Coldest Winter in the CONUS (so far) since the late 1970s?

[blizzard1024]

To follow on to Jonger's post about Great Lakes Ice extent, so far the CONUS average temperature from December 1st to January 24th at 00z is the lowest since the late 1970s. See graph below. The data is from Weatherbell and the CFS initialization which shows the anomaly for the season at -1.22C. 

This explains the ice extent well on the Great Lakes and shows that our short term climate variability still trumps any small AGW component. You can see an upward trend since around 1900 which is the small warming trend (AGW + warmer sun). But overall, the year to year varaibility is much higher than the trend.

[The_Global_Warmer]

So you are using weather bell and comparing it to the NCDC chart?

Or like a weather bell cfs time series that goes back to the 1970s?

Weatherbell cfs time series has no continuity. You can't compare it to itself.

[AvantHiatus]

It really depends on which dataset you use. This cannot be presented as official. Too lazy to do a counter-argument but I know for a fact that we cannot be this cold on average, considering how warm the West Coast has been, as well as the Southeast. 

 

Mabye Global Warmer can find the information to validate this.

[The_Global_Warmer]

The NCDC chart shown uses a 1901-2010 baseline while cfs uses a 1981-2010 and is a model.

[blizzard1024]

So you are using weather bell and comparing it to the NCDC chart?

Or like a weather bell cfs time series that goes back to the 1970s?

Weatherbell cfs time series has no continuity. You can't compare it to itself.

 

Actually I found that they are comparing the CFS to the 1981-2010 normal which is actually 33.54F or .855C. That would give a mean of -.365C instead of his -1C on this chart. whoops. I will see if I can retract this. However with the projected cold I would not be surprised (as long as the end of feb does not warm up) that this will hold true. There is no doubt that this pattern will support tremendous cold in the eastern 2/3rd CONUS as long as that blocking ridge holds up in the Pacific.

[ORH_wxman]

'09-'10 was much colder to this point. That was actually a top 20 coldest winter on record for the CONUS.

This year will begin making large gains in the next 2 weeks, but I doubt we finish colder than that year. I won't be surprised, however, if we finish colder than 2010-2011 in the CONUS which ranked 37th coldest since 1895. A lot will depend on what happens around mid-February...if we get another EPO reload or if it breaks down fully.

[blizzard1024]

'09-'10 was much colder to this point. That was actually a top 20 coldest winter on record for the CONUS.

This year will begin making large gains in the next 2 weeks, but I doubt we finish colder than that year. I won't be surprised, however, if we finish colder than 2010-2011 in the CONUS which ranked 37th coldest since 1895. A lot will depend on what happens around mid-February...if we get another EPO reload or if it breaks down fully.

yeah.  I was a little hasty with this graph. But I agree, if we get next week's cold and it does reload again, then the CONUS will see one of the coldest winters in a long time....possibly to the late 1970s. It will be interesting. I also wonder if we will get into a snowstorm pattern in the east with all this anomalous cold air in Canada as the sun makes a return to the subtropics to crank up the temperature gradient.  Is there any way I can edit the title of this post???

[ORH_wxman]

yeah.  I was a little hasty with this graph. But I agree, if we get next week's cold and it does reload again, then the CONUS will see one of the coldest winters in a long time....possibly to the late 1970s. It will be interesting. I also wonder if we will get into a snowstorm pattern in the east with all this anomalous cold air in Canada as the sun makes a return to the subtropics to crank up the temperature gradient.  Is there any way I can edit the title of this post???

 

 

Yeah go to the first post of the thread and click "edit" and then click "more reply options" at the bottom right and it should let you edit the post.

[skierinvermont]

From what ORH is saying there is a lot of ground to make up over the next 5-6 weeks to catch 09-10. I doubt we accomplish that. Wouldn't be surprised at all if we finish ahead of 09-10 and 10-11.

[blizzard1024]

From what ORH is saying there is a lot of ground to make up over the next 5-6 weeks to catch 09-10. I doubt we accomplish that. Wouldn't be surprised at all if we finish ahead of 09-10 and 10-11.

 

The graphic that weatherbell used for the original erroneous graph has anomalies for this winter's temp so far at -1.258C. If you use the 1981-2010 CONUS winter mean which is what the anomaly is calculated from...it equates to  .855C   instead of .2C which is the 20th century CONUS mean which was erroneously applied to the original graph. So using the 1981-2010 CONUS winter mean, you get .855 C and then subract the anomaly of 1.258C and this equals about  - .4 C. I plotted this on the map so the graph should look like this (again this assumes that the CFS data will be close to NCDC, which in the end I doubt because NCDC has a warm bias). This shows that we are close to the 2009-10 winter and with prolonged cold next week we could easily be approaching the late 1970s in the CONUS. This will hold true only if the pattern does not change the end of February. 

