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I guess the colder temperatures are getting shifted over to the western side of the country the last few years. California two years in a row has record snowfalls. Southern New Mexico much colder as well. My friend in New Jersey frequently sends me high temperatures this winter that were warmer than here.
The legacy perception of New England's annual climate is that it's 5-month warm season and a 7-month cold season. That's perhaps true in northern Maine and northernmost NH and areas over 1500 feet in the region, but otherwise, it's at least flipped now for southern New England. Basically, around now is the end of the colder 5 months of the year and the beginning of the warmer 7 months of the year.
-Boston is colder than Philadelphia. Historically has been ~7-8 degrees colder.
-However, due to climate change, Boston is in New England, the fastest warming region in the country (World someone said above?)
-Boston has warmed over 1.1 degrees F every decade since 1980. Philadelphia has been like 0.5 degrees... whatever it says upthread. I dont remember.
-Boston, Southern New England in general, is warming very fast. So the difference between them and the cities south of them are becoming smaller and smaller.
-Boston's winter, therefore, is not 6 months long compared to NYC at 3-4 months. If anything Boston's winter is 3.5 months and NYC's is 3 months.
-We also can see that Boston's average snowcover went from almost 65 days 50 years ago, to under a month in the 2010s.... even less so today (Probably less than 20 days of snowcover a year).
Everywhere is warming, but New England is warming the fastest. The farther north you go. Burlington VT is warming much faster than Boston is for example.
When I grew up in Boston in the 00s, it was a much different climate (believe it or not...). Now, I barely can tell the difference between North Jersey and SE MA. 20 years ago? Big difference. Now? Not so much.
40 years from now, at these trends, NNJ may have the same weather as Fayetteville NC and Boston may have the same weather as Virginia Beach VA do today.
Scary stuff...
Also, in the 2020s: Boston's average temperature in January is 34 degree. Philadelphia is 37. NYC is 38. In the 80s? There was a MUCH bigger difference. Source: Just look above at the WSJ article lol
I mean we don't have to deal in vagaries. The data is available.
The 1960-1990 January mean high temperature was
Boston 35.8
New York 37.5
Philadelphia 38.0
Baltimore 40.4
D.C. 42.3
The 1990-2020 January mean high temperature was
Boston 37.4 (+1.6)
New York 40.1 (+2.6)
Philadelphia 41.5 (+3.5)
Baltimore 43.0 (+2.6)
D.C. 44.7 (+2.4)
That doesn't really bear witness to what you theorized. If anything the gap has slightly widened.
I know this only adds an anecdote, but as someone who's lived in the Mid-Atlantic (PA and MD) and New England (MA), there's a pretty distinct difference in weather, in my experience, with winter tacking on at least another month of cold/cold-ish weather in the Boston area compared to Philly and especially the DC area.
For whatever meteorological reason, spring always seems to be the biggest difference between New England and points south. Today, for example, it's a high of 72 in Philly, even getting up to 80(!) by next week. In Boston, the high is 56, only reaching a high of 62 by next week.
Also, at this point vegetatively, southern PA and points south are now solidly in the "greenup" phase, whereas Boston really won't reach that point until late April, at the earliest.
I know this only adds an anecdote, but as someone who's lived in the Mid-Atlantic (PA and MD) and New England (MA), there's a pretty distinct difference in weather, in my experience, with winter tacking on at least another month of cold/cold-ish weather in the Boston area compared to Philly and especially the DC area.
For whatever meteorological reason, spring always seems to be the biggest difference between New England and points south. Today, for example, it's a high of 72 in Philly, even getting up to 80(!) by next week. In Boston, the high is 56, only reaching a high of 62 by next week.
Also, at this point vegetatively, southern PA and points south are now solidly in the "greenup" phase, whereas Boston really won't reach that point until late April, at the earliest.
I agree 100%.
I dont know why or how, but the springs feel more dragged out then before where the fall lingers way into the winter.
NCICS isnt credible now? Wall Street’s source was.. you guessed it… the NWS!
Also Link direct source, where information was. We aren’t seeing it. I open up your link and just see a map.
Again, if you are going against what most people are seeing on here you need to post the source directly.
I don't need to do anything. You can choose the weather office on the map for which you want the data, then you can enter the parameters you want the data for and pull the data. If you want to double check it, I gave you the parameters to search by.
FWIW I can't look at that WaPO article, it asks me to pay for it. I could tell you that "you need to" provide a freely available source, like I was, but it's not that relevant as I managed to gain access to the article via a VPN.
Looking at it, I can tell you that the article cites temperature data based on a computer model, not station records. It also looks at a different time frame than the data I looked at. I simply compared the 30 year normal we used in the 90s (1960-1990) with the 30 year normal we currently use (1990-2020) for specific weather stations for the month of January. The data cited by WaPo is looking at entire winters for 1980-2024 and does not use weather stations because it's relying on that computer model which generates temperature data for specific spots in the U.S..
The advantage of WaPo's approach is that it can give you specific data even for locations which may not be in direct proximity to a reliable weather station. The disadvantage is that it's much more difficult to validate without full access to the entire data set and the methodology used.
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