Meteorologist Paul Douglas writes about Minnesota weather daily, trying to go beyond the "highs" and "lows" of the weather story to discuss current trends and some of the how's and why's of meteorology. Rarely is our weather dull - every day is a new forecast challenge. Why is the weather doing what it's doing? Is climate change a real concern, and if so, how will my family be affected? Climate is flavoring all weather now, and I'll include links to timely stories that resonate with me.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Welcome to the Coldest Week of Winter - Warning for Coastal U.S. Residents
-10 F. low Sunday morning. -1 F. high yesterday in the Twin Cities (at MSP International Airport). 22 F. average high on January 10. 19 F. high on January 10, 2015.
January 11, 1975: A blizzard continues with hurricane force winds in southwestern Minnesota. January 11, 1899: An odd flash of lightning lights the clouds up around 9 pm at Maple Plain.
Cold & Heartbroken. Even Colder Shot Next Weekend
"Gary
Anderson is holding on line 1". I don't know who to feel more sorry
for: Blair Walsh or loyal Vikings fans. Probably the latter. We all have bad days...
-4F at noon
kickoff (at MSP International, the official reading) makes it the 3rd
coldest NFL game on record. It was even colder inside my family room at 3 PM.
Hey, we're just setting the table to play in our own new stadium during Superbowl 52 on February 4, 2018.
"Hey Paul, stick to guessing the weather!"
Fair
enough. It may warm your heart to know that NOAA's short-term climate
models show an El Nino-spiked warm signal February into May. That may be
so. And winter should be truncated, shortened and milder, overall.
But
ECMWF guidance pulls an even colder shot into Minnesota next weekend;
maybe 3 consecutive days with highs near 0F. In the meantime you may be
amazed how good 20F feels later this week.
When it's this cold it doesn't take much moisture or upward motion to whip up a quick, slick inch of fluff. That happens after 3 PM.
Remember, the colder the air temperature the less snow required to
wreak havoc on Minnesota roads. Be careful out there later today.
Image credit above: Star Tribune.
Lake Effect Comes Late This Year.
The midday radar loop yesterday looked like something out of November,
icy winds passing over the open water of the Great Lakes producing lake
effect snow bands across Michigan, pushing toward Cleveland and Buffalo.
Coldest Week of Winter.
If you believe European guidance the next cold spell, from Saturday
into Tuesday morning of next week, may be a notch or two than the
current stretch. I want to see a few more runs; hopefully NOAA models
and ECMWF will all converge, but there's little doubt that we'll have to
go through at least one more subzero (spanking) before any kind of
sustained thaw in late January.
Clipper Potential.
NOAA's NAM model brings a burst of light snow and flurries into town
this afternoon and early tonight, printing out about .05" liquid. But
when it's this cold the rain to snow ratio can approach 1:20, so it's
conceivable we could pick up an inch or two of light, fluffy (very icy)
snow in time for PM rush. Animation: AerisWeather.
ECMWF: One Week From Today.
Check out the 7 AM predicted temperatures for the Upper Midwest; in the
-15 to -17F range for the Twin Cities metro and most of the state. I
wouldn't exactly take this to the bank, not yet, but there's a good
chance the reinforcing cold jab 5-8 days away may be 4-8F colder than
what we're experiencing right now. Now about those frequent flier miles.
Does Delta or Sun Country have operators/therapists standing by? (Map:
WeatherBell).
Some Late-Month Moderation.
I still see 20s and a few 30s returning within 2 weeks or so as
upper-air steering winds become more westerly, allowing more moderate
air to penetrate inland from the Pacific. It's still early to browse the
seed catalog, but I still predict the next 7-8 days will be the coldest
of winter.
Tornado Touches Down in Cape Coral (Florida), Damages Homes.
El Nino winters usually generate stronger winds over southern
latitudes, whipping up the "shear" required for tornadic supercell
thunderstorms. Here's an excerpt from The Orlando Sentinel: "Authorities
are assessing the damage after a tornado with winds up to 135 mph
touched down in Cape Coral. Cape Coral Police spokesman Dana Coston
couldn't say how many homes were damaged when the tornado hit Saturday
night, but said a roughly 12-square mile area was affected. No one was
killed and only a few minor injuries were reported. "We have numerous
power lines down, we have numerous homes that have been damaged," he
said. News and witness photos showed cars tipped over, a roof nearly
torn off and large trees and street signs scattered across residents'
yards..."
Image credit above: "The National
Weather Service confirms an EF2 tornado touched down in Cape Coral,
Florida, cutting power to thousands, damaging homes and leaving some
residents unsure about where to go." Reuters.
* 178 buildings damaged in Cape Coral, estimated winds up to 132 mph. Details via Fox4.
