bluewave

Yeah, the faster arrival of spring leaf out since 1981 is located to your south and east. Some of the earlier blooming flowers were damaged near the I -78 corridor back in late March.

The back and forth pattern continues as we are going from the 80s today to possible higher elevation snows early next week. Record warmth in early March to record cold at the end of the month. Cooler start to April before the record warmth today. So plenty of volatility with these rapid wavelength changes.

Newark tied the record high of 88°. RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK, NY 0247 PM EDT THU APR 14 2022 ...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE TIED AT NEWARK LIBERTY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT... A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 88 WAS TIED AT NEWARK NJ TODAY. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 88 SET IN 1941. RECORDS GO BACK TO THE YEAR 1931 AT THIS CLIMATE STATION.

The average high during the last week of April is in the upper 60s. So we usually find a way to at least make the 70s on the warmest days. But the SE Ridge will be dueling with the -AO block. This means that we will have competing highs to our north and south with a backdoor front nearby. It will be interesting to see if we can sneak in our next 80° then or the high to the north caps the maxes in the 60s and 70s.

The 80°+temperatures will be able to push further east today on more of a SW flow. Looks like the back and forth pattern of the spring will continue a while longer. Storm system for early next week could hug the coast. There is a chance that the higher elevations of the interior could see some wet snow. The models are hinting at a warm up for the last week of April. We’ll have to wait and see if this just means 60s and 70s or we can rival the 80° warmth of this week in the warmer spots. Today will be warmest day for a while Coastal hugger early next week with possible high elevation snow Next warm up moving east for last week of April

Numerous research teams are working on how to commercialize solid-state battery technology. https://cleantechnica.com/2022/04/11/nissan-nasa-to-take-on-solid-state-battery-challenge/ The solid-state battery is the Holy Grail of energy storage technology. It is projected to cost less than traditional lithium-ion batteries, have higher energy density, charge faster, and last longer. In other words, it is the “magic bullet” the world is waiting for to make the EV and energy storage revolutions complete. There’s only one problem. The solid-state battery doesn’t exist outside of the laboratory yet. Research into how to make it in commercial quantities is going on in hundreds of places around the world. Toyota says it is getting close. QuantumScape and StoreDot say they are almost there. CATL, LG Energy Solutions, SK Innnovation, and Samsung SDI are all hot on the trail. Now Nissan and NASA say they will team up to crack this particular nut using “computational materials science,” which is code for running zillions of computer models in the hopes of finding something that works. Most solid-state battery research today is focused on replacing the semi-liquid slurry that separates the internal components of conventional lithium-ion battery — which makes them look a little like a jellyroll when you slice them open. That goop is what burns when batteries overheat. It also increases the cost of batteries because it must be dried in the production process, which takes time, lots of energy, and requires a great deal of factory space. According to ArsTechnica, the Nissan/NASA collaboration will go beyond finding new solid materials to separate the anode from the cathode. They want to find ways to replace the raw materials used in today’s batteries completely — things like nickel, cobalt, manganese, and all the other minerals that require specialized mining techniques and are subject to wild commodity price swings. For instance, the price of nickel has more than doubled since the January, causing most manufacturers to raise the price of their electric cars at a time when economies of scale should be driving prices down. Nissan says it will have a pilot production facility to begin making batteries based on the new research by 2024 and expects cars powered by the next generation batteries to be available to customers by 2028, according to Detroit News. The new battery is expected to be half the size of today’s batteries and capable of charging in 15 minutes, although Nissan doesn’t say whether that performance will be possible with Level 2 charging equipment, as opposed to Level 3 DC fast chargers. Nissan vice president Kazuhiro Doi told the press this week, “Both NASA and Nissan need the same kind of battery.” Nissan and NASA will use what is called an “original material informatics platform” — a computerized database of hundreds of thousands of materials — to see which ones will work best to create new battery technologies. The battery development program will include researchers from the University of California San Diego. There is no guarantee that Nissan and NASA will achieve their goal, or that some other battery researchers won’t get a solid-state battery into production before they do. The good news for EV enthusiasts is better, cheaper, and faster charging batteries are coming. And when they arrive, the transition to affordable carbon-free transportation will accelerate dramatically.

If this solid-state battery technology works out, then we could begin to see much wider acceptance of EVs in the future. Faster charging times, improved safety, and lower cost than the current battery technology. Then we’ll just need to build out the charging infrastructure. Cell towers rapidly expanded once everybody wanted to have a cell phone.

Looks like it’s related to the record SSTs north of Australia and around Indonesia. So a continuation of this persistent La Niña background state. Unprecedented rainfall in Australia during recent months producing the extreme flash flooding. Models are forecasting a big drop in the IOD this summer. This would enhance the La Niña and contribute to an active hurricane season for the Atlantic. It also means that we could be on track for a rare 3rd year La Niña for next winter.

Brian Brettschneider has a great series of tweets showing how the humid subtropical climate shifted north into parts of our area on the new 1991-2020 climate normals update.

Yeah, this has been the deepest upper low for portions of the West in April. The raw -PNA values don’t really do this system justice. Impressive SOI rise for so late in the season.

it looks like the first few wave power stations are beginning to get built.

Models continuing with the big weather swings theme. 80s for the warm spots the next few days. Then the GEM and Euro have a storm for next week with coastal rains and maybe some high elevation interior snows mixed in.

Yeah, it has been rough for a number of people that I know. Earlier start to the season and more intense. They are even working on a new pollen forecast model.

Denmark has been getting close to 50% of their energy from mostly wind power. January set an all-time record of 68%. But places like Iceland are nearly all renewable from hydropower and geothermal.

Yeah, very innovative thinking and design.

Earlier start to spring and overall warmer conditions. https://theconversation.com/pollen-season-is-getting-longer-and-more-intense-with-climate-change-heres-what-allergy-sufferers-can-expect-in-the-future-179158

Maybe we can beat the high temperature guidance today with the warm downslope flow and low dewpoints.

That’s exactly what Denmark is working on right now with their new renewable energy islands concept.

Today should be our first 70°+ day of April as we get into a warm downslope flow. We got off to the 2nd highest number of 70° days by the start of spring. But have fallen pretty far back in the pack by April 11th.The recent leaders like 2012 and 2010 were already into double digits by today. So the same theme of an early start to spring getting interrupted by late season blocking. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Number of Days Max Temperature >= 70 Jan 1 to Mar 21 Missing Count 1 2012-03-21 6 0 2 2022-03-21 4 0 - 2020-03-21 4 0 - 1990-03-21 4 0 - 1946-03-21 4 0 - 1945-03-21 4 0 Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Ending Date Number of Days Max Temperature >= 70 Jan 1 to Apr 11 Missing Count 1 1945-04-11 15 0 2 2012-04-11 11 0 3 2010-04-11 10 0

Beyond the general idea that this week will be warmer than next week, week 3 is always very uncertain. So I will delete the maps beyond day 15.

Warmer pattern this week before a cooler blocking pattern returns for next week. EPS Apr 11-18 Apr 18-25

Record -PNA trough out West is taking a bunch of trees down in Portland with the historic late season snowfall.

The humid subtropical zone has shifted north but it stops near the Bronx/Westchester line.

The blooms should be nice this week as Newark is on track for its first 80°+ of the season by Thursday.