bluewave

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

Even with the lows under 25° For two days, there was only some damage to the early blooms.

Those were the old days when we used to get westerly flow heatwaves combined with extreme drought.

April 2002 set expectations unreasonably high with 4 days in a row reaching the 90s. 4/16 92 in 2002 88 in 2012 88 in 2003 4/17 97 in 2002 88 in 1976 83 in 1941 4/18 93 in 2002 93 in 1976 85 in 1964 4/19 92 in 1976 91 in 2002 89 in 1985

The warm front is further north now for Thursday than it was on the older runs. This means that the highs for the warmer parts of the region will reach the mid to upper 70s if the clouds and showers get in the way. But if places like NJ can get more sun, then the 850 mb temps support low 80s. So it’s a conditional forecast based on if we can clear out during peak daytime heating. New run Old run

The record cold at the end of March was a real outlier. Our area is pretty close to average for the first 9 days of April. Just enough SE Ridge influence to push the coldest temperatures to our west.

Less high pressure over New England now for Thursday so the warm front can push further north. 12z EPS today 12z run yesterday

We surpassed the 1930s records in 2010 and 2011 at Newark and Harrison. The Newark thermometer malfunctioned in 2010 so it didn’t record the high temperature. Harrison reached 106° while the Newark thermometer stopped working. The next year in 2011 Newark made it to 108° while Harrison was 107°. The tree growth over the NYC sensor has kept the high temperatures artificially cooler than the other stations. The NYC thermometer was out in the open away from the tress in the 1930s. So we can’t really compare the recent NYC high temperatures before the new ASOS was installed under the trees in the 1990s. The all-time record heat in 2011 was a result of the record drought in the Southern Great Plains along with the warming climate. The 1930s records were largely due to the land practices of the time. We have created an artificial cooling oasis to our west over the Upper Plains into the Mid-west since then with the heavy irrigation and all the planted corn. So our summer air masses are traversing this wetter and more humid region. This is the opposite of allowing all the top soil to blow away during the 1930s and creating a much drier region for the flow to originate from. Those 1930s land practices and present day warmer climate could have produced temperatures in excess of 110° here with a westerly flow summer like 2011. The Dust Bowl was an early example of humans altering the Great Plains climate through land degradation. We had a big hand in the magnitude of the record heat. Now we are cooling the region through our farming practices. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16676-w The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world. https://www.science.org/content/article/america-s-corn-belt-making-its-own-weather The United States’s Corn Belt is making its own weather By Kimberly HickokFeb. 16, 2018 , 12:05 PM The Great Plains of the central United States—the Corn Belt—is one of the most fertile regions on Earth, producing more than 10 billion bushels of corn each year. It’s also home to some mysterious weather: Whereas the rest of the world has warmed, the region’s summer temperatures have dropped as much as a full degree Celsius, and rainfall has increased up to 35%, the largest spike anywhere in the world. The culprit, according to a new study, isn’t greenhouse gas emissions or sea surface temperature—it’s the corn itself. This is the first time anyone has examined regional climate change in the central United States by directly comparing the influence of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, says Nathan Mueller, an earth systems scientist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who was not involved with this study. It’s important to understand howagricultural activity can have “surprisingly strong” impacts on climate change, he says. The Corn Belt stretches from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio. The amount of corn harvested in this region annually has increased by 400% since 1950, from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. Iowa leads the country for the most corn produced per state. To see whether this increase in crops has influenced the region’s unusual weather,researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge used computers to model five different 30-year climate simulations, based on data from 1982 to 2011. First, they compared simulations with high levels of intense agriculture to control simulations with noagricultural influence. Unlike the real-life climate changes, the control simulations showed no change in temperature or rainfall. But 62% of the simulations with intense agriculture resulted in temperature and rainfall changes that mirror the observed changes, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters. Map of the central United States, showing changes in rainfall during the last third of the 20th century. Areas of increased rainfall are shown in green, with darker colors representing a greater increase. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY The team then compared its results to historical global simulations from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international program for the coordination of global climate research sponsored by the International Council for Science, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. WCRP’s models take into account greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and humanmade influences, but do not consider agricultural land use. When researchers ran the numbers for the Corn Belt, the global models fell short of reality: They predicted both temperature and humidity to increase slightly, and rainfall to increase by up to 4%—none of which matches the observed changes. Other climate simulations that use sea surface temperature variation didn’t match observed changes, either. Those simulations matchedhistorical data until 1970; after that, the simulations predicted temperatures to keep increasing, rather than decreasing as they did in reality. This is a strong indication that agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature, caused the regional changes in climate during the last third of the 20th century, the researchers say. “The [influence] of agriculture intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ross Alter, lead author of the study and now a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Alter says, heavy agriculture likely counteracted rising temperatures regionally that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One other place that shows a similar drop in temperatures, he notes, is eastern China, where intensive agriculture is widespread. But how does agriculture cause increased rainfall and decreased temperatures? The team suspects it has to do with photosynthesis, which leads to more water vapor in the air. When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbondioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape. This increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. The cycle may continue as that rainwater eventually moves back into the atmosphere and causes more rainfall downwind from the original agricultural area. Rong Fu, a climate scientist at UC Los Angeles, agrees with the team’s assessment. She alsothinks that though human influence might be “greater than we realize,” this regional climate change is probably caused by many factors,including increased irrigation in the region. “This squares with a lot of other evidence,” says Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University, who calls the new study convincing. But he warns that such benefits may not last if greenhouse gas emissions eventually overpower the mitigating effect of agriculture. Alter agrees, and says it’s unlikely that the large increases in U.S. crop production during the 20th century will continue. Other scientists have voiced concern that agricultural production could soon be reaching its limit in many parts of the world. “Food production is arguably what we’re more concerned about with climate change,” Mueller says. And understanding how agriculture and climate will continue to affect one another is crucial for developing projections for both climate and agricultural yields. “It’s not just greenhousegasses that we need to be thinking about.”

