This is not intended to spark off another GW debate. It was evident that those of you in Europe and N.America have just had one of the coldest winters in recent years. I'm curious about the temperartures you're currently experiencing now that we're approaching the middle of March.
pimpom wibbled on Tuesday 09 March 2010 18:24
We've had colder (Southern England) though not recently.
I would say, in a purely handwaving way, that this winter has been more like those of my early childhood and the intervening ones have been unusually warm - ie this is normal.
Anyway, it could all just be random weather cycles.
-- Tim Watts Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.
It has been unusually cool and clear here on the northeast edge of the Willamette Valley -- we're at 600 feet and we got a bit of snow last night.
-- Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com
REALLY cold here in AZ... 56ºF! at 11:30AM Tuesday, March 9, 2010.
We've had light rain for the last three days, which means snow for those east of us :-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
And I'm very near where you grew up, I suppose, just off of hwy 212 and living on Zion hill at 800' elevation. I also just got a small spate of snow earlier last night and had a small dusting of it this morning when I woke up (melted off, quickly) and I expect some possible, later today.
However, the month of January was the third warmest January on record.
Jon
Willamette Valley....that's in western US, isn't it? Oh yes, you're in Oregon, aren't you, Jon?
It's warmed up quite a bit here. The thermometer on my porch read about 76 F at 1 pm this afternoon and 67 F at 3 am.last night. It's 12:30 am and 68 F now. Looks like it's going to be slightly cooler than last night.
snip>
I live near Nice but on the Italian side. It has rained much more than usual, which isn't considered a bad thing. Now the Mimosae are fiowering and our tortoise has woken up from hibernation, so it's going to be warmer. It's mainly the complainers that give you an erroneous impression.
In Western Washington, we've just experienced a cold snap. It was in the high 50's over the weekend (and its been warm for weeks), but it dropped to about 35 yesterday and we got a few snow flurries.
It must be those @$%$&^(& Iranians and their damned nuclear winter!
-- Paul Hovnanian paul@hovnanian.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Have gnu, will travel.
Yes. Near Mt. Hood, west side of it by about 15 miles or so.
Use google maps and look for "SE Zion Hill Dr., Damascus, Oregon 97089" There will be two hills, with Zion Hill drive on the southern one. Which is the one I'm on. The most forested area on the north side of the south hill is at least partly mine. I own a fair number of acres there and looking to buy more.
Jon
Brrrrrr! 56ºF is about as cold as it ever got here this winter -
*at night* (it was a mild winter). Over here it's in the mid-70s around noon and in the high 60s at 2-3 am.Coincidentally, 56ºF is the minimum temp given by Yahoo Weather for my town for tonight and last night. I started a thread about that yesterday in the NG 24hoursupport.helpdesk as there's such a wide discrepancy between Yahoo's figure and my own reading. My thermometer is not a precision instrument, but it agrees quite well with what it feels like.
Right now (1:00 am), I'm sitting near the open door of my den. It's gotten just a wee bit chilly, so I put on a light jacket a few minutes ago.
Indeed, although I grew up about 200 yards from downtown Damascus* and you're considerably further out. I think you may even be out of the school district for the grade school I attended (Damascus Union), although kids in your area would be attending Sam Barlow High, same as me.
-- Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com
Here (so. az) it has been an unusually warm winter. I think only three or four days "below freezing" (and never below high 20'sF). The citrus fruit is sickeningly sweet having all those extra arm days to ripen. This despite being at a low spot (confluence of two washes -- so subject to cold air flowing down out of the mountains) in town. E.g., in years past, we've seen 15 degree nights (cold for this part of the country).
Unfortunately (I would be *shot* if my neighbors heard this "complaint") it has been raining *every* weekend for the past month or so. While I appreciate the rainfall, I have grown to strongly dislike overcast days! (wonder how I ever lived with that sort of crap "year-round" for all those years! :< )
We'll see how much we "pay" for all of this come Summer...
We have had a very mild winter (Minnesota). Warmer , thus more snow. Now, warmer again, and moremelting. Not like the 60's when we had 21 days in a row where the high temp never even broke zero F.
As for the GW debate, I get a real kick out of the loonies who look at local weather and use this to predict whether AGW is real or not. All you need to do is look at glaciers and polar ice caps.
The only two number you need to remember are the Heat of Fusion for water 80 cal/g or (334 kJ/kg) and the specific heat of water 1 cal/g K or (4.187 kJ/kg K).
It takes a lot of heat to melt ice. When the ice gets melted, then that 80 to 1 buffering effect is gone and things will change a lot and very quickly
b Farmer
Here in the Chesapeake Bay region of the East Coast USA, just north of Baltimore, we are currently enjoying a relatively warm spell after a somewhat cooler than average winter. But more impressive was the amount of snowfall, which is actually an effect of warmer atmospheric temperatures, increased water vapor in the air, and the orientation of the jet stream. In my area, we had over 80 inches of snow, which is unprecedented, and a couple hundred miles to the west, at Keysers Ridge, they have had nearly 300 inches of snow. We are known for wide fluctuations of weather, including 70 degrees in January and snow in July, but these variations seem to be getting more extreme in the last three decades.
