beavis1729

Need to wait for 12z Euro and GFS ensembles. Hopefully there will be a continuation of the good phasing trends in the animation that Alek posted yesterday. If not, it’s probably game over.

I suppose...but that's kind of a low bar. In summer, do we only expect "shots of warmth"? No...we expect it to be warm and summerlike throughout summer...not just "a few weeks of transient warmth". Seasons in seasons. DJF should be wintry simply because it's DJF...not because of whether a certain pattern exists. The coldest temp of the season so far at ORD is only 28...and it will probably stay that way through the end of November. The cruel joke of a November continues...and the joke is on us. Patience is wearing thin...things better change by 12/1 at the very latest. In good winters, there seems to be a persistent changing of the guard in mid-late November...where all signs of fall are erased and it actually feels like winter, with the very short days. I don't just mean one snowfall that melts in 2 days...I mean an abrupt change to a winter-like feel that has staying power. But right now, perpetual Fall continues...it's just not good. Hard to get into the holiday spirit.

Broke the daily record high by 12 degrees...and the previous record was from 1948. Yikes. Normal high is 41.

Yeah, fine for now...but this warm and sunny crap better stop by November 20th. If I wanted nice weather when the days are short, I'd move to San Diego.

This is only the 2nd warmest temp in Chicago for so late in the season...which is hard to believe. It was 78 on 11/14/1971.

Wow, 75 in Duluth on November 6th? That’s ridiculous. Normal high is 41.

Coldest temp of the season IMBY this morning, 27. ORD hit 31, tying for the coldest of the season so far.

Right, I agree...which is why I think the current system of DST during spring and summer works well. It makes our June sunrise around 5:15 AM which, while still too early in my opinion, is at least tolerable.

Yes, of course it doesn't change anything from a technical standpoint...but it's more psychological than anything. And that matters to some people. Not saying you need to share the same point of view...but for me, it's very important to have an "early" sunset in winter. If it got dark at 5:20 instead of 4:20 in mid-December, then of course it has no impact on the weather. or total daylight...but it would bother me a lot. It just "feels" more like deep dark Currier and Ives winter with an earlier sunset...because that's what I grew up with. Yes, time is just a construct...but many people have emotional connections to things like this, because they form memories. I would be very upset if our sunset was after 5:00 in mid-December. Total daylight is about 9 hours 6 minutes on the winter solstice here (7:13 AM - 4:19 PM CST). If we had daylight savings all year, it would be 8:13 AM - 5:19 PM...yuck.

I actually like the time change, at least IMBY on the far eastern end of the central time zone. Of course it would be simpler logistically to keep the same time throughout the year...but I take a certain comfort in seeing the very early sunsets in Nov/Dec (before 5 PM). If we were on daylight savings all year, these sunsets would be after 5 PM, and it wouldn't feel like winter. On the other hand, if we switched to standard time all year, June sunsets would only be around 7:30 PM (which wouldn't feel like the "long summer days"), instead of the current 8:30 PM. Just my 2 cents, but of course personal preference depends on latitude, location within the time zone, etc.

So Laramie WY hit -26 this morning, by far an October record low and the coldest on record so early in the season. Normal low is 25, so a departure of -51.

Agree, as temps in these locations don’t follow a normal distribution. Most days are slightly above the mean, with relatively few days that are much colder than the mean in order to balance things out.

Interesting, and very surprising.

Another interesting component of this arctic outbreak is the dry air over the southwest. Las Vegas was 59/-15 this afternoon with very dry NE winds, RH 4%. The record dry streak continues in Las Vegas. 189 days and counting since the last measurable rainfall on 4/20/2020.

Hopefully we get an airmass like that in our area in the heart of winter, like the 1995-96 La Niña. The infamous -60 in Tower, MN...and -40s in parts of IA.

High temp today in Sidney NE was 14. Normal high is 61; departure -47. High temp today in Laramie WY was 6. Normal high is 52; departure -46. High temp today in Denver CO was 16. Normal high is 61; departure -45. High temp today in Dalhart TX was 24. Normal high is 68; departure of -44. High temp today in Cheyenne WY was 14. Normal high is 55; departure -41.

This same airmass has led to an Ice Storm Warning for OKC...in October: URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE National Weather Service Norman OK 828 AM CDT Mon Oct 26 2020 ...Periods of Freezing Rain and Sleet Expected This Morning Through Early Wednesday... OKZ007-008-012-013-016>020-022>027-033>038-TXZ083>085-262200- /O.UPG.KOUN.WW.Y.0009.000000T0000Z-201027T0000Z/ /O.NEW.KOUN.IS.W.0001.201026T1328Z-201028T1800Z/ /O.UPG.KOUN.WS.A.0004.201027T0000Z-201028T1200Z/ Grant-Kay-Garfield-Noble-Custer-Blaine-Kingfisher-Logan-Payne- Washita-Caddo-Canadian-Oklahoma-Lincoln-Grady-Harmon-Greer-Kiowa- Jackson-Tillman-Comanche-Hardeman-Foard-Wilbarger- Including the cities of Medford, Pond Creek, Lamont, Wakita, Ponca City, Blackwell, Enid, Perry, Weatherford, Clinton, Watonga, Geary, Okeene, Kingfisher, Hennessey, Okarche, Guthrie, Stillwater, Cordell, Burns Flat, Sentinel, Anadarko, Hinton, Yukon, Concho, El Reno, Mustang, Oklahoma City, Chandler, Stroud, Prague, Meeker, Davenport, Wellston, Chickasha, Tuttle, Hollis, Mangum, Granite, Hobart, Snyder, Altus, Frederick, Lawton, Quanah, Crowell, and Vernon 828 AM CDT Mon Oct 26 2020 ...ICE STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 1 PM CDT WEDNESDAY... * WHAT...Periods of significant icing through at least Wednesday morning. Ice accumulations up to one-half inch will be common, with some locations possibly receiving upwards of one inch. There will also be accumulations of sleet. * WHERE...Central, northern, and southwest Oklahoma and western and northern Texas. * WHEN...Until 1 PM CDT Wednesday. * IMPACTS...Expect power outages and widespread tree damage due to the ice. Travel could become very dangerous.