2021 was the warmest year on record for the Gulf of Maine. https://gmri.org/stories/warming-21/ With an annual average sea surface temperature (SST) of 54.14 °F — more than 4 °F above normal — the Gulf of Maine experienced its warmest year on record in 2021. The region experienced the warmest fall on record and the second warmest summer, amid a marine heatwave event that lasted the entirety of 2021 — a first for the region. The annual average SST in the Gulf of Maine for 2021 was 54.14 °F; this was 4.17 °F above the long-term (i.e., 1982-2011) average. Last year topped the previous warmest year on record — 2012 — by a remarkable 0.5 °F. Since the early 1980s, the rate of warming in the Gulf of Maine has been nearly triple that of the world’s oceans.

Yeah, the SPC HREF did another very good job. It had 3.00”+ in NNJ which verified. The heaviest totals were always forecast to be just NW of NYC. But upper Manhattan managed to sneak in 2.00. The best we can ask for with convection is to get the general area of the max and amounts correct. Outside the max, it doesn’t really matter that much if the totals don’t exactly match up since the flood potential was lower in those areas anyway. The important part is that the guidance is good enough for the flood potential to outlined ahead of time. Ridgewood 3.79 in 0235 AM 04/08 CWOP Lyndhurst 3.75 in 0348 AM 04/08 Trained Spotter Ridgewood 3.67 in 1200 AM 04/08 Trained Spotter 1.8 N Wyckoff 3.49 in 0210 AM 04/08 COOP Fair Lawn 3.27 in 0240 AM 04/08 CWOP Oakland 3.10 in 0230 AM 04/08 CWOP Paramus 3.01 in 0245 AM 04/08 AWS Washington Heights 2.02 in 0240 AM 04/08 AWS

Fast pattern changes coming up on the models. Cool weekend is followed by a brief warm up next week. Then the blocking returns for a cooler week 2. So a stormy pattern for the US with a clash of air masses. Looks like the CONUS is already off to the fastest start to the spring tornado season in the Doppler era with the big temperature swings. EPS Apr 11-18 Apr 18-25

That video gets to what we see with all new research. The scientists need to secure funds from investors for further research. So it’s common for the headlines of the press releases to focus on the positives and minimize the challenges ahead. The last thing they want is for the investment money to dry up and then have to stop their research. We are still in the infancy of nuclear fusion research without any real way of knowing when or if it will pan out. The same can be said about the press releases by countries on how fast they are going to lower their emissions. Time after time we get these pledges of how fast they will transition to renewables. Only to hear that they are retiring their nuclear plants and substituting with dirty coal. The solar and wind targets hit snags since it’s a very complex process involving many moving parts and points of contention. But we don’t hear about these challenges at the press conference. Germany is one of the further along countries on the path to renewable energy and they have been missing their emissions targets.

Updated to the 3.79 max at Ridgewood, NJ https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=PNSOKX&e=202204080802 Ridgewood 3.79 in 0235 AM 04/08 CWOP

We could have used this pattern a few months ago.

Nearly all the basements in Long Beach flooded during the spring of 1983.

