30 January 2024

Unprecedented


A screencap from this evening's weekly weather forecast.  I've highlighted the historical seasonal norms for emphasis.  I spent most of my youth in Minnesota and the last 20 years in Wisconsin, and I cannot ever recall sustained warmth like this at the start of February.  All kinds of businesses and recreation are being devastated (snowmobiling, skiing, ice fishing, outdoor hockey, ice sculptures, winter festivals.  Some climate change skeptics are having to change their arguments from "not happening" to "nothing we can do about it."

Addendum:  Here's a graph of the ice covering Lake Superior (50-year-average blue vs. this year red).  (Other Great Lakes at the link are similar). Holy cow.


Addendum: a multifactorial (temps+snow) "winter season severity index" comparing this year to historic norms (for Minnesota):


If you are a snowshoe hare who turned white for the winter, you're in a bunch of trouble in a brown landscape.

Addendum:  A tornado was reported in Wisconsin on February 8, 2024 for the first time in recorded weather history.  Temperatures were in the 50s.


Yet another addendum (might as well keep adding these to the old post rather than start new ones):
Ocean surface heat continues to astonish seasoned observers and raises the prospect of intense storms later in the year. The hurricane specialist Michael Lowry tweeted that sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic main development region, where most of the US category 3 or stronger hurricanes form, “are as warm today in mid-February as they typically are in middle July. Incredible.”
More updates March 2024: end-of-season numbers and El Nino relationship: 



8 comments:

  1. It's been the same here in Dallas: unusual warmth so far, with very few frozen days. I'd wore the heavy winter jack only once (too large to wear confortably while belted in and driving); am making do with a windbreaker.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I lived in Dallas for 10 years ('68-'78), driving a VW Beetle with no AC and listening to country western music on an AM radio.

      Delete
  2. Minnesota

    https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/minnesota.png

    ReplyDelete
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/01/literally-off-the-charts-global-coral-reef-heat-stress-monitor-forced-to-add-new-alerts-as-temperatures-rise

    ReplyDelete
  4. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fpl9o3n7qfij91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D66d5552ca7ab4fff0c6c6a79b220e6a3ae269364

    ReplyDelete
  5. Having grown up on the shore of Lake Superior, I view 2 webcams daily to see my beloved lake. I have never seen open water like this in January. Never!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I view a weather webcam to see my summer vacation home; seeing it keeps me from getting too lonely for it. That home is 12 miles distant from the web cam, and behind a mountain, and, in another country, to boot. But seeing that scene quells the longing in my heart, a little.

      Delete
    2. Anon, you might consider looking into the purchase of a "trailcam" - the kind you strap to trees to monitor the activity of wildlife. Put it in the woods near your vacation home, pointed at the cabin, perhaps on a timelapse or with motion triggers. You can probably arrange to monitor that camera remotely - satisfy your longing and do some security checks as a bonus.

      Delete