GaWx

30 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Do you have a reference for climate change improving crop yield? Most studies I have seen show that adverse temperature and precipitation effects cancel any benefit from CO2 fertilization. As you note yields have increased by improvements in seed varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and better farming practices. The chart below shows how different yields would be in a world without climate change compared to our current one; a “decline” in this case means that in such a world yield growth would have been even higher. Climate effects have been small with more negative than positive effects on major crops.

https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields-climate-impact

Hey Charlie, I don’t have any links to provide right now. I’m going off of what a pro met. has posted elsewhere a number of times for years. Also, don’t forget that it isn’t just the CO2 Fertilizer Effect that’s beneficial. It’s also the longer growing seasons.

 Who broke the Bleaklies? Whereas I haven’t been able to get them all evening, I did look at the WxBell interpretation of them. That suggests they’ve cooled closer to the run from two days ago during several Bleaks fwiw.

@MJO812

2/13/26 edit: Bleaklies were finally fixed at ecmwf site

Today was downright chilly! Looking forward to a pretty cold evening walk.

Edit: The walk was very enjoyable in the near calm chill with mid 40s. Tomorrow will be another lovely day. Saturday will be a little warmer (~upper 60s high), but with still nice low dewpoints.
 
 These are the types of days I dream about during the long monotonous hot and humid summers here.

1 minute ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Boy you hit about all the MMGW scapegoat talking points there, didn't you?   You forgot about rape though.  (Yes, it's a thing)

I'll just hit one of the scaries for now - crop failures - the rest can be inferred.

 

 Some of the crop yield increases were likely helped by better technology, but not nearly all of it. GW/AGW have helped significantly with crop sizes, something often intentionally glossed over

48 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Well there's also the fact that it's lot harder to survive in extreme cold than it is in extreme heat, which is why so many more people die each year from cold weather.

Human comfort / survivability is not one of the negative effects of MMGW.    Sea level rise and increase in storms, yes.   But not the temperature itself.

IMO areas becoming "difficult to survive in" is a non-issue for MMGW.   Any slight increase in storm activity is just noise in the overall background of improved infrastructure and weather prediction.  A *lot* fewer people die these days from hurricanes and floods than they did in years past.

(Sea level rise of course is a non-issue w/regards to survivability; the creep is way slower than natural human birth/death cycles.   I always have to laugh when I hear of literal human "danger" proposed as being due to sea level rise.)

 Another positive effect of AGW/GW is regarding the world food supply due to the photosynthesis effect of CO2 as well as longer growing seasons. These favor larger crops/larger global food supply/less starvation. That shouldn’t be ignored in the full objective assessment of AGW/GW, which certainly has significant negative effects. However, there are  some good things, too, like fewer deaths from cold as you said and fewer deaths from starvation. These good effects are often glossed over by those wanting to only emphasize the bad effects.

 I saw the following image today:

 I’m not doubting the general accuracy of this. For example, this shows NO record lows at KATL vs 37 record highs since 2020. The last record low there including ties was way back on 9/7/2017! So, the zero record lows is confirmed.

 A better representation of the SE US to minimize the warming effects of UHI as well as warming from increased traffic on airport runways (big problem at ATL for example) would be to use a rural station like the far N GA small town of Blairsville, GA, which has a pretty long record (back to 1931):

 Per my counting (hoping I didn’t miscount…if I did it should be only minimally off):

 Since 2020 including ties, it has had 24 different days with record highs and 7 days with record lows.

Since 2010, 65 with highs and 25 with lows

Since 2000: 87 with highs and 42 with lows

 So, of course GW is real. But large cities’ records often cause an exaggeration of the degree of warming. So, it’s important to separate out UHI/airport effects as much as possible.
——————

Daily records from here:

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=ffc

2 hours ago, BooneWX said:

Gonna be sinful and say I don’t overly enjoy March snow. Yea, all snow is nice, but we all know it just doesn’t hit the same way when it melts in 2 hrs and takes a miracle to accumulate on the roads. By the time March 1 comes around it’s meteorological spring and my brain switches to sneezing, pine pollen and the Master’s. Don’t forget your pre emergent! In my years of experience, Valentine’s is the best time to apply it without risking being too late. 

Here there has been accumulating snow in March only 2 times in the modern record: 1993 and 1986. However, there have also been 9 traces, including 1980 and 1960. And way back in 1837, there was the 2nd biggest snow on record on March 3rd. We also had a major ZR/IP on 2/25/1914.

