Volcanic Winter

1/29 saved it for me down here. Good storm for the NJ coast and LI. Happy at least many of you near the city overperformed a bit on that one. Was for sure the most fun event of the winter and it was a blast tracking it with you all.

BRB moving to Hyde Park.

Can confirm, I’m right near Newark and it feels like early June.

It’s depressing, is what it is. Temperature consistency is better than constant wild swings between cold and warm in the winter. Swinging between something like -5 and +10 is just ridiculous in the winter. Yes, there are always warmups, it’s more the intensity and consistency that makes it so obnoxious. This is not the southeast, historically winters here are cold, even all of New Jersey. Our records are all below zero. It feels like we’re shifting toward a southeast climate with the ridge intensifying and moving north so often and so powerfully. This is probably slightly exaggerative but it feels like 14 and 15 were a “last hurrah” of real, long duration proper winters for this area. I would be overjoyed to see it again but I’m not betting on it anytime soon. Very happy we had this January but even that had warmups right after the snowfall that offset the winter vibe too much. I wonder if at some point in the next hundred to two hundred years we’ll see a temporary cold shift like a weak Younger Dryas from Greenland freshwater melt further weakening the AMOC. Definitely won’t be anything near as sharp as the YD because the Laurentide had far more meltwater than Greenland, but I’d be surprised if there isn’t a relatively brief anomalous cold period upcoming before we rocket headlong into +3 to +4C. Too bad it’s almost certainly to be after our lifetimes, if at all.

The way I interpret this Snowman is that it’s a pattern conducive to snow. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course that doesn’t mean a snowstorm here is likely or will happen by any means; just that it could. It’s good enough for me.

A trackable high power storm would be a dream, but I’d gladly take a 1-2” widespread coating event. Just want to see a little more cold white stuff before I go back to sweating like a maniac for six months in work attire.

My hero. Looking spicy!

Thanks Bluewave. Let me get one more decent cold shot mid month and I’ll be happy to call this winter a wrap, snow or no snow. Just want to be reminded I don’t live in South Carolina.

By all means, cheer on warmth once we get to April. For now, anomalous warmth in March only further reinforces our new climate realities and I absolutely cannot find excitement for it. Whether I prefer the cold or not, it’s just sad to me. I mean this sincerely even if you’re a warm weather person; enjoy the seasonality while we can still get it here. The way things have been since 2015 is alarming, at least to me.

I don’t think historically the NYC area is a bad area for snow, it almost certainly isn’t as good now as it was for the majority of the last millennium as we are at a much higher baseline temperature. This should affect NYC more than Boston at this point, with more borderline rain events and more frequently falling on the wrong side of the temperature gradient. I can’t comment on how historical storm tracks might’ve looked, but I’d be willing to bet going back 4-500 years this area had way less rain events and more frequent snow events, in storms and systems that would likely produce rain here now. I’d be so curious about historical records from before the 1880s, but actual data is sparse. I’m wondering if it was colder and dryer or colder and snowier. Having better data from the time of the LIA would’ve been fascinating, as it had already ended according to most by the 1850’s / 1860’s. Totally different climatological situation of course. Edit: I’m not really talking about those massive historic 20” + events, as that could be tied to the warming SSTs, but just the frequency of average / moderate snowfall events.

Leaving work early today in Hillside trees and some surfaces looked encased in glass. Roads have been fine with some accretion on side walks and untreated driveways.

I was in North Brunswick at the time. My then girlfriend / future wife and I were snowed in by 4+ foot snow drifts in our ground floor apartment. Was absolutely insane. That storm also was phenomenal where we live now down in Ocean. A true coastal snow bomb.

Major temperature drop going to work between TR and near Newark. 42 down to 33. Moderately heavy rain.