 

 

 

If you look at the spatial anomalies for the winter so far, you can see why the Great Lakes are freezing over like we haven't seen in decades. Again, this is just climatic variability and does not prove or disprove global warming, It shows climatic variability which is much larger than the small trends we have seen in the last 100 years. 

 

[skierinvermont]

The CFSv2 is not an appropriate measure of U.S. temperatures. It is not its designed purpose. The CFSv2 thinks the earth hasn't been warming for the last 30 years, when every metric shows that it has been. This fact has been pointed out dozens of times on this forum.

 

Second of all, even if the CFSv2 could measure U.S. temperature, it would be measuring it in a completely different way and the mean of CFSv2 for absolute temperature would not remotely correspond to the mean of NCDC. 

 

Finally, your assertion that NCDC has a 'warm bias' is denier rubbish that has been rebutted hundreds of times on this forum. Anything and everything you post is instantly suspect because of your obvious inability or refusal to process basic information. This thread is just another example of your ineptitude.

[AvantHiatus]

The CFSv2 is not an appropriate measure of U.S. temperatures. It is not its designed purpose. The CFSv2 thinks the earth hasn't been warming for the last 30 years, when every metric shows that it has been. This fact has been pointed out dozens of times on this forum.

 

Second of all, even if the CFSv2 could measure U.S. temperature, it would be measuring it in a completely different way and the mean of CFSv2 would not remotely correspond to the mean of NCDC. 

 

Finally, your assertion that NCDC has a 'warm bias' is denier rubbish that has been rebutted hundreds of times on this forum. Anything and everything you post is instantly suspect because of your obvious inability or refusal to process basic information. This thread is just another example of your ineptitude.

Thanks

[The_Global_Warmer]

The graphic that weatherbell used for the original erroneous graph has anomalies for this winter's temp so far at -1.258C. If you use the 1981-2010 CONUS winter mean which is what the anomaly is calculated from...it equates to  .855C   instead of .2C which is the 20th century CONUS mean which was erroneously applied to the original graph. So using the 1981-2010 CONUS winter mean, you get .855 C and then subract the anomaly of 1.258C and this equals about  - .4 C. I plotted this on the map so the graph should look like this (again this assumes that the CFS data will be close to NCDC, which in the end I doubt because NCDC has a warm bias). This shows that we are close to the 2009-10 winter and with prolonged cold next week we could easily be approaching the late 1970s in the CONUS. This will hold true only if the pattern does not change the end of February. 

 

 

 

 

If you look at the spatial anomalies for the winter so far, you can see why the Great Lakes are freezing over like we haven't seen in decades. Again, this is just climatic variability and does not prove or disprove global warming, It shows climatic variability which is much larger than the small trends we have seen in the last 100 years. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is just a horribly ignorant statement.  You are a degreed met.  You are a self proclaimed well educated Man in the field of climotology.  

 

I really can't believe you just said that. 

[ORH_wxman]

If you convert the weatherbell map to GISS anomalies, then it comes in around -1.3F to date. GISS CONUS anomalies should be fairly close to NCDC...so in my rough estimate, that would put us a shade warmer than 2010-2011 at the moment. We'd almost certainly finish colder than that year by the end of February if my estimation is anywhere near accurate.

 

But I'm not sure how well extrapolating weatherbell to GISS works on a regional level like the CONUS. We figured it out for the globe, but it doesn't mean it works regionally.

 

I wish weatherbell had conus anomaly maps archived like they do the global maps. Then I could convert them right to NCDC. Anyone have a December weatherbell CONUS anomaly? Then we might be able to get a rough idea of what January is on NCDC currently. December on NCDC was -2.04F.

[StudentOfClimatology]

The CFSv2 is not an appropriate measure of U.S. temperatures. It is not its designed purpose. The CFSv2 thinks the earth hasn't been warming for the last 30 years, when every metric shows that it has been. This fact has been pointed out dozens of times on this forum.

 

Second of all, even if the CFSv2 could measure U.S. temperature, it would be measuring it in a completely different way and the mean of CFSv2 for absolute temperature would not remotely correspond to the mean of NCDC. 

