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.
Friday, January 8, 2016
Coldest Air of Winter 1-3 Days Away - is AGW Making El Nino Stronger?
34 F. high in the Twin Cities Thursday. 23 F. average high on January 7. -1 F. high on January 7, 2015.
7.6 F. The first 6 days of January ran 7.6 F. warmer than average in the Twin Cities.
January 8, 1902: A January Thaw occurs across Minnesota. The Twin Cities experience a high of 46 degrees.
A Little Perspective on the Upcoming Arctic Chill
Wait,
you live in Minnesota and you're surprised it's going to get cold?
"Paul, I thought El Nino and global warming would keep us mild all
winter long!" Winter will be shorter and milder overall, but a few
Siberian slaps at this latitude are like gravity, taxes and soul-sucking
commutes: inevitable.
According to the Minnesota DNR there has
never been a winter where MSP hasn't gone below zero at least twice. On
average the first subzero low in the Twin Cities comes December 8; the
latest was January 18, 2012. By my calculations we'll finally dip below
zero Saturday night, January 9th, the 8th latest subzero low since 1872.
On
average we pick up 23 subzero nights every winter. We'll enjoy 3 next
week, but I'd bet a stale State Fair corn dog we'll experience fewer
than 10 for the entire winter.
1-2 inches of slushy snow may fall today. Temperatures tumble through the teens Saturday; staying below zero most of Sunday, with a wind chill dipping to -25F during the morning. Tuesday looks just as cold - but you'll be amazed how good +30F feels next Thursday.
Time to get our Winter Mojo back! 8th Latest Subzero Low at MSP Since 1872? It's unusual that we haven't enjoyed negative numbers yet in the Twin Cities, but that's about to change. The Minnesota DNR helps to put this winter's (late) first subzero low into perspective: "So
far at the Twin Cities there has not been a minimum temperature of zero
or colder for the winter of 2015-16. How rare is it to go so late in
the season without a minimum of zero or colder? In 143 years of record
keeping in the Twin Cities, the official temperature has always fallen
below zero sometime during the winter. There has never been a Twin
Cities winter where the temperature has not dipped to zero or colder at
least twice. The long term average for the first below-zero reading in
the Twin Cities is December 8. The earliest below-zero temperature
recorded in the Twin Cities was November 4, 1991..."
Snow and Cold Timeline.
The Twin Cities NWS has a good handle on the upcoming nuisance snow
event and subsequent chill (as usual). I agree with the 1-2" range,
leaning more towards a sloppy inch. For a higher-resolution graphic click here. Saturday Cold Front.
Temperatures will fall from tonight into Saturday, maybe recovering a
couple of degrees around midday, but falling through the teens, dropping
below zero after midnight Saturday night. The 1 PM Saturday temperature
prediction is from NOAA's NAM model and AerisWeather.
Old Man Winter Takes His Best Shot.
Will we see more cold fronts in February and March? That seems like a
pretty sure bet to me, but (historically) the coldest air of winter
empties south of the border in mid-January, roughly 3 weeks after the
Winter Solstice. I suspect next week will be the coldest, in terms of
number of hours below zero. That said, the metro may not dip much below
-10F. Cold, but not even close to record-setting. 2-meter GFS
temperature prediction above: NOAA and AerisWeather.
A Whopping Inch or Two.
Most models print out 1-1.5" of slushy snow today with temperatures
close to 32F; roads mainly wet into the afternoon hours. But the mercury
drops off sharply tonight, and wet roads may become icy. As of late
last night the local NWS office was forecasting 1.8" of slush. Source:
Iowa State.
Two Surges of Arctic Air.
The first shot arrives Saturday with temperatures below zero most of
the day Sunday and Sunday night. Temperatures blip above 0F on Monday
before a reinforcing front drops temperatures into negative numbers most
of Tuesday and Tuesday night. I suspect Wednesday morning may bring the
coldest air temperatures, as skies clear and winds ease, allowing metro
temperatures to dip to -10F or colder. Source: WeatherSpark. Freak Snow Streak.
Similar to a line of summer T-storms that stalls in place, individual
cells repeatedly passing over the same county like a "train-echo" event,
an unusual jet streak feature aloft sparked a very persistent band of
snow over the Red River Valley, squeezing out as much as 14" of new snow
at Georgetown, Minnesota. Doppler radar snowfall estimates courtesy of
the Grand Forks National Weather Service.
