Updated with a photo, Daryl Ritchison writes:
If you want pictures of the Dickinson snow, here are a couple of pictures sent from a viewer of mine. They reported 1.5″ as these pictures were being taken. The one with the lilac blooming (at right in photo above) is interesting because most years the lilac have finished blooming three weeks ago, but the spring has been so cold in this area that most phenological events are running about 2-3 weeks behind schedule.
More here from the TV station web site: http://www.kxma.com/weather
From the “weather is not climate” department, this report from TV station KXMC in North Dakota:
KXNewsTeam
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) Snow has fallen in Dickinson in June, the first time in nearly 60 years the city has seen snow past May.
National Weather Service meteorologist Janine Vining in Bismarck says there were unofficial reports of a couple of inches of snow in Dickinson on Saturday.
Vining says snow in North Dakota in June is uncommon, though it’s not unheard of. She says other parts of the state have seen June snow within the past 10 years.
Williston and Bismarck had received only rain as of mid-Saturday, but Vining said snow was possible in those cities later in the day.
Twins Elizabeth (left) and Jeanette McGregor play in the snow in Aviemore
The word snow is no longer allowed, pls refer to it as merely ‘soft hail’.
What about the southern hemisphere? Skiing in NZ is starting at least 5 weeks early.
Snowing in June in huh. I am always curious about how the weather is like in the 60’s and 70’s while the average temperature was colder than today (I was bornt in the late 70’s). Last Christmas I made a trip to Seattle and Vancouver (from Denver), and I was cursing every minute as I struggled through that miserable snowy condition (the rental car company gave me a sports car, of all things). I later found out that 2008 was the first time Canada saw white Christmas from coast to coast in recorded history. Yes 2008 was one of the hottest years in record?
We need more global warming, if it’s indeed happening, IMO.
Good glad someone else got it in June-last year in NE Oregon it snowed down to 2500 ft….
A couple of inches of snow fell in Lassen National Park in northern California a couple of days ago. The National Park service just got last winter’s snow cleared from the road thru the park and open to the public the same day. Let’s see, some of last winters snow still left on the ground and we’ve got new snow already. Looks like the start of a new glacial age to me. Damn that global “warming”.
When it really gets cold I’ll have to sign off – can’t stand a bunch of cry-babies. I like snow, especially pictures of it from your place.
No wonder the Arctic sea ice is melting so quickly in the past 2-3 weeks — all the cold air’s been sent south — let’s blame it on the funky jet stream — it’s gone goofy.
Well, I just put this under the other thread, but it fits better here:
Speaking of “watch the snow” from:
http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=10487325
we have:
Chains in June? Snow blankets Sierra Nevada
Associated Press – June 5, 2009 6:04 PM ET
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – Motorists might have to use chains in some parts of the Sierra Nevada this weekend after violent thunderstorms pounding Central California brought unseasonable snow above 5,000 feet.
[…]
CHP officer Kirk Arnold advised drivers to behave “as you would if you were driving in December.”
In Fresno, lightening knocked KSEE-TV off the air Friday morning. KFSN-TV’s camera at Sierra Summit ski resort shows trees boughs bending under heavy snow.
Yeah, all that SUMMER snow from all the excess AGW HEAT is just going to burn me into an ice cube… /sarcoff>
I’m sorry, I just can’t make my mind do that kind of contortion.
Much easier is:
PDO flipped, maybe due to sleepy sun, we’re getting cold and it’s snowing a lot more…
Oh, and Mammoth too:
http://www.mammothtimes.com/
(though I don’t see a way to pick up a link to the particular article about june snow, so a few months from now who knows what story that link will point at…)
Oh, and Lassen too:
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/jun/06/rain-snow-make-for-unusual-june-weather/
Repeat after me: I am not cold. I’m feeling warmer and warmer all the time. I am not going numb. White is the new brown. I am not cold. I’m feeling warmer and warmer all the time. Oh, forget it, I’m going to go make some hot cocoa and think about planting July kale, peas, and fava beans…
Snow fell is the Sierra Nevada the last two days, even shutting down highway 120 over Tioga Pass in Yosemite. Unusual for June but not unheard of. Mammoth is still open for skiing and snowboarding…
It came from here. The real oddity is that germination is way off for the crops this year. When the hell is Mr Gore’s surge in temperatures going to happen? We could sure use it right about now.