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Great charts showing how much smaller the geographic footprint and magnitude of these Arctic arctic outbreaks have become relative to the areas of record warmth.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/uspa/warm-cold/0

 

 

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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The Dec-Jan period was the 7th warmest for the Contiguous U.S. since 1940. 21.1% had the warmest Dec-Jan during that period. 0.0% had the coldest Dec-Jan; 0.0% had the 2nd coldest, 0.0% had the 3rd coldest, .... all the way thru the 13th coldest.

 

9:32 PM · Feb 4,

 A better representation of the SE US to minimize the warming effects of UHI as well as warming from increased traffic on airport runways (big problem at ATL for example) would be to use a rural station like the far N GA small town of Blairsville, GA, which has a pretty long record (back to 1931):

Per my counting (hoping I didn’t miscount…if I did it should be only minimally off):

Since 2020 including ties, it has had 24 different days with record highs and 7 days with record lows.

Since 2010, 65 with highs and 25 with lows

Since 2000: 87 with highs and 42 with lows

So, of course GW is real. But large cities’ records often cause an exaggeration of the degree of warming. So, it’s important to separate out UHI/airport effects as much as possible.
——————

Daily records from here:

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=ffc

40 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Really not very warm in NE.

Agreed. It’s still not warm at all for you as you average NN during this 3 week period on this run. However, that’s a bit warmer than the prior run, which had y’all averaging a little BN.
 Hoping the next few runs reverse cooler from this in the E US.

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

The earth's output is not constant. Instead It is modulated by ENSO. More radiation out during El Nino when the atmosphere is relatively warm and less during La Nina when the atmosphere is cool. Similarly the global surface temperature is modulated by ENSO, the earth's surface is warmer during el nino. Note that the climate system is dominated by the ocean and the rise in ocean temperature is steadier than the global surface temperature.

There is also some variation in solar output over the 11-year solar cycle. If you take an 11-year average of global surface temperatures (below) most of the enso and solar variability is removed. Leaving mainly man-made forcing and a small volcano contribution.

 This suggests ~0.20/decade 1980-2000 and ~0.24/decade 2000-2020.

 Today’s Euro Weeklies are significantly warmer than the last few for the 3 wks 2/23-3/15 

40 minutes ago, suzook said:

No snow

Thank you.

 Y’all predicting no more snow in y’all’s locations down in the SE US with it looking mild next week and with it getting late are obviously very reasonable predictions. But do you expect any more hard freezes? That and cold in general are obviously part of winter, too. Cold without snow is a lot more common than cold w/snow. Even in this warmer era, an average of 4 freezes in March occurs. Do you expect any March freezes in ATL? TIA

14 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Winter is over for the piedmont 

What is your definition of “winter is over”? I read this often from various people as if it’s a black and white thing but without them explaining what they mean. Thanks.

The period Feb 1-7, 2026 was in MJO phase 8 as per this image:

 Using Baltimore again as a proxy for the E US, Feb 1-7 was the coldest La Nina Feb phase 8 on record in terms of both average anomaly and cumulative anomaly. Keep in mind that 

-It averaged 9 BN. The prior coldest was 7 BN and that was just a one day period.

-The cumulative anomaly was 66 BN over the 7 days. The prior largest cumulative Feb phase 8 La Niña anomaly was only 36 BN, which was over a 9 day period in mid Feb of 1999.

  Comparing this to other Feb MJO phases during La Niña:

- This very cold phase 8’s cumulative anomaly of 66 BN is the third largest of all phases with only these two exceeding that:

1. Early Feb of 1996’s phase 3 added up to 84 BN over 7 days

2. Late Feb of 2008’s phase 1 added up to 70 BN over 10 days.

Warmth won’t last per EWs for last few days, including today’s, as SE goes back down to back and forth averaging NN and NE goes back to cold: these are for 2/23-3/1

8 minutes ago, NyWxGuy said:

-NAO rising to positive. -PNA becoming deeper. Meteorology over modelology, it shouldn't take much for us to understand that is opposite of the a good winter pattern. That's about as bad as it gets 

Hoping after a mild week 2 for an improvement to mainly NN in the SE late month into March!

 The chances for an overall Feb -PNA are good as of now with a strong -PNA upcoming. This goes through Feb 24th:

AO now rising sharply:

NAO is, like the AO, also rising. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this rise will be enough to get the DJF NAO >-0.25, the # I’ve always used to classify a winter as -NAO vs neutral. DJ is at -0.5. In order for DJF to rise above -0.25, the Feb NAO would need to end up >+0.25, which is a decent possibility per this:

1 hour ago, LakePaste25 said:

May be lingering effects, but it’s safe to say that La niña is done for. 