 

Finally, your assertion that NCDC has a 'warm bias' is denier rubbish that has been rebutted hundreds of times on this forum. Anything and everything you post is instantly suspect because of your obvious inability or refusal to process basic information. This thread is just another example of your ineptitude.

I agree with you in that CFS is not designed to measure global temperatures, and should not be used to do so.

This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone using CFS initializations to calculate global temps. So I did a little digging last night, and found a website carrying the the 1979-2004 data, which looks like re-analysis (apparently in the style of the daily initialization), through 2004...and the interpolated values are then used starting in 2005.

It turns out that the CFS does in fact show a significant warming (~0.3-0.35K) in the re analysis. It actually looks reminiscent to HADCRUT4 in some ways.

That said, I think it's risky to hedge bets on a model that is out of alignment with every other source of information out there.

Anyway, here's what it shows.

1979-1988:

1989-2004

2005-2014:

[blizzard1024]

The CFSv2 is not an appropriate measure of U.S. temperatures. It is not its designed purpose. The CFSv2 thinks the earth hasn't been warming for the last 30 years, when every metric shows that it has been. This fact has been pointed out dozens of times on this forum.

 

Second of all, even if the CFSv2 could measure U.S. temperature, it would be measuring it in a completely different way and the mean of CFSv2 for absolute temperature would not remotely correspond to the mean of NCDC. 

 

Finally, your assertion that NCDC has a 'warm bias' is denier rubbish that has been rebutted hundreds of times on this forum. Anything and everything you post is instantly suspect because of your obvious inability or refusal to process basic information. This thread is just another example of your ineptitude.

 

The CFS dataset is compared to the CFS normals, you are comparing apples to apples. So it is a robust measure. Because it shows little warming means that it can't be true?  I agree cross comparing it to NCDC is not a good comparison but I stated that. NCDC has had a warm bias of late.  Look at the November 2013 warmest November on record fiasco. No other dataset showed this and in fact the RSS was middle of the road for November. That is where my statement for a warm bias comes from. 

 

As for the CFS, it actually is close to the other data sets but it uses the warmer 1981-2010 normal period. It is typically about .6C lower than the GISS anomaly. 

 

The Earth is not warming that much. In fact the warming has stalled and we might even be heading into a cooler period. This is going to blow people's minds (and careers) in the coming years.   CO2 is overstated in its importance in the climate system and in the current class of GCMs. Until I see evidence to the contrary, nothing is unusual about the recent climate. The LIA peaked in the 1800s (based on glacier advances) and we have recovered plus some AGW warming. That's my scientific opinion. Calling me "inept" is just your way of dealing with the fact that your whole world view on climate is falling apart.   

[AvantHiatus]

Someone has been watching too much Joe Bastardi, AGW is real and your "counter-period" is 0.2 degrees now 0.1 degrees in 2013, seems like a real trend chief. AGW is real and I now consider you a full-out denier.

 

Like I said to most on this forum, just wait a few more years. RSS is not a standalone data-set because it omits certain key polar regions. It's just a measure of how warm the mid-latitudes are and not the entire world.

[blizzard1024]

I agree with you in that CFS is not designed to measure global temperatures, and should not be used to do so.

This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone using CFS initializations to calculate global temps. So I did a little digging last night, and found a website carrying the the 1979-2004 data, which looks like re-analysis (apparently in the style of the daily initialization), through 2004...and the interpolated values are then used starting in 2005.

It turns out that the CFS does in fact show a significant warming (~0.3-0.35K) in the re analysis. It actually looks reminiscent to HADCRUT4 in some ways.

That said, I think it's risky to hedge bets on a model that is out of alignment with every other source of information out there.

Anyway, here's what it shows.

1979-1988:

1989-2004

2005-2014:

 

Its not out of alignment with other datasets. Its anomalies are not as impressive as GISS NCDC or HADCRUT because it uses the warmer 1981-2010 normal period. That's all.  It is updated every day and gives you a great sense of short term climate variability.

If you take the monthly average and add .2C it is close to the RSS and UAH data. If you add .6C it is close to GISS. It does not show much warming since 1998 and has the same look as the other big datasets. Anyway, I already stated that comparing its temperature to what NCDC comes up with for January is likely to be in error. NCDC has been running warm of late.  

[blizzard1024]

Someone has been watching too much Joe Bastardi, AGW is real and your "counter-period" is 0.2 degrees now 0.1 degrees in 2013, seems like a real trend chief. AGW is real and I now consider you a full-out denier.

 

Like I said too most on this forum, just wait a few more years.