OOOH, Weather talk!
Freezing in Western Colorado. Unhappy, back in wool socks, pajamas, coats. A month of no sunshine to speak of. Friend in Billings MT reported snow also.
We have never had so many cloudy days in the last 25 years , 3 years of this crummy cold, cloudy weather.
I saw two tornadoes in 2007 over the Uncompaghre Plateau. No one to report them to, June 7 2007. We don’t have those nasty things over here.
When all the Cap & Tirade gets passed and all the things the AGW True Believers think needs to be done to stop AGW are “started” it ought to be just about the time we’re getting Really Really cold.
I’d like to propose that folks start planning to shout loudly and long at their government master, er representative, and the media that:
“We gave you the tools to combat Global Warming, not make it Frozen!! You’ve made it too cold, you’ve over done it, turn the heat back up some!!
It’s all Your Fault that it is cold and snowing, crops are failing, and my heating bill is too high!”
Even if you fully well know that AGW is a crock.
Even if you fully well know that the “corrective” actions have had no effect yet.
They have asserted that if we give them our chicken they can examine the entrails and make it the right temperature. All I’m suggesting is that we hold them to their promise … especially since we won’t be having that roast chicken dinner to keep us warm…
(Having been Director of Facilities for a hundred thousand square foot scale building, trust me, you do not want responsibility for the thermostat! You only know it’s right when the complaints are evenly split… So they want to control the thermostat: Fine. Start telling them what temperature you want and complaining about them having it set wrong… )
Here in Kansas summer-like temps. are already here, 95 was the high here today with Liberal in the Southwest corner up to 98, we’re supposed to get a big cooldown but only to about 78 or so.
Snow in North Dakota!? Are the trees still bare up there, seems like they would be dropping leaves trying to grow during what should be spring if that was the case.
And what’s better usually, rapid ice melt because of the cold temps. being sent southward, or cold air being bottled up in the North slowing ice melt, but allowing northern heatwaves?
New Zealand has just seen its firstly early ski season for some 10 years with May breaking many of the previous May min temperature records with the mean national temp well below normal – but its just weather folks!
I’m surprised the Canadians aren’t more involved here. Kiwis I’m used to. I guess Canadians don’t have grandchildren.
EMSMITH: well said, I’m too exhausted by the constant propaganda to say it anymore. I can’t write my congressmen, I’m speechless. This mass delusion is unbelievable.
Pink dusty snow in the high mountains, blown in, it was in the news. MUD RAIN!! Wind blew away my worst weed problem (hare barley) like a gift from the Almighty. Sigh.
Canadian letters from a century ago speak of the weather and the postal service. Now all they talk about is the postal service.
Alan F. (21:55:52) : The real oddity is that germination is way off for the crops this year.
What crops are you growing, watching? Where?
Actually, germination is a fairly reliable thermometer. It isn’t odd at all that germination is “off” when it’s colder. For example, Purple Wonder (all purple pod brown seeded common beans, actually) germinate in cooler soils. I use them for early and late garden beans. Blue Lakes and Kentucky wonders are about 50F+ soil temp IIRC to germinate. Teppary beans (a desert bean) even warmer. I had a heck of a hard time getting soy and “southern peas” to germinate early enough to finish growing since I’m on the edge of their temperature limit. It is the seeds way of matching start of growth to optimal conditions for growth where it evolved.