Days Since Last Winter Storm Warning. This graphic, courtesy of Iowa State University of Science and Technology
shows how many days have elapsed since the last NWS Winter Storm
Warning. Odd to be seeing far more warnings for California and the
southwestern USA than the Upper Midwest. New Orleans has gone 708 days
since a Winter Storm Warning!
7 of the Coldest Places in the World to Live. Thankfully we did not make the list, but Oymyakon, Russia did. Here's an excerpt of a description at Mother Nature Network: "Folks
in Oymyakon take exception whenever Verkhoyansk lays claim to being the
coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere, pointing out that they
recorded a low of minus 90 degrees F on Feb. 6, 1933. Depending on whom
you ask, 500 to 800 people call Oymyakon home, a three-day drive from
Yakutsk. Schools stay open through minus 52 degrees.
The village is named after a local hot spring, which some residents tap
during the winter by breaking through the thick crust of ice rimming
the warm water. Oymyakon's tourism board has promoted the town as a
perfect destination for adventure travelers hungry for a taste of the
extreme."
Antarctic Life: No Dogs, Few Vegetables and "a Little Intense" in the Winter. Think it's cold where you live? Ha! Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story: "...The
inhabitants here say it could be any Chilean village. Except that Villa
Las Estrellas is in Antarctica. Fewer than 200 people live in this
outpost founded in 1984 during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, when Chile
was seeking to bolster its territorial claims in Antarctica. Since
then, the tiny hamlet has been at the center of one of Antarctica’s most
remarkable experiments: exposing entire families to isolation and
extreme conditions in an attempt to arrive at a semblance of normal life
at the bottom of the planet. “It gets a little intense here in winter,” said José Luis Carillán..."
Photo credit: "Facilities at the base run by the Chilean Antarctic Institute." Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times.
Arctic Sea Ice Extent.
Based on unusual warmth and hurricane-like storms pulling 30s into the
North Pole 2016 is starting out with the lowest arctic sea ice coverage
in the modern record. Here's an excerpt from The National Snow and Ice Data Center: "Arctic
sea ice growth for December averaged 65,000 square kilometers (25,000
square miles) per day compared to the long-term average of 64,000 square
kilometers (24,700 square miles) per day. Cool conditions at the 925
hPa level (2 to 4 degrees Celsius or 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit below
average) existed in Baffin Bay, the Alaskan North Slope, and parts of
eastern Siberia. A broad area of Europe and western Russia, including
the northern Barents Sea, saw temperatures as much as 4 to 8 degrees
Celsius (7 degrees to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above average at the 925
hPa level..."
Traffic Cams Capture Terrifying EF-4 Tornado.
This is the killer tornado that hit the Garland, Texas area on December
26, 2015; here's a link to the video and explainer from The Weather Channel: "This
incredible video sheds a stark light on the deadly tornado that passed
over Interstate 30 in Garland, Texas the day after Christmas – the same
tornado that would go on to kill eight people. It's a video that Garland
Police Department spokesman Pedro Barineau called "terrifying." The
video, comprised of clips from five cameras at the intersection of I-30
and the Bush Turnpike, shows first a distant, flashing glimpse of the
EF-4 tornado. Then the destructive power of the tornado comes front and
center as debris flies across the screen..."
Mississippi River Floods Could Cost $1 Billion, And They're Not Over Yet. Here's a clip from a story at WXshift: "...While
major flood events in the Midwest and the Mississippi Valley are not
unusual, the fact that we had such extraordinary flooding in late
December is certainly one for the record books,” Steve Bowen, a meteorologist at re-insurer Aon Benfield, said.
The Midwest has seen catastrophic flooding as recently as spring 2011
when the Mississippi and Missouri rivers set a number of records. In an
odd twist of fate, the tropical Pacific also played a role, though it
was due to El Niño’s opposite phase, La Niña. That helped drive a cold, snowy winter in the northern stretches of the rivers’ basins, which fueled a massive runoff in spring. The damage could top $1 billion. The flood is expected to continue into at least next week, but the financial toll it has taken already is clear..."
From El Nino to La Nina Later in 2016?
Severe El Nino warm phases are often (but not always) followed by
swings in the opposite direction, into a La Nina cool phase, which
increases the potential for drought across much of the USA east of the
Rockies. We'll see. Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg Business: "A
number of El Nino-Southern Oscillation indicators suggest that the
2015-16 El Nino has peaked and weather models predict it will decline in
coming months, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said
on its website on Tuesday. Conditions will return to neutral during the
second quarter with a chance of La Nina in the second half of 2016, it
said. La Nina is a cooling in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, sometimes
thought of as El Nino’s opposite..."