April 2007 was in a class by itself for one day spring rainfall. Maximum 1-Day Total Precipitation for NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Value Ending Date Period of record: 1869-01-01 to 2022-04-06 1 7.57 2007-04-15 2 4.97 2014-04-30 3 4.31 1983-04-10 4 3.42 1980-04-09 5 3.29 1983-04-16 6 2.82 2018-04-16 7 2.76 1984-04-05 8 2.74 1980-04-28 9 2.72 1909-04-14 10 2.52 1886-04-06

You can see the gradual progression to this summer pattern since 2010.

The Euro seasonal is going for a repeat of last summer. High dewpoint ridge east of New England. It could allow more tropical systems to get stuck underneath like we saw last summer. We had 2 tropical and 2 post tropical systems affect our region. There were a total of 21 named storms last year. The Euro has 18-19 named storms for this year. The big story for us was the historic flooding with Ida and Henri.

Looks like a brief taste of spring for several days next week. Highs should at least reach the 70s. But a few warmer Euro and GFS runs have 80s for the usual warm spots. This is followed by the return of more blocking and cooler temperatures. The clash of air masses will result in more severe potential across the U.S. Cool weekend Brief warm up next week Next cool down with more blocking

It could be a great technology if done cost effectively enough for widespread use. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-light-achieves-world-first-fusion-result-proving-unique-new-target-technology-301517509.html Fusion shown with projectile approach for first time, validated by UKAEA Breakthrough achieved faster and cheaper than traditional fusion approaches Unique target approach offers simpler pathway to low-cost fusion energy using existing plant technology Projectile approach enables a high-margin consumables business model with an addressable market in the hundreds of billions

Unusually strong closed low to our west from tomorrow into the weekend with all the blocking.

Large increase in Northeast rainfall and snowfall extremes as the SSTs rapidly warm and water vapor rises. https://phys.org/news/2018-07-extreme-precipitation-northeast.html From Maine to West Virginia, the Northeast has seen a larger increase in extreme precipitation than anywhere else in the U.S. Prior research found that these heavy rain and snow events, defined as a day with about two inches of precipitation or more, have been 53 percent higher in the Northeast since 1996. A Dartmouth study finds that hurricanes and tropical storms are the primary cause of this increase, followed by thunderstorms along fronts and extratropical cyclones like Nor'easters. The findings are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Our study provides insight into what types of extreme storms are changing and why. We found that hurricanes were responsible for nearly half of the increase in extreme rainfall across the Northeast. A warmer Atlantic Ocean and more water vapor in the atmosphere are fueling these storms, causing them to drop more rain over the Northeast," explains Jonathan M. Winter, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth and co-author of the study. "Other research has demonstrated that these two conditions have been enhanced in our warmer world," added Huanping Huang, a graduate student in earth sciences at Dartmouth and the study's lead author. The findings demonstrate that 88 percent of the extreme precipitation increase after 1996 was caused by large storms in Feb., March, June, July, Sept. and Oct. Hurricanes and tropical storms, also known as "tropical cyclones," accounted for nearly half, or 48 percent, of the increase in extreme rainfall. After 1996, the Northeast experienced almost four times more extreme rainfall events from hurricanes and tropical storms than from 1979-1995. Severe thunderstorms along "fronts," especially intense downpours along cold fronts, accounted for 25 percent of the increase in extreme precipitation. Nor'easters and other "extratropical cyclones," which are storms that form outside of the tropics, accounted for 15 percent of the increase in extreme precipitation. Other research has found that the causes of more frequent extreme precipitation events in this study—increased ocean temperatures, more water vapor in the atmosphere, and a wavier jet stream—are associated with a warmer world. These results build on the team's earlier research by examining what caused the increase in heavier or extreme precipitation beginning in 1996. The researchers analyzed precipitationdata from 1979 to 2016 across the Northeast— Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Mass., Conn., R.I., N.J., N.Y., Pa., Md., DC, Del., and W.Va. in conjunction with data pertaining to daily weather maps and oceanic and atmospheric fields. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/29/6/waf-d-14-00056_1.xml Abstract On 8–9 February 2013, the northeastern United States experienced a historic winter weather event ranking among the top five worst blizzards in the region. Heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions occurred from northern New Jersey, inland to New York, and northward through Maine. Storm-total snow accumulations of 30–61 cm were common, with maximum accumulations up to 102 cm and snowfall rates exceeding 15 cm h−1. Dual-polarization radar measurements collected for this winter event provide valuable insights into storm microphysical processes. In this study, polarimetric data from the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) in Upton, New York (KOKX), are investigated alongside thermodynamic analyses from the 13-km Rapid Refresh model and surface precipitation type observations from both Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground (mPING) and the National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Office in Upton, New York, for interpretation of polarimetric signatures. The storm exhibited unique polarimetric signatures, some of which have never before been documented for a winter system. Reflectivity values were unusually large, reaching magnitudes >50 dBZ in shallow regions of heavy wet snow near the surface. The 0°C transition line was exceptionally distinct in the polarimetric imagery, providing detail that was often unmatched by the numerical model output. Other features include differential attenuation of magnitudes typical of melting hail, depolarization streaks that provide evidence of electrification, nonuniform beamfilling, a “snow flare” signature, and localized downward excursions of the melting-layer bright band collocated with observed transitions in surface precipitation types. In agreement with previous studies, widespread elevated depositional growth layers, located at temperatures near the model-predicted −15°C isotherm, appear to be correlated with increased snowfall and large reflectivity factors ZH near the surface. https://www.weather.gov/okx/HistoricFlooding_081314 SUMMARY: An official, New York State 24 hour precipitation record was set at Islip, NY on August 12-13, 2014 with 13.57" of rain (See Public Information Statement). This breaks the previous record of 11.6" at Tannersville, NY on August 27-28, 2011 during Hurricane/Tropical storm Irene. 1.08" fell in just 8 minutes from 5:39 am to 5:47 am (See Islip, NY Rainfall Data)! An anomalously deep upper level trough was moving into the northeast the morning of August 13th, transporting deep moisture over Long Island. At the surface, a parent low pressure system was moving across southeast Canada, with secondary low development just south of New York City. Heavy precipitation focused along and just north of the warm front associated with the secondary low pressure system. The mean storm motion was parallel to the orientation of the warm front and was significant in helping maintain heavy rain over Islip, NY for several hours. Click the links below to view different aspects of this historical event.