What?? Joe Bastardi???  I never said AGW was not real. It is just a small component of the natural warming we have seen.  I consider you a full-out denier of atmospheric science.  You are clueless pal. clueless. in a few years not much will be changed, if anything it will be cooler. 

[AvantHiatus]

What?? Joe Bastardi???  I never said AGW was not real. It is just a small component of the natural warming we have seen.  I consider you a full-out denier of atmospheric science.  You are clueless pal. clueless. in a few years not much will be changed, if anything it will be cooler. 

You removed a key part of my post, keep cherry-picking whatever you want to suit your agenda. Go get a snow blower, climate change will ruin your addictions.

 

RSS has a cold-bias

 

[ORH_wxman]

The CFS is fine to use, as long as you know how it converts to the other global datasets.

[blizzard1024]

You removed a key part of my post, keep cherry-picking whatever you want to suit your agenda. Go get a snow blower, climate change will ruin your addictions.

 

RSS has a cold-bias

 

 

I have no agenda. None. Glad I don't work in the climate field. that's all. 

[blizzard1024]

The CFS is fine to use, as long as you know how it converts to the other global datasets.

 

Yes. again the anomalies are smaller simply because they use a warmer normal period. That's all. 

It is an interesting dataset in that it is updated frequently and you get a sense of how the short

term climate varies. You can see MJO signatures and other oscillations that get damped out

when you look at a monthly anomaly. 

 

Thanks ORH_wxman. 

[bluewave]

You can just use the NCDC weekly anomalies for the USA. But they are preliminary 

before the NCDC posts their final monthly number. Through the 17th we are running

behind 2009-2010.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/us-weekly.php?year=2014&month=01&day=18

 

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/temp-and-precip/us-weekly/mtd.temps.dat

[blizzard1024]

You can just use the NCDC weekly anomalies for the USA. But they are preliminary 

before the NCDC posts their final monthly number. Through the 17th we are running

behind 2009-2010.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/us-weekly.php?year=2014&month=01&day=18

 

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/temp-and-precip/us-weekly/mtd.temps.dat

 

Thanks. According to NCDC this January so far is actually above normal compared to the 20th century mean. So it is a mild January for the U.S. Interesting. 

[TerryM]

WACC, just as predicted.

 

Does anyone remember who it was that predicted above average snowpack for California about a year ago in a peer reviewed paper?

I do remember that the resident "Denier" community offered his paper to counter "Alarmist" posts worrying about drought conditions on the West Coast. It might be fun to look back & see who was on which side, and how certain they were of their position.

 

Terry

[ORH_wxman]

WACC, just as predicted.

 

Does anyone remember who it was that predicted above average snowpack for California about a year ago in a peer reviewed paper?

I do remember that the resident "Denier" community offered his paper to counter "Alarmist" posts worrying about drought conditions on the West Coast. It might be fun to look back & see who was on which side, and how certain they were of their position.

 

Terry

 

 

There's been no trend in Sierra Nevada mountain snow pack. We'd need a very long term lowering of snow pack in the mountains to come to any conclusions about snow in California. Just 3 winters ago they saw their 5th highest pack in the record going back to the 1870s.

[skierinvermont]

The CFS is fine to use, as long as you know how it converts to the other global datasets.

 

You may want to clarify or reconsider this statement ORH.

 

The cfs is fine if you know how the recent conversion has been.

 

But it is not fine to use as a long-term measure of global temperature nor for comparing ranks of years. 

 

For example, it shows 1980 as warmer than 2011, which is of course absurd (unless your name is blizzard1024). 

[40/70 Benchmark]

'09-'10 was much colder to this point. That was actually a top 20 coldest winter on record for the CONUS.

This year will begin making large gains in the next 2 weeks, but I doubt we finish colder than that year. I won't be surprised, however, if we finish colder than 2010-2011 in the CONUS which ranked 37th coldest since 1895. A lot will depend on what happens around mid-February...if we get another EPO reload or if it breaks down fully.

The EPO is obviously more crucial within the context of this thread because its more highly correlated to the temps around the country in its entirety, but its starting to look like the NAO may finally appear after that point.

[sokolow]

There's been no trend in Sierra Nevada mountain snow pack. We'd need a very long term lowering of snow pack in the mountains to come to any conclusions about snow in California. Just 3 winters ago they saw their 5th highest pack in the record going back to the 1870s.

Afaik the trend has been earlier melting, later peak, and a loss of snowpack below 2400m mostly offset by an increase above that level.

e. the data starts in the 1930s.