* Some amazing photos of the damage at news-press.com. A longer article with more information is here.
* NBC2 has high-resolution mapping of the neighborhoods affected.
Location of Tornado Touchdown.
The line of severe storms that blew across southwest Florida Saturday
evening sparked hail, wind gusts to near 70 mph and at least one EF-2
tornado. Map: AerisWeather Interactive.
A Very Extended Outlook.
With El Nino not forecast to fade until late spring (in truth: it's
been stronger and more persistent than models have been predicting) it's
probably safe to say a mild signal will be with us into the summer,
possibly most of 2016. Mean, monthly temperature anomalies are forecast
to be as much as 15F. warmer than average over central Canada in
February, with a warm signal over the northern states. Above-average
temperatures (shaded in red) linger into May. Maps: NOAA CFSv2 guidance
courtesy of WeatherBell.
16 Nations Set All-Time Heat Records in 2015.
Here's an excerpt from Weather Underground's Jeff Masters - a full post
is coming on the long list of jaw-dropping records: "...In addition
to being the warmest year on record when averaged over the entire
globe, 2015 was also notable for all-time extreme heat records. Sixteen
nations or territories tied or set all-time records for their hottest
temperature in recorded history in 2015, and two (Israel and Cyprus) set
all-time cold temperature records. For comparison, only two nations or
territories set all-time heat records in 2014, and nine did in 2013. The
most all-time national heat records held by any year is nineteen in
2010. Most nations do not maintain official databases of extreme
temperature records, so the national temperature records reported here
are in many cases not official. I use as my source for international
weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, one of the world's top
climatologists, who maintains a comprehensive list of extreme
temperature records for every nation in the world on his website..."
Map and data courtesy of Weather Underground and climate researcher Maximiliano Herrera.
This Is What the Anthropocene Looks Like - Tropical Storms are Forming During Winter.
January tropical storms and cyclones are exceedingly rare, but the
frequency is increasing, due to unusual warmth in the oceans, especially
the Pacific. Here's an excerpt from RobertScribbler: "Since
climatology is the understanding of trends in average weather over long
periods, we can probably say that the off-season tropical cyclone
climatology has already changed for the Pacific. During
the 148 years since record keeping began in 1832 for the Pacific
through to 1980 only seven tropical cyclones were recorded to have
formed during the period of December through May. During just the 35
years since 1980, we’ve seen nearly twice that many — 12. In other
words, the rate of recorded off-season storm formation septupled or
increased a factor of 7. And both the earliest and the latest named
stormed have now formed during back-to-back years — Nine C on New Years
Eve less than two weeks ago and now Pali on January 7th. What we are
seeing now is unprecedented by any measure of tropical weather system
climatology. We have never seen a tropical storm form so early in the
Central Pacific at the same time during which a similar, very rare,
tropical system was threatening to form in the Atlantic..."
El Chapo Speaks. Here is a clip from the already-infamous Sean Penn story at RollingStone: "...This
would be the second prison escape of the world's most notorious drug
lord, the first being 13 years earlier, from Puente Grande prison, where
he was smuggled out under the sheets of a laundry cart. Since he joined
the drug trade as a teenager, Chapo swiftly rose through the ranks,
building an almost mythic reputation: First, as a cold pragmatist known
to deliver a single shot to the head for any mistakes made in a
shipment, and later, as he began to establish the Sinaloa cartel, as a
Robin Hood-like figure who provided much-needed services in the Sinaloa
mountains, funding everything from food and roads to medical relief. By
the time of his second escape from federal prison, he had become a
figure entrenched in Mexican folklore..."
The 13 Most Underrated Movies of 2015. Here's an excerpt of one short-list, courtesy of Variety: "...But
despite a challenging year for indie films, there are still
distributors eager to deliver material, including Netflix, Amazon, The
Orchard, Broad Green, A24 and Bleecker Street. As the independent-film
market tries to stay afloat, some of these players will need to discover
the right formula — between VOD and theatrical releases or some
combination — that can deliver smaller movies to bigger crowds. For now,
here are the most 13 underrated titles of 2015 that deserve another
look..." (Photo credit: SPC).
How Commercials Get Us To Buy Stuff We Don't Need. 3,500 ads a day? And that's just before lunch. Here's an excerpt from TreeHugger: "...Unless the company or product or marketing campaign is an extreme outlier (as some of Patagonia's advertising is),
or unless we're ad-blocking ninjas both online and off, we're getting
exposed to some 3500 advertisements each day that all want us to do one
thing - buy more stuff. How do they do it? This quick video from AJ+, featuring Jonah Sachs, founder of Free Range Studios (which produced The Story of Stuff and The Meatrix),
lays out some of the psychological tactics used in commercials and
advertising, among which is instilling in us a fear of missing out..."