Some shockingly cold temps for October are occurring, or will soon occur, in MT/WY/CO/NE. Laramie, WY may drop to -16, which would be the coldest temp on record so early in the season (October record low is -18 on 10/30/1993). Most impressive relative to climo may be Billings, MT. Tomorrow morning, it may hit 4...which would shatter the record low of 18 set in 1997. Monday morning may hit -2; the record low is 22 set in 1970. Breaking a daily record by 24 degrees...not bad. Records in Billings go back to 1934. There has only been one sub-zero October day in Billings in recorded history (-7 on 10/30/1991).

Interesting data for MSN...hard to believe the -37 on 1/30/1951. Their 2nd coldest temp on record is "only" -30 on 1/15/1963. A few days have come close in the (somewhat) modern era...such as -29 on 2/3/1996; -28 on 1/16/1979 & 2/1/1985; -27 on 1/20/1994; -26 on 1/31/2019. This makes the -29 on 3/1/1962 even more impressive.

Yeah, I thought about the -25 and -27. The one thing that 12/24/1983 had going for it was that it's nearly the shortest day of the year. But I agree a case could be made for it being #1 on the list. EDIT: I made a couple updates to the ORD list.

While we're in a boring weather period before the cold season gets underway, I thought it would be interesting to list out the temperature records at ORD that are easiest and most difficult to break. I'm only focusing on the cold & low-solar season, NDJF. Feel free to add other locations too. I may add low max and high min records later. A more detailed statistical analysis would probably look at all daily temps, to calculate the standard deviation assuming a normal distribution...then look at departures on a z-score (# of SD) basis. That way, it would account for the fact that a -20F daily departure in summer is probably equivalent to a -35F daily departure in winter...as winter temps are more variable. But a simpler way of doing this is to just see which records seem out of place relative to surrounding days and/or time of year. What I found interesting is that there doesn't really seem to be a correlation between the easiest records to break vs. how old the record is. For example, some of the easiest records to break are from the 1800s. It just seems to be a coincidence that certain days just haven't had extreme cold or heat...probably a feature of small sample size. Even with records going back to 1870, only 150 max/min observations exist for a given day at ORD. Also, the most difficult record low temps to break are mainly focused on the absolute coldest temps on records, not so much time of year. This is due to UHI worsening over time. Regardless of early-season or late-season, I think the all-time low temp of -27 on 1/20/1985 is almost impossible to break. We saw what happened on January 30-31, 2019... ORD - daily MAX temp records 10 easiest to break (1) 58 on 2/16/1921 (2) 52 on 2/2/2020 (3) 55 on 1/30/1988 (4) 56 on 1/5/1890 (5) 57 on 12/22/1957 - only December day with a record high lower than 60 (6) 61 on 12/11/1949 (7) 70 on 11/12/1949 (8) 62 on 2/28/2016 (9) 60 on 12/17/1977 (10) 60 on 12/16/1984 10 most difficult to break (1) 67 on 1/25/1950 (2) 69 on 12/28/1984 (3) 68 on 12/31/1875 (4) 70 on 2/11/1999 (5) 78 on 11/14/1971 (6) 75 on 11/19/1930 (7) 71 on 12/3/1970 (8) 65 on 1/1/1876 (9) 65 on 1/7/2008 (10) 75 on 2/27/1976 ORD - daily MIN temp records 10 easiest to break (1) -9 on 1/13/1929 - only January day with a record low higher than -10 (2) -10 on 1/27/1955 (3) 21 on 11/1/1879 (4) 19 on 11/6/1991 (5) 4 on 12/5/2005 (6) -10 on 2/7/1875 (7) -7 on 12/30/1909 (8) 14 on 11/14/1916 (9) -7 on 12/17/1951 (10) -1 on 2/26/1963 10 most difficult to break (1) -25 on 12/24/1983 (2) -27 on 1/20/1985 (3) -26 on 1/10/1982 (4) -25 on 1/16/1982 (5) -1 on 11/23/1950 (6) -2 on 11/24/1950 (7) -14 on 12/9/1876 (8) 7 on 11/12/2019 (9) 3 on 11/17/1959 (10) -23 on 1/30/2019

It always amazes me how places in northern MN radiate, even if they're not in a valley or other drainage location. All that's needed is dry air and not being in a UHI setting - imagine that. The winds were fairly light at INL last night, but by no means calm. And, obviously, no snow cover. But it still dropped from 50F at 6 PM, to 32F at 10 PM.

Gotta love wikipedia Obscuration FU Smoke (French: Fumée) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METAR