There is no merit in looking at brief spells of local weather to affirm or deny global warming, or even climate change, and it may be coincidence that seems to identify human activity with the observations. But all efforts toward reducing energy use and switching to renewable sources contribute to the overall well-being of the average world citizen, and the opposition is fueled by the perceived degradation of the lifestyles of those who have benefitted from a non-sustainable consumption of resources.
But this was supposed to be not about AGW, and for now I am enjoying the early spring weather. I saw the first Crocus blossom while walking my dog today.
Paul
Here in the Chesapeake Bay region of the East Coast USA, just north of Baltimore, we are currently enjoying a relatively warm spell after a somewhat cooler than average winter. But more impressive was the amount of snowfall, which is actually an effect of warmer atmospheric temperatures, increased water vapor in the air, and the orientation of the jet stream. In my area, we had over 80 inches of snow, which is unprecedented, and a couple hundred miles to the west, at Keysers Ridge, they have had nearly 300 inches of snow. We are known for wide fluctuations of weather, including 70 degrees in January and snow in July, but these variations seem to be getting more extreme in the last three decades.
There is no merit in looking at brief spells of local weather to affirm or deny global warming, or even climate change, and it may be coincidence that seems to identify human activity with the observations. But all efforts toward reducing energy use and switching to renewable sources contribute to the overall well-being of the average world citizen, and the opposition is fueled by the perceived degradation of the lifestyles of those who have benefitted from a non-sustainable consumption of resources.
But this was supposed to be not about AGW, and for now I am enjoying the early spring weather. I saw the first Crocus blossom while walking my dog today.
Paul
Tim Watts Inscribed thus:
I'll second that. I remember snow piled up at the side of the road for days. I'd probably be around 7 or 8 years old. I don't remember getting off school either, unless the boiler froze. That happened twice in the same winter.
--
Best Regards:
Baron.
53F in San Francisco, 27 in Truckee. It's been a little cooler than normal maybe, and a bit wetter. We left Truckee yesterday around noon to come back to Da City, and it started snowing as we drove. They instituted chain controls that evening and kept them on all night, maybe a bit unusual for March.
"Chain controls" means they stop traffic and only let you through if you have tire chains or 4WD+snow tires.
Looks OK now.
John
The local forecast calls for Dark and more dark tonight. With light appearing in the morning and lasting all day.
Cheers
Yes, Sam Barlow is where kids attended. And yes, not Damascus Union.
:)
They are having such troubles, you know? There's an election going on today, in fact. Quite a controversy there!!
Jon
Philadelphia PA USA has had December, January and February colder than average, but not exceptionally cold. Maybe once per decade or two degree of cold.
The chillyness was also unusually steady, with lack of temperatures dipping into the single digits F. My experience is that a majority of winters in Philadelphia have at least one night dipping below 10 degrees F.
March 2010 so far in Philadelphia has had temperature slightly warmer than normal and unusually steady. The historic greatly-record-breaking snowfall has melted away except in snowbanks in parking lots and the like.
I have heard from friends in Canada that the stretch from Toronto to Sudbury, Ontario has had the past few days very notably mild, with temperatures achieving 50 F / 10 C, and that snowfall ran below normal in that stretch. Toronto, Orangeville and Sudbury currently have ground at least largely free of snow, although some areas between Orangeville and Sudbury had snow cover a couple days ago.
The UAH and RSS indices of lower troposphere temperature have had the 48 contiguous states of the USA on the cool side the past 3 months, and exceptionally anomously cold in December and February. UAH v. 5.3 lower troposphere index for the 48 states this February was the 10th most anomalously cold month since the beginning of this index in December 1978, and most anomalously cold since December 2000. December 2009 according to this index is tied for 12 place most anomalously cold month for the 48 states.
The north polar region ran very notably warm the past 3 months, especially in December 2009 and February 2010. The north polar region (land and ocean combined) had February 2010 being its most anomalously warm month on record, starting with December 1978. December 2009 came in
4th most anomalously warm for the north polar region.This index has February 2010 being the 5th most anomalously warm month for the world, with 4th place being January 2010 and the top 3 months being February, April and May 1998 (record greatest El Nino). December
2009, on the other hand, had global lower troposphere temperature hardly at all more anomously warm than average of the past decade.(If I correctly read
The recent extremes appear to me to have been caused in large part by an El Nino, combined with Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation being high, combined with weather patterns that are disproportionately common in winter during a solar minimum, especially a "Hale minimum" (every other one). Notably, the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation indices achieved notably extremely low values over the past 3 months. The Arctic Oscillation index had December 2009 being its lowest month since the start date of that index in 1950 IIRC. I give fair chance that some random or not-yet-known factor also contributed to the ways this past winter went wacko, due in part to Philadelphia receiving 5 times as much snow as Toronto did in addition to being Philadelphia's snowiest winter since 1884 by a substantial margin.
Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.