I’ll never forget that run. Garbage or not seeing a model pump out a map like that was insane. Especially since forecasters were having difficulty latching onto the most likely outcome, that run had me spitting out my coffee. It’s okay to have some fun with this, I knew it was extremely unlikely. Most of us are here because we love weather and appreciate snow, so seeing those pretty colors was exciting even if only briefly. There was so much uncertainty with that storm it was more than just a hypothetical “what if”.

If only the Nam did the best with 1/29 and we all got 70 inches.

Eventually the increasing base warmth will win out. Any good March from here on out should be appreciated for what it is. I wasn’t tracking winter weather as closely a few years back but March 2018 was following a monster SSW right?

It’s awful. Eventually I’m getting out of here. North Jersey is great but I’d probably be happiest up in New Hampshire or Maine. Some day. Feels less and less likely I’ll see another winter like 14 and 15 around here, where we had both long duration cold and actual persisting snowpack. A rarity for my area but possible (though never to the extent as up north, of course). This January was great for me and we had one amazing storm and a couple decent ones, but even with a BN month the melt was tenacious. That’s why it doesn’t touch what we experienced here in the middle of last decade, but that was apparently a pretty good outlier for how things are these days.

With respect to temperatures how are the next two weeks looking overall?

Was nice to have a major snow event in Ocean County NJ this winter. We haven’t had a major snowfall since 2018. The Feb 1 2021 storm we had I think 5-6 inches while where I work got 18ish. Been a tough few winters for me. Could do with one more even few inch event but not looking especially likely at this point. Hoping for one more coastal where we do very well with the right track. Hopefully you city guys get some snow from this and those in northern NJ and HV do well.

It’s a very fascinating subject I wish more people looked into with interest. It’s actually incredible how many regional and worldwide events were influenced by large scale volcanism, and completely unknowingly until recent times. The easy ones are Thera (the Minoan eruption) and Vesuvius 79AD, but there have been many away from population centers that completely borked the climate for several years and caused massive crop failures leading to famines, disease, and political unrest. The Tierra Blanco Joven eruption around 530’s (Wiki) AD lead to one of the worst climate disasters in history, the massive Samalas / Rinjani eruption in 1257ish AD, the speculative Kuwae eruption in the 1450s, Huaynaputina in 1600, and then of course Laki, Tambora, and Krakatau. There are many more as well, most with slightly lesser effects. Pinatubo was the most recent significant volcanic climate alteration for a couple years in the 90s. It’s the most interesting earth sciences topic I’ve ever studied, personally (along with paleo-geology / tectonics and of course meteorology).

Forky man, just get me one more snow event here at the NJ coast and I’m good, I promise. Trying to quit the cold white stuff but it’s very difficult.

Bear in mind the LIA is postulated to have ended around 1850. The last “pulse” was aided by the massive eruption of Tambora in 1815 along with a preceding yet unknown very large sulphurous eruption in 1808/9. While the late 1800’s were definitely colder than now (especially around the time of the eruption of Krakatau in 1883), things were beginning to warm up on average and for certain they had anomalously warm temperatures at times, though of course less often than we do now. Depends on how you look at it. I always found some of the years of the 1930’s fascinating as you had extreme record warmth and then horrific cold months apart in the same calendar year.

I like the runs that show more snow in central / coastal NJ. Brb, placing my order with the GFS.

@JustinRP37 The physics of this are clear and undeniable, yet for some people science is an opinion and not the process of finding truth. More people should study paleo-geology and volcanology. It’s clear the impact CO2 has on the climate system as there have been massive flood basalt eruptions in ancient eras that have caused extreme temperature cascades from CO2 levels in excess of 2000PPM. The planet was nearly sterilized in the Permian Mass Extinction. Trying not to digress too far from the topic. Getting pretty hyped for March at this point. Trying to stay realistic but feeling that tingle of excitement that we may have some good chances left this winter along with more of my preferred colder conditions.

We’re doing a great job of that ourselves without the help of Mother Nature. We’ve really borked the carbon cycle.