One could make a fairly reliable thermometer for soil temps by planting a known collection of seeds and seeing when each one germinates. It’s precise to a couple of degrees (you may get one or two “sports” that germinate early / cold, but the center of the bell curve is very sharp…)
There are two other precise temperature measures a plant gives you:
Temperature for pollination. Most tomatoes must STAY above 50F to set fruit. Some varieties are even higher. (The temps a known for each variety so you can choose the right one for your area.) Again, one can make a decent thermometer using fruit set. For example, Siberians set at about 40F, regular at 50F, and I’ve got a brandywine that doesn’t do anything until 60F. The gaps can be filed in with other varieties and you could probably use number of fruits set / day to get finer granularity.
Degree Days. This shows up in two flavors:
1) Cooling degree days. Stone fruits like peaches, plums, etc. need a certain amount of cold to know winter has happened. No cold, no fruit. Again, varieties have specific numbers, so a field of them could be used to give a fairly accurate reading of number of cold days in a winter.
2) Heating degree days. Grapes, for example, form sugar in direct proportion to the temperature x days. Any decent vintner knows how many degree days they’ve had, and how many they need, for optimum sugar. Yes, there are varietal difference here, too. So Germany grows low degree day whites and Italy has high degree day Chianti. One can use a brix gauge on the juice and know with fair precision how many degree days of heat have flowed into the vineyard for any given variety.
It is kind of like a Galileo Thermometer
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question663.htm
each plant give you a cut off reading. My Siberian has been setting fruit, my 4th of July, not so much. Night time temps below 50F, above 40F. (I could be more accurate if I’d look up their actual fruit set limits… these are IIRC only…)
I have a ‘fantasy garden’ I’d like to plant some day when I have a couple of million dollars to spare and a ranch (yeah, right…). It would have a planted sundial and a planted (rough climate) thermometer. By looking at the garden you would know the time, temperature range (roughly) and date. (There are sundials that give date information… size is precision… I’d need a large garden 😉 but certain flowers form in certain date ranges. Again a mixed planting would give more precision. There are also some flowers that only open at certain time / temperature points… but that’s getting a bit geeky 😉
Well last year my hometown of GEG received snow for the first June ever since records began at the local NWS there.
Guess it’s not totally beyond possibility that it snows in June.
But if it starts snowing in July and August, I’ll probably start wondering.
Down on the Farm as Metrology
I wear my Joe Sixpack roots and my Joe Sixpack mindset with honor. Keeps you more focused and grounded than most folks. Lets me know how the 75% outside the intellectuals bubble are going to act and think.
I suppose I could add that my Grandpa could hit a hill outside the farm with a truck load of hogs, and based on where he had to downshift, tell you the tonnage and how much money they would fetch at market before reaching the top of the hill, even allowing for fuel and passengers on board.
My dad taught me to look at the garden and gauge ‘days since planting’ with things like 25 days, you are harvesting radishes, 15 days the radishes are up and growing modest bulbs, 10 days they are babys, and, IIRC it was 5 days from planting to first green. We would plant part of a row each week and had a constant calendar of radishes… He could look at the garden and tell you the days since planting (and he planted off the solar lunar positions, so it was a calendar linked to the solar system… potatoes were only planted on a new moon, for example.) He knew to the day when first sugar corn would be ripe. (Hey, Iowa, what do you expect!)
If temperatures change significantly, your local gardener and farmer will be the first to know. And they will be using a thermometer and heat flux integrator of full degree precision that can not be fudged.
And that is why I’ve mumbled so much about my tomatoes. They have told me already that this is a cold year, it is not up for debate. That my purple pod beans are “slow” says it’s been a very cold year so far. That, too, is not up for debate. Over what size geography is the only free axis.
And frankly, that was one of the first things to set off my BS-O-Meter about AGW. The limit to palms had not moved. The limit to Citrus was 20 miles north of my home town and had not moved. And the winter chill stone fruit orchards that were on the limit of ‘almost not enough cold’ down south still produced just fine. It wasn’t warmer in winter… and fruit ripened at the same time as before. It wasn’t warmer in summer.
Oh, and first and last frosts were not moving out further either. This year they did move in, though… And being right on the edge of avocado survival, the frosts took a couple of avocado sprouts. (A large parent survived with frostbit leaves).