We need a SW to W flow for our local area to reach 100°. This usually requires the ridge axis to build westward toward the Great Lakes. But the ridge axis during recent summers has been elongated to the east of New England. So we get more onshore flow and higher humidity instead of more 100° days. Our most extreme daily heat record in recent years occurred during February 2018. The SE Ridge built to record heights over the region for the entire cold season. This was associated with the 500 mb heights increase as outlined in the presentation at the start of the thread. It was the first time that our area experienced 80° record heat in February. https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/summer-february-80-massachusetts-78-nyc Astonishing summer-like heat cooked the Eastern U.S. on Wednesday, smashing all-time records for February warmth in cities in at least ten states, from Georgia to Maine. At least 24 cities recorded their hottest February temperature on record on Wednesday, including New York City (78°), Hartford, CT (74°) and Concord, NH (74°). According to Weather Underground weather historian Christopher C. Burt, February 20 - 21 marked the most extraordinary heat event to ever affect the Northeastern quadrant of the U.S. during the month of February, since official records began in the late 1800s. He catalogued the following eight states that tied or beat all-time February state heat records over the past two days, noting that in the case of Maine and Vermont, “It is simply amazing to beat a state temperature record by some 8°F!”:Pennsylvania: 83° at Capitol City (ties old record for the state)New York: 79° at La Guardia Airport (old state record 78°)Vermont: 77° at Bennington (old state record 68°)New Hampshire: 77° at Manchester and Danbury (old state record 72°)Maine: 77° at Wells (old state record 69°)New Jersey: 83° at Teterboro (old state record 80°)Massachusetts: 80° at Fitchburg (old state record 73°)Ohio: 80° at Cincinnati Lunken Airport (ties old record for the state)

During recent summers, the high has set up east of New England instead of near Bermuda like in the old days. So this allowed Hartford to record more 90° days than around NYC in 2020. Burlington, Vermont was also able to record their first 80° minimum temperature in 2018. Time Series Summary for Hartford Area, CT (ThreadEx) - Jan through Dec Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90 Missing Count 1 2020 39 0 2 1983 38 0 3 2002 35 0 4 2010 34 0 - 1965 34 0 5 2018 32 0 - 1966 32 0 6 2016 31 0 - 1991 31 0 7 1988 30 0 - 1973 30 0 Time Series Summary for LAGUARDIA AIRPORT, NY - Jan through Dec Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90 Missing Count 1 2010 48 0 2 2018 38 0 3 2002 35 0 4 2020 34 0 - 1991 34 0 5 2016 32 0 6 1983 31 0 7 2005 30 0 - 1953 30 0 Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ - Jan through Dec Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Rank Year Number of Days Max Temperature >= 90 Missing Count 1 2010 54 0 2 1993 49 0 3 1988 43 0 4 2021 41 0 - 2002 41 0 - 1991 41 0 5 2016 40 0 - 1983 40 0 - 1959 40 0 6 1994 39 0 - 1944 39 0 7 2005 37 0 - 1987 37 0 8 2018 36 0 - 1949 36 0 9 2015 35 0