Regardless, it’s important for continuity/looking back that we keep most of the posts specifically pertaining to the rest of this cold season in this thread. Besides the lag of ENSO related effects, these threads are obviously about far more than ENSO, itself.

14 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

Hoping there is enough time to reach phase 8 again before mid March....

 If I get enough time, I’ll analyze the Baltimore daily temperatures for some of the MJO phases in (post) La Niña years in March as a followup to my 20 Feb MJO La Niña MJO phase analysis. If I do, I might start with 8. I’d look at the same 20.

53 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The world is warmer than it has been and is continuing to warm largely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Extreme cold periods are becoming warmer and less frequent than they once were. Nevertheless, that does not mean that such cold, when it occurs regionally, should be dismissed out-of-hand. The kind of sustained deep cold that has occurred in the Great Lakes Region and Northeast is uncommon today. It is not trivial. It is one of this winter's highlights. 

For example, New York City saw a 16-day mean temperature below 20° for the 125th time since record-keeping began in 1869. However, it was the first such occurrence since 1982. That was 44 years ago. That rarity makes it noteworthy. Moreover, it's plausible that at least some of us might not see such sustained and deep cold again during our lifetimes given how infrequent it has become.

That places like Phoenix are on course for their warmest winter on record does not minimize the cold that has just occurred elsewhere. That it has occurred in a warmer and warming world makes it all the more remarkable.

Don, once you adjust normals upward to take into account GW, is deep cold still about as common as it ever was? Example: adjust normals upward by 3F vs what normals were from around 1900. After doing so, is same degree of extreme cold about as common as it was then?

2 hours ago, NyWxGuy said:

I think the reason why the record warm west is getting so much attention is because the eastern half of the US has seen cold like this before. I mean, aside from a few record lows over the past few weeks on random days, nothing about the cold air has been unprecedented. Unusual, strong, and brutal yes. Record-breaking? No. But the fact that the plains and further west have almost 0 snow and have been running around 20 degrees above average since late November is excruciatingly rare and thus, record breaking. And as the world continues to warm, the warmest anomalies almost always outpace the colder anomalies. This winter is a great example of that 

Of course warmest will outpace coldest with global land areas averaging 3F warmer than where the avg was in 1900. If you were to subtract 3F from recent years of records, wouldn’t cold anomalies be on par with warm anomalies?

20 minutes ago, PositiveEPOEnjoyer said:

Idk, March still looks pretty torchy to me, at least the first half.

Pick your model. If one picks Feb 8th ext GEFS like you did (2/9 ext GEFS not out yet), it looks mild. But if one picks the Euro Weeklies, which is a superior model to the GEFS, it isn’t as it’s a mix of AN, NN, and BN. Of course none of them are reliable that far out. But I much prefer the ext Euro over ext GEFS.

5 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

 Per what the EW have been showing this period (2/17-23) could end up the warmest week in the E 1/3 of the US overall, possibly even in the absolutes in some areas, til at least late March.

14 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

 

The EW week 3/2-8 suggests warmer sneaking back in but not even to the E coast. But afterward, the EW then suggest that that warming, itself, would also be temporary as per what I just posted.

2 hours ago, NyWxGuy said:

Ideally, you would have wanted a SSW to take place by mid February in order to have its effects felt in March. Nothing but bad trends across the board for the long range so far. SSW looks less likely, and long range looks like warm/wet and cold/dry. Dry begets dry, and the drought conditions continue. The residual -NAO will likely help us remain cooler relative to average but the rest of CONUS will be torching and our source region gets real warm as well. 

 
Today’s Euro Weeklies fwiw for Feb 23rd-Mar 22nd still show no sustained NE warmth and only limited sustained warmth at most in rest of E US:

2/23-3/1 cold NE/NN elsewhere:

3/2-8 NN NE; this is only AN week of these 4 weeks OH Valley to SE and it doesn’t even have sustained torching as it’s just the edge:

3/9-15 cooled back to NN all of E US:

3/16-22 NN entire E US:

 Notice that on all of these maps the W 1/2 of US is mild. More often than not, that supports the E US at the least not being mild and sometimes downright cold. This is certainly not a warm look for the E US and suggests no early spring despite the expected false spring next week.

@40/70 Benchmark