in the Pleistocene the Laurentide extended to 40N, NYC. NA was able to extend its glaciers very far south. When I drive to work and see Manhattan I often try to visualize a fat glacier there instead, it’s wild. Not to ramble, I just mean we shouldn’t have to hug a Leprechaun every time it snows here. I do wonder how much longer the warming SST’s will pump up our snow totals instead of hurting them by warming the air mass too much. Is that a near future threat you think?

Cocked, locked, and ready for duty!

HTHH did not inject the stratosphere with the sulfur loading typical of an eruption this size. It injected about 1/40th the sulfur of Pinatubo (a similar sized but more traditionally magmatic and gassy large eruption), but as you mentioned, injected a massive amount of water vapor. Apparently 1/10th of the total that normally resides up there was added via this eruption. Pinatubo caused jet stream disturbances in addition to significant cold anomalies for several years after 1991, but the traditional process for accomplishing that is via sulfur aerosols. HTHH injected more water vapor than anything else in the satellite era. The effect will be... ? Analyzed in retrospect most likely. Put me down, however, for wishing HTHH was a more traditional large eruption with a larger sulfur flux. But I absolutely agree with and believe there will be an additional 'chaos' element in the climate system for a couple years due to this event.

Yeah it's a total blast, swinging between jacked to the tits and crestfallen is definitely healthy lol.

But don’t you all just love a good underdog story?

The 1810’s are supposed to be the coldest decade of recorded history, after the 1808/9 eruption and Tambora in 1815. The late 1700’s had some incredible cold, too.

Early mid 80’s and 94 also had some volcanic aerosol forcing, FYI. It’s a part of it, but of course not all of it. Otherwise I completely agree, I don’t see how analogues prior to the last twenty years make much sense anymore.

I don’t want to derail but will just acknowledge that this is definitely true, and also a big part of the reason there are so many people who hear about AGW and go, “so what?” Back to the Goofus and Eurine show.

Depressing. Our new normal for the majority of the year is soon to be shorts and swamp ass.

It’s the most upsetting aspect of how our climate is evolving. On balance, I wouldn’t care as much if we get mild patterns if we also continued to have actual winters. But they’re evaporating, fast. If you dig through historical records as I’ve done from a volcanology perspective, it gets extremely depressing how different things are today. 1-200 years is a geologic nanosecond and our climate is now vastly different, in the blink of an eye. How that doesn’t absolutely terrify every living soul on this planet BAFFLES me. This kind of rapid change is unprecedented outside of acute global events like bolide impacts. Even the flood basalt eruptions that cooked the planet to end the Permian took thousands of years.

I see a glass half full of vodka.

How do I order the E24? Is there like a number I can call?

Yeah, it just needs to happen though. I told my wife for this Xmas to either plan for 30+ inches of snow or we're having a Hawaiian Xmas luau. I think our bases are covered.

That’s MJO right? Nah honestly his enthusiasm is keeping my positive, hopeful vibe in place and amplified. Had to vent some general disappointment but I’m ready to rock the end of this month. I want to be outside in my boxers making snow angels on my front lawn by Xmas. Edit: And I will accept nothing less. No pressure, just gimme some damn snow.

True of course, but we can all do reasonably well together with the right storm in the right air. If 1/29/22 built back a bit further inland, it would’ve been epic for everyone not just NE. Still got 16 inches here and it was the best storm for me in a while, 22F early AM with perfect powder. Beautiful.

And of course Dec is not climatologically ideal for most of our area until the very end, with some exceptions; but I think the hope this year was for an ‘anomalously’ cooler and snowier Dec based on the modeling toward the end of Nov, not that it’s something to ever expect. Believe me I know Dec usually sucks for us, I’m very adjusted to Hawaiian themed Xmas parties.

Nah, I get it. This sucks. The surge of AGW the past 20 years has turned our winters into a literal slot machine that either only eats your money or hits the jackpot with little middle ground, with the rare exception of a few winters with multiple jackpots. It feels very all or nothing anymore, and that was true for me before I signed up here. The thing that’s most frustrating, and of course this could just be bias, it always seems like when the models show favorability it doesn’t materalize, but when they show an unfavorable set up - lock it in and cash the check. It’s very frustrating.

Difference between coastal and “immediate coast.” I live about 10-15 miles inland from the ocean down here in NJ, but I currently have 26 on my Tempest relative to the ~40 it looks like the immediate shoreline has. Doesn’t help if the storm track is far inland only, but I do well often when the immediate coast is rain. It does seem to make a difference.

Wow, it’s 28 here on my Tempest down in my part of Toms River. Feels proper wintry, except it’s going to be a warm, wet mess all week.

If it is I’m coming to Brooklyn and buying you a round.

Spectacular footage of a co-ignimbrite plume at Semeru volcano today, after a relatively large eruptive event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jNKG4AnzPY Now if we could get one that’s about 50x larger and up another 8-10km into the atmosphere (this topped out at 15km), we may have ourselves a winter yet boys!