How Drought and Heat Are Killing the World's Crops. Recent research suggests that big, rich, developed countries are more at risk, due to monoculture, according to a story at TIME; here's a clip: "...Developed
countries experienced some of the most severe crop loss due to drought
and heat, according to the research. Crop production in North America,
Europe and Australia faced nearly a 20% decline thanks to drought and
extreme heat, compared to less than 10% in Africa and Latin America. Researchers
attributed the disparity to a difference between the agricultural
methods employed in the different areas. Farmers in developed countries
tend to grow crops uniformly across large areas. Drought affects those
crops uniformly. Growing a wide variety of crops in a given region in
the developing world mitigates the risk that all crops will be wiped out
thanks to a given weather event..."
Study Finds That Weather Disasters Took a Heavy Toll on Crops. Here's the intro to new research highlighted at The New York Times: "Droughts
and heat waves wiped out nearly a tenth of the rice, wheat, corn and
other cereal crops in countries hit by extreme weather disasters between
1964 and 2007, according to a new study. The paper, published Wednesday in Nature,
examined data on the effects, over five decades, of extreme
temperatures, floods and droughts on national crop harvests. “People
already knew that these extreme weather events had impacts on crop
production,” said Navin Ramankutty,
a geographer from the University of British Columbia and an author of
the report. “But we didn’t know by how much, and we didn’t have a basis
for how that might change in the future...”
The 2015 Wildfire Season Set an Ominous Record. Climate Central has the statistics and story; here's an excerpt: "The
U.S. as a whole may finally be feeling winter’s chill, but the newly
released 2015 wildfire numbers serve as a reminder of how hot and smoky the past year was. The National Interagency Fire Center’s numbers vividly illustrate how 2015 was a record setter. U.S. wildfires scorched 10.12 million acres. That
bests the previous mark of 9.87 million acres set in 2006, and it's the
first time wildfire acreage burned has crossed the 10-million acre
threshold..."
Map credit above: "Annual acreage burned by wildfires in the U.S. since 1970."
Half the World Lives In Just 1% of the Land (Map). CityLab has a fascinating article; here's an excerpt: "In
the simple map above lies a stark spatial imbalance: half the people in
the world cram into just 1 percent of the Earth’s surface (in yellow),
and the other half sprawl across the remaining 99 percent (in black).
Data viz extraordinaire Max Galka created this map using NASA’s gridded population data,
which counts the global population within each nine-square-mile patch
of Earth, instead of within each each district, state, or country
border..."
Is Sweden's "Green Miracle" a Model for the Rest of the World? Here's the intro to a BBC report: "In
the wake of the Paris Climate Agreement, many countries will be looking
to curb their emissions while continuing to grow their economies.
Sweden is often held up as a role model in this regard having increased
GDP by almost 60% over the past 25 years while cutting carbon by a
fifth. But the country's "green miracle" is now under threat..."
In 21 States Local Newspapers Lack a Dedicated Reporter Keeping Tabs on Congress. The ongoing disruption of professional journalism has consequences, as reported by Pew Research Center: "...Papers
that do employ these reporters – who are tasked in part with
interpreting the decisions and policies of Washington for readers back
home – are not clustered in any one part of the country, but rather are
spread out around the United States. But 21 of 50 states do not have a
single local daily newspaper with its own dedicated D.C. correspondent
accredited to cover Congress. While these 21 states tend to have smaller
populations and thus small congressional delegations, there are notable
exceptions. Arizona and Indiana (both with a nine-member delegation)
have no local paper with its own dedicated D.C. correspondent..."
Ehang 184 Drone Will Carry You Away - Literally.
Oh boy, here it comes - a drone ride to work every morning? Don't
laugh. That day may be coming sooner than you think. Here's an excerpt
from Gizmag: "As might be expected, there are a lot of drones on display this week
at CES. Almost all of them have one thing in common, however: people
can't ride in them. We say "almost all," as there is one exception.
Ehang's 184 AAV (Autonomous Aerial Vehicle) is designed to carry a
single human passenger, autonomously flying them from one location to
another. Ehang
CEO Huazhi Hu began designing the one-seater electric drone a couple of
years ago, after two of his pilot friends were killed in plane crashes.