8 Things You Should Always Do on a Plane. Airfarewatchdog.com has the article; here's an excerpt: "...Speaking
of germs, if you're trapped in an enclosed space with someone who has a
contagious disease, you've got a pretty good chance of catching the
virus. If you want to really freak yourself out, read about your chances
of catching something form a sick passenger—like
TB, which you can catch if you're within two rows of patient zero; or
SARS, which can transmit to flyers as far of seven rows away. Save
yourself by blowing away the germs via the air vent above your head. Set
the ventilation to low or medium and position it directly in front of
your head, blowing straight down. If you can feel the air flow on your
lap, you've done it right..." We Know Just How You Feel.
Thanks to Kent Kruhoeffer, who snapped this memorable photo with his
smartphone in Tangshan, China. I have to believe most Minnesotans had
roughly the same expression by mid-afternoon yesterday.
SUNDAY: So cold I almost want to go to Florida. Some sun, feels like -20 to -30F. Winds: NW 10-15. Wake-up: -10. High: -1
Climate Stories...
El Nino Making Snow Now, But Climate Change "Loads the Dice" for Warmer, Future Winters. The Reno Gazette-Journal has the story; here's an excerpt that caught my eye: "...Caldeira
said that while neither a single storm nor even a single season of
weather can be directly attributed to human-caused climate change, the
rapid warming of the planet can create conditions that make warmer
winters with less snow a greater likelihood. He contrasted the winter of
2014-15, which was considered the worst snowpack in hundreds of years,
with the strong start to the winter of 2015-16 and said climate change
essentially loads the dice in favor of warmer scenarios. "As it gets
warmer and warmer the likelihood of last year's snowpack gets more and
more likely," Caldeira said. "This year's snowpack gets less likely..."
Why Climate Change is an Ethical Problem. I've
heard it described as the perfect problem: global, we're all
contributing, and there's no obvious (easy) solution. Here's an excerpt
from The New York Times: "Climate
change presents a severe ethical challenge, forcing us to confront
difficult questions as individual moral agents, and even more so as
members of larger political systems. It is genuinely global and
seriously intergenerational, and crosses species boundaries. It also
takes place in a setting where existing institutions and theories are
weak, proving little ethical guidance. The critical question as we seek
to address climate change will be which moral framework is in play when
we make decisions..."
A Warning for Coastal Residents.
Minnesota's lakes, however frozen, are looking better and better with
each passing year. Alarmist hype? Stay tuned. Here's a clip from CBSPhilly: "A
Florida-based geologist has some dire warnings about climate change.
Among them, many of the barrier islands along the Jersey shore could be
under water in as little as 50 years. Professor Harold Wanless chairs
the Geological Sciences Department at the University of Miami. He
suggests the feds are grossly underestimating the rate at which sea
levels are rising because the polar ice caps are melting so rapidly. His
advice? Towns along the shore should start preparing now..." (File image: Andrew Demp, Yale).
Global Warming, El Nino Combine to Fuel Extreme World Weather. Here's the intro to a story at Voice of America: "A
series of weather disasters has shaken the world in recent weeks, with
deadly floods in the United States and Britain adding to ongoing
droughts in Brazil, South Africa and India. Global warming is partly to
blame because it heats up the world's oceans and sends evaporated water
into the atmosphere, where it generates more heat, says Jeff Masters,
director of meteorology at U.S. online news service Weather Underground..."
The Farce Awakens: Deniers Dispute 2015's Record Heat.
Don't like the implications of minor details such as data, facts and
evidence? Question the scientists, the instruments, even the scientific
method. Cherry-pick the data that fits your ideological narrative, throw
everything else out, and when you get boxed into a corner start
shouting conspiracy theories. That sounds about right. Here's an excerpt
from ClimateDenierRoundup: "...As
legitimate media sources start reporting on the reliable thermometer
record showing 2015 as a record-hot year, we can expect deniers to push
back with the satellite data. But that puts them in the uncomfortable
position of admitting that, even according to this problematic data, the
three hottest years have occurred since 1998, which doesn't exactly
support the position that there's been no warming. Denier's nonsensical
reliance on the satellite record (which only goes back to 1979) ignores
the history of errors with this data and the fact that satellites infer,
based on complex measurements, temperatures up in the atmosphere and
don't calculate those on the ground or in the ocean. So deniers are
ignoring the historical record that dates back to the 1800s, as well as
the ocean - which absorbs 93% of the heat added due to global warming -
and actual physical temperature measurements, in favor of
repeatedly-corrected air temperature measurements...."
January - November, 2015 global temperature anomalies (land and ocean) courtesy of NOAA NCDC.
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