Spring 2016 thread (Northern Hemisphere) (climate, snow, warm, record)
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Exactly! You might see it over China, but seems spring comes on strong there vs here. They get that in winter, but the anomalies are lower given the colder averages. We win the prize every year for most freakishly negative temp anomalies. We win that prize just about year after year.
I can never understand why you focus on the anomalies if the averages are lower bur anomalies are lower the result is about the same: around the same amount of very cold weather but with less mild weather intermixed. Seems obviously worse for anyone who likes warmth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tom77falcons
Climate fail is subjective and an opinion to which I am entitled. We are about to go into the low 20'sF in the peach orchards all over our area because of the sandy soil and radiational cooling. It has the potential to wipe out the peach crop.
Nothing to be really happy about that for me, but blame that on the warm March which I wish had never happened. It is not just the cold in winter here, it is how the temps go up and down that causes problems. If we had stability, the peach trees wouldn't be all bloomed out right now. Now you know why I like moderation and sticking close to averages. If we had stuck close to average, the peach trees wouldn't be almost totally bloomed out by now, and their buds would be able to take this easily.
Hmm, ok. Our averages are cold enough even with a mild March the growing season hasn't started yet. Our average low right now is right around freezing, the anomalies don't create a big delay in growing season for us, the averages are bad enough. If our weather was more stable, it'd probably lengthen the growing season by maybe a couple weeks but there's limit to much that can help with the very low average night temperatures. With your warmer averages, stability has more of an impact. Perhaps that's why you focus more on stability?
Record breaking cold in the Pacific Northwest again while New England is being frozen alive, how surprising. Who would have ever expected this. So shocking.
Record breaking cold in the Pacific Northwest again while New England is being frozen alive, how surprising. Who would have ever expected this. So shocking.
March saw bigger warm anomalies here and out east than in the PNW
Last 3 months have been pretty uniformly warm across most of CONUS
I can never understand why you focus on the anomalies if the averages are lower bur anomalies are lower the result is about the same: around the same amount of very cold weather but with less mild weather intermixed. Seems obviously worse for anyone who likes warmth.
Hmm, ok. Our averages are cold enough even with a mild March the growing season hasn't started yet. Our average low right now is right around freezing, the anomalies don't create a big delay in growing season for us, the averages are bad enough. If our weather was more stable, it'd probably lengthen the growing season by maybe a couple weeks but there's limit to much that can help with the very low average night temperatures. With your warmer averages, stability has more of an impact. Perhaps that's why you focus more on stability?
Because anomalies cause things like losing a crop due to temps going up and down and instability. I dislike instability in either positive or negative departures. I just like temps to stick close to average.
Yes, and the further south you go the worse instability can have on crops and vegetation. Citrus in particular hates temps going up and down in winter. It actually makes the trees more tender than they otherwise would be cause they don't get into a deeper dormancy. I'll bet the citrus trees in China can take lower temps than the Southeast US for that reason. That is why I think citrus is native to China and Japan and obviously not here. Long ago the temp instability would have killed them off probably.
Record breaking cold in the Pacific Northwest again while New England is being frozen alive, how surprising. Who would have ever expected this. So shocking.
Isn't it just the same old broken record now for three years. I wonder if we ever had three consecutive very warm winters (and just about every other month too) in the East? Somehow I doubt it.
This just will not end till that PDO goes negative (which btw we are supposed to be in the negative PDO phase) and that water off of the PNW is well below avg.
You know he is being sarcastic right? Unless you live in the US it might not be as apparent. But if you follow the weather here it is almost unprecedented how month after month all you see is that region above to well above average. And it almost always means we are below to well below average. I'm so tired of it.
Tartu in southern Estonia reached 20°C today, beating the old record by 3°C. Tallinn beat the old record by nearly 5°C but was cooler overall. It felt like summer for a second, then it started raining and dropped back to 7°C.
While nobody called it a polar vortex (that didn't start being used again until 2014), winter storm Walda in 2013 is an example of the West getting the polar air, while the East gets the warm.
In 1974 the polar vortex was used to explain the West getting the cold, as well as the Midwest storms. TIME magazine 1974
It would be an entire topic just to discuss the ramifications and disputes over the polar vortex and weather.
But it's like everybody forgot the April 9 2013 winter storm that didn't hit the Eastern US.
It was also a record breaker. Note the record low temp, record low high temp, and record amount of snow.
The polar air doesn't always hit the East, it just seems that way since 2014/15/16 have been so cold and snowy.
1974 was a simpler time, so long ago most people don't even remember when the cold was blamed on something as singular as the Sunspot cycle, or dust.
Okay, let me re-phrase or clarify. Does the vortex ever consistently hit the PNW or Western Europe? Yeah I realize they get the freakish cold event, but when is the last time a piece of the vortex hit the PNW during winter, and never came near the other half of the US? I don't think that happens as often as the opposite. Seems to me they get winters where it never happens more frequently than we do. Are continental climates more tied to the vortex than oceanic?
In a usual northern-hemisphere winter, several minor warming events occur, with a major event occurring roughly every two years. One reason for major stratospheric warmings to occur in the Northern hemisphere is because orography and land-sea temperature contrasts are responsible for the generation of long (wavenumber 1 or 2) Rossby waves in the troposphere.
I found this article from the Washington Post about SSW events and the vortex.
History has shown that a lengthy period of much below-normal temperatures typically occurs somewhere east of the Rockies following the start of a wintertime SSW, but the timing, duration and distribution of the much colder air is not always the same.
The wiki article mentions that the NH experiences a SSW event every two years. I'm not sure if they mean every other winter, or every third winter. But that is an awful lot of polar vortex breakdowns and subsequent severe cold outbreaks for the east. I'm pretty sure the PNW never gets that kind of cold that frequently.
Somehow the Pacific Ocean pushes it towards us I guess. But in Jan 1950 Seattle did go down to 1F, so they must have gotten hit with it then. But it seems to happen so infrequently there compared to here. Hence, are continental climates somehow favorable destinations for the vortex? I would think an upper level low like that could sit anywhere once it broke loose from the Arctic, but it seems to like particular places on the globe more than others.
I wish there was research showing which region of the earth has gotten a polar vortex outbreak the most. Somehow given the frequency of deep cold in our region and the rest of the eastern half of North America, I'll bet it is here.
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We are about to go into the low 20'sF in the peach orchards all over our area because of the sandy soil and radiational cooling. It has the potential to wipe out the peach crop. 