He decided that people needed a form of short-to-medium-distance
personal air transport that didn't require them to have a pilot's
license, and that took much of the danger out of low-altitude flight..."
The U.S. Navy Is Very Interested in This Swimming Drone. Quartz has the video clip and explainer: "Rutgers
University has built a drone that can swim as well as it can fly, as
you can see in the video above. The “Naviator,” as they’ve called it,
has sparked the interest of the US Navy, which recently funded the
project with a $618,000 grant. Rutgers engineers say they will use the
money to make it stronger and faster..."
Meru.
If you like mountain-climbing docs you don't want to miss this - the
first ascent of a seemingly impossible peak in the Himalayas, a
sharkfin-shaped blade of ice and rock, a mountain so technically
impossible it makes Everest look like a day-hike. I watched it on Amazon
Video - I think it's available on iTunes as well. The cinematography is
awe-inspiring, the story will lift your spirits. The YouTube trailer is
here. Despite the CES Hype It's Better to Wait on that 4K TV. Here's an excerpt of a review at The New York Times: "...But
after interviewing several technology companies and testing a premium
Samsung 4K TV for more than a week, I was less than convinced that 2016
would be a good year to buy one of the sets. Televisions with the 4K
feature remain expensive, ranging from $1,000 to tens of thousands of
dollars. More important, the content available in the new 4K video
resolution is sparse. And while images encoded in 4K do look better than
normal high-definition ones, the differences aren’t jaw-dropping..."
Photo credit: "Executive
vice president at Samsung Electronics America, Joe Stinziano, presents
the curved-screen Samsung KS9500 TV at the International CES in Las
Vegas."Credit John Locher/Associated Press.
The Alp Watch is a $29,400 Joke at the Apple Watch's Expense. It looks like a high-end Apple Watch, but it's very Swiss, very traditional. No digital distractions. Here's an excerpt from The Verge: "...Luxury watchmaker H. Moser & Cie has unveiled what it's calling the Swiss Alp Watch,
a timepiece that looks near-identical to the Apple Watch but that is,
shall we say, unapologetically mechanical. As is made clear in the Alp
Watch's promo video (complete with Apple-like product close ups and
voiceover), the timepiece offers "no phone, no messaging, no sketches or
heart beats to send." It'll never need upgrading and it can always be
powered up with a twist of the (non-digital) crown. Its creators urge
viewers to "get a life, upgrade to a mechanical watch," before ending
the video with what sounds very much like someone taking a bite out of
an apple. As marketing goes, it's not subtle..."
TODAY: 1-2" of slushy snow; mainly wet roads up until late afternoon. Winds: N 8-13. High: 33
Amplification of El Nino by Cloud Longwave Coupling to Atmospheric Circulation. Which is an impressive way of saying global warming seems to make El Nino worse. Here's an excerpt of the paper's abstract at Nature Publishing Group: "...Here
we present numerical experiments with an Earth system model, with and
without coupling of cloud radiative effects to the circulation,
suggesting that clouds enhance ENSO variability by a factor of two or
more. Clouds induce heating in the mid and upper troposphere associated
with enhanced high-level cloudiness12 over the El Niño region, and low-level clouds cool the lower troposphere in the surrounding regions13.
Together, these effects enhance the coupling of the atmospheric
circulation to El Niño surface temperature anomalies, and thus
strengthen the positive Bjerknes feedback mechanism14 between west Pacific zonal wind stress and sea surface temperature gradients..."
Arctic Methane Emissions "Greater" Than Previous Estimates. Climate Home has the update; here's the intro: "The
quantity of methane leaking from the frozen soil during the long Arctic
winters is probably much greater than climate models estimate,
scientists have found. They say at least half of
annual methane emissions occur in the cold months from September to
May, and that drier, upland tundra can emit more methane than wetlands. The multinational team, led by San Diego State University (SDSU) in the US and including colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
and the University of Sheffield and the Open University in the UK, have
published their conclusion, which challenges critical assumptions in
current global climate models, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences..."
Oil Lobby Prepares to Sway U.S. Presidential Race. Here's the intro to a story at Climate Home: "The
US trade association, which represents 400 companies including Shell,
BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil, also steered clear of December’s UN pact
agreed by 195 countries to tackle global warming. But it did indicate
the body – which scored a recent win with Congress voting to lift a
40-year old ban on the US exporting oil and gas – wants to influence the
2016 US presidential race. Launching the report, API chief Jack Gerard
said the group’s “election advocacy arm”, known as Vote4Energy, would
lobby hard for candidates keen to retrench green laws and expand
offshore drilling..." (File image: BP).