So my garden has told me quite clearly: Global Warming has not happened to any significant degree. Cooling has begun, and it is colder than it has been in the last decade or so. Draw all the pretty pictures you want with all the fictional False Precision you want and dance around the May Pole all you want … my plants tell me immutable truths. So does the snow on the hill in June. In California.
I’m not a “Skeptic”, I’m a DENIER. It Just Ain’t Happening and I’m happy to say that “loud and proud” and in mixed public.
I’m replacing the transmission and clutch on my car this weekend, as well as the struts, shocks and all brakes.
Trust me, I’m GLAD I’m in the garage all weekend. There was about an inch of snow on the ground (and cars) Friday night, and Saturday was a mix of rain and snow and sleet and fog and sun. I’m in Calgary (Alberta).
No, this isn’t grossly unusual, but… it’s not the norm. Usually by June we can count on being done with snow and expecting hail, and in 4 more weeks we can almost bank on crop-damaging hail wandering the land.
And for the occasional person wandering past wondering why this is important… yeah, it proves that in spite of the warmists’ best propagandizing efforts, 1) nothing is much different, and 2) if it’s different, it’s not going in the direction of warming.
EM Smith, I was one of the testers some years ago for Siberian tomato seeds. Perfect dwarf bushes (16″ tall, max, in my garden), gorgeous fruit, outstanding performers in the <39-day growing season in NNNW Montana. The other one that handled cool temperatures pretty well (nothing was as good as Siberia) was Stupice, an ungainly potato-like tomato plant. The fruit aren't as lovely as Siberia's, but the plants are normal size and have an excellent yield. I covered them with newspaper during frosts and Reemay when a friend sent me a roll from civilization.
Our seeding date for normal things like root crops and lettuce was May 25th. Usually didn't set out transplants for a few more weeks. Never, ever surprised by snow up there, let alone hard frost, but delighted in the rare "warm" year when we could get a small crop of string beans or maybe even some pickling cukes.
Another look at solar activity:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/DeepSolarMin3.htm
Specifically: http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/2006_9a.JPG
The reports from http://www.vds-sonne.de/gem/res/results.html
Ergebrisse are on a 3 month delay.
I’ll update the graph above it for the same scale 1911-14 sometime in the next few days.
Snow in the Sierras yesterday, up to 6″. Ground is soaked here from 4 days of intense thundershowers & rain.
Sure these are just all observations.
BUT don’t the warmarlists like to use them everytime one of the 1,000’s of places on earch has a record high, or worse drought since blah blah blah….
Now a weather observation from my part of the world: I live 60 miles up from Nice in the South of France and after the coldest winter in living memory the last of the snow is just about to disappear from the montain crags surrounding us here. (this is latest anyone can remember seeing snow still visible into the 2nd week of June!)
“From the “weather is not climate” department,…”
Is that anywhere near the “home office” where David Letterman gets all his Top 10 lists?
My dad tells me that he remembers when he was in school snow banks were always high in winter and that everyone was required to have an orange ball at the top of their car antenna so it could be seen moving above the top of the snow banks and people knew a car was coming. He said there was always heavy snow in winter then. It hasn’t been like that since. He thinks we could head back in to a time like that.
Yes, I saw the picture of the two girls + snowman on Iceagenow website. I am at least 90% sure that it is not in Aviemore (ht 1000ft.) but in the enclosure at the top of the nearby mountain railway at nearly 4000ft. You can see the panorama indicator behind the girl on the left. I live about 20 miles away at 750 ft. We have had temperatures down to around 3 C (37 F.) at night and one day a maximum of about 7 C. (44 F.) together with a cold unstable northerly aitflow. Such conditions is very likely to produce some snow on the scottish mountains – indeed it was forecast as a possibility. Snow (not usually lying for long) is a possibility in the scottish mountains at any time of the year.
I am very much a sceptic re GW etc and do my bit to try to inform others of some facts (re ice, sun, sealevels etc.). However it is important not to overhype. There is no need. There is all the non-GW evidence one can want without using anything that can be criticised.
Anthony – Excellent site.
TG