Despite Protests, Oil Industry Thrives Under Obama Agenda. Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg Business: "...U.S.
oil production has surged 82 percent to near-record levels in the past
seven years and natural gas is up by nearly one-quarter. Instead of
shutting down the hydraulic fracturing process that has unlocked natural
gas from dense rock formations, Obama has promoted the fuel as a
stepping stone to a greener, renewable future. The administration has
also permitted drilling in the Arctic Ocean over the objections of
environmentalists and opened the door to a new generation of oil and gas
drilling in Atlantic waters hugging the East Coast. He also signed,
with reservations, a measure to lift a 40-year-old ban on the export of
most U.S. crude..." (Graphic: Department of Energy).
Era of Climate Science Denial Is Not Over, Study Finds. Here's a clip from a story at The Guardian: "...No
more arguing over the science? It’s more about the policy now, right?
Well, wrong. At least according to a new study that has looked at 15
years worth of output from 19 conservative “thinktanks” in the United
States. “We find little support for the claim that ‘the era of science
denial is over’ - instead, discussion of climate science has generally
increased over the sample period,” the study concludes. The conservative
thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain..." Climate Change is Indeed a Cause of Social Conflict. When
people ask me if climate volatility is a bigger threat than ISIS I tell
them the truth: we have multiple challenges and threats at any given
point in time. Did perpetual drought in Syria help to create the
conditions that allowed ISIS to flourish? As is often the case it's a
combination of factors, a perfect storm of variables. Here's an excerpt
from The Goldman School of Public Policy at The University of California, Berkeley: "...Another
caveat: We can’t predict that a particular conflict will or will not
happen. Instead, we can assess the risk that violence might occur in
response to changes in the climate. The situation is similar to
assessing the risk of a car accident. Nobody ever says, “If you drive to
the store now, you will get into an accident.” Instead, we might say,
“If you drive to the store during this rainstorm, you are more likely to
get into an accident than if you wait until the rain stops.” We have
studied many types of violence — including sports violence, murder, gang
violence, riots and civil wars. What we find time and again, around the
world and throughout human history, is that climatic events are a cause
of social conflict. They are not the only cause, but in places where
there is a risk of violence because of non-climate factors, climate
changes can amplify this risk..."
America Has Been Duped on Climate Change. Why and how? Follow the money. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at The Washington Post: "...The Declaration of Independence says the legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed.But
when vested interests with outsize economic and cultural power distort
the public debate by introducing falsehoods, the integrity of our
deliberations is compromised. Such seems the case today when we consider
the fossil fuel industry’s role in distorting discourse on the urgent
topic of climate change. If vested economic interests and public
relations firms can systematically alter the national debate in favor of
their own interests and against those of society as a whole, then the
notion of democracy and civic morality is undermined. Congress can and
should act to investigate this issue fully. Only then can we restore
trust and legitimacy to American governance and fulfill our moral duty
to aggressively address climate change..."
The Silent Way Global Warming is Affecting Your Wardrobe. Here's an excerpt of a story from Quartz and WhoWhatWear: "When
it comes to climate change, there are two camps of people—those who
contend with it and those who don’t—but the more time passes, the harder
it is to ignore. Among the evidence? Rising seas, violent storms, and
extreme drought. Not to mention the fact that 2015 is slated to be the hottest year on record. And, according to a recent article on Quartz,
climate change may well be affecting our wardrobes, too. Due to its
depletion of so many crucial natural resources, a host of our favorite
clothing and accessories materials are now at risk too. This could
result in poorer quality or downright depletion—neither of which would
be good for the fashion industry at large or our closets..."
Earth is Experiencing a Global Warming Spurt. The
effects of ENSO (El Nino warming phases and La Nina cooling phases of
the Pacific) can either magnify or mask the gradual warming already well
underway, as reported by Climate Central: "Cyclical changes in the Pacific Ocean have thrown earth’s surface into what may be an unprecedented warming spurt,
following a global warming slowdown that lasted about 15 years. While
El Niño is being blamed for an outbreak of floods, storms and
unseasonable temperatures across the planet, a much slower-moving cycle
of the Pacific Ocean has also been playing a role in record-breaking
warmth. The recent effects of both ocean cycles are being amplified by
climate change..."
Global temperature anomalies valid 12z this morning, courtesy of Climate Reanalyzer.
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