From the weather-is-not-climate department:
By Jeff Fish, Globe Correspondent
Ignoring the calendar, which showed the beginning of the month of July, a dusting of snow fell Thursday on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, startling tourists and forcing the closure of the road to the top.
“It’s not extraordinary, but it’s definitely interesting,” said Stacey Kawecki, a meteorologist for the Mount Washington Observatory.
Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak at 6,288 feet, has recorded snow in every month. The last time it was recorded in July was 2007.
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Someone should take New Hampshire’s snowfall and rainfall data and sort it out like this:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/WvPrecipSC.GIF
which is according to solar cycle length.
Then, we can see what is going on in New Hampshire, and what the future will be like with 2 long and shallow cycles in the forecast.
Summer snow on Mt. Washington is nothing new or even unexpected. It is kinda interesting the way the weather patterns often produce summer snow in the White Mountains, weather traveling all the way from the Rockies and down from Canada and weather coming up the East Coast coming inland all heading east and over the Berkshires and around the Green Mountains before being stopped by the White Mountains (especially Washington which is taller than any mountain the weather has hit since the Rockies). Interesting but not a sign of anything except that it gets cold above 6000ft.
Actually, Max, the lull in July snow since 2007 and its return now is reflective of El Nino. Mt Washington doesn’t get snow if the jet stream is north of the notch. El Nino keeps it up there in the summer months, now that El Nino is dying, the jet stream can meander south more frequently so the chance of July snow there increases.
Well, had it been dry and hot, the warmers would have been claiming it as another indication of global warming. That it is wet and cold, a warmer claims it as “Interesing but not a sign of anything except that it gets cold above 6000ft”. Nice to see they like to have it both ways.
I just might have to cover my tomatoes tonight to keep them from getting hit with frost. What a way to celebrate the 4th of July!
In the interest of balance. There is quite a bit of corn already tasseling in Northern Illinois. This will be the first I’ve ever seen corn tasseling by the fourth of July. Of course we all know that the age old gauge was “knee high by the fourth of July” so it is fair to say that this is part of a long term trend of improving corn growing conditions.
Must be that humid hot spot. 🙂
No doubt NH snow in July is proof that AGW IS occurring.
HankHenry,
That brings to mind Prof Freeman Dyson’s comment that growing corn uses up all the carbon dioxide available within five minutes if there is no wind.
If corn is growing that fast, maybe it’s something in the air.
Yes, it’s amazing how our Sun effects this Earth…I looking at an early fall this year in the Mid-West! My wild “Monk” Lilies came on three weeks early this year. When ever they do this, fall is coming early. Normally they bloom this week, the week of the 4th of July. Already the last three nights we’ve had low’s in the upper 40’s already! Too soon for me.. 😉
Timberati- I had a warmist I know tell me exactly that. He packs his “Inconvenient
Truth” next to his Bible..
I wish I was joking…
Smokey “If corn is growing that fast, maybe it’s something in the air.”
Actually, what’s in the air is called progress – improved genetics (number one), improved chemicals, improved equipment, improved practices. Average corn yields are said to improve about 1 or 2 bushels per year, and the trend is accelerating.
No doubt though, in the not-too- distant future, snow on top of Mt. Washington will become “a very rare and exciting event”. Then, they will have to call the Presidentials the “Gray Mountains”. They will have to erect barriers to keep the hordes below from overrunning it in their desperate attempts to escape the boiling heat in the valleys.
Dibs on the movie rights.
Has anyone ever been in a cornfield at sundown when the wind was still and quiet? You can actually hear the corn ears grow, stretching the silk and husks. Its a wonderful sound of nature.
I’ve been busy in my garden here in Selsey in the very south of England, a place known previously for its benign climate.
My runner beans are at least a month late, my courgettes are also very late and the broad beans (which should be over by now) have only just started to produce pods. Its a really weird summer after a very cold winter. I’m hoping for an extended autumn so that crops which flourished by mid-summer five years ago can come to fruition.
It’s mid-summer and I’m wearing a fleece as I type this!
What was unusual here in central VA this year was (a) continuous snow cover from Dec 18 to Mar 5; (b) no killing freeze from Mar 1 on; (c) record hot June. Odd. I hope La Nina might moderate summer here: so far it’s been brutal, though obviously it’s been unusually cold elsewhere.
Note for the reader:
University Of Colorado (128.138.135.120)
Boulder, Colorado, United States
Correlation for the AMO index is calculated.
( http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMOFz.htm )
We have July 4th skiing, too!
http://co2insanity.com/2010/07/03/july-4th-skiing-but-its-only-weather/
rbateman
What is that inches of? I can testify that the inches important to me decrease with cold 😉
Climate progress was making a big deal out of a little heat wave in D.C. last week.
A heat wave is not climate change. Record heat in the summer is not climate change.
Snow in the summer is rare, scarce and NOT a sign of warming.
How can Romm face himself on this?
They insist droughts and heat are permanent?
I also noted corn maturity while riding my mountain bike in the country this morning. Being a farmer, it is not unusual. The ground dry enough to plant let us plant early. It is raining today. We have plenty of moisture. I also don’t recall seeing corn tassels in June.
When I used to run, I ran the Mt. Washington Road Race (the race with only one hill) every year. It was always a challenge. It was run on Father’s Day weekend on saturday. Which also happened to be the bikers weekend down at Louden, NH. Made for some interesting stuff.
One of the biggest challenges of the road race was being able to change clothes on the fly as you went up the hill. It might be 70 at the base with sleet at the summit. Perfectly normal. You had to carry extra clothes to put on as you went up the hill when you were a moose like I was. They do not award first place in these kind of things to guys whose marathon weight was 190 lbs. The elevation is not all that much, but its the highest thing around for many miles and summer snow is by no means unusual. Despite the “one hill” name there is actually one small place where you go down hill at a slight grade for 100 feet or so. So technically its the race with only 2 hills.
Stephen Brown – Yup, I’m in the south-west, just, and everything is definitely a month late this year. The cold killed off my autumn sown broad beans and the lot I planted this year are just producing. My runner beans are only half way up the poles although I did notice a chap nearby had his in flower so perhaps he started his off in the greenhouse very early. Asparagus was also a month late and I probably could have continued cropping for a bit longer. Spuds nowhere to be seen – plenty of green on top, b***** all beneath the soil. It’s interesting, though, the unpredictability of it all.
Robert of Ottawa says:
July 3, 2010 at 2:31 pm
rbateman
What is that inches of? I can testify that the inches important to me decrease with cold 😉
That would be inches of rainfall. I only have this record because someone local made sure thier work was preserved. A lot of records for California were absconded with, and it’s a travesty. The poor slobs don’t know what’s coming next, what with their heads stuffed with AGW hysteria.
Mulberry trees 2 months late here in NW Calif. Cold killed 3 young trees, peach blossoms, and tomatoes think it’s fall (turning red already). The news from the S. Hemisphere says to expect another round of increasing cold winter.
And what is that silly Sun up there doing?
The Mount Washington Observatory has a better description. From my note on Tips & Notes:
Ric Werme says:
July 1, 2010 at 9:10 pm
New Hampshire is in the midst of a few of those “rare days in June” with breezy, cool dry weather. We get a few each year, sort of makes up for the way too brief transition between chilly and hot. This year, they stretched into July and a couple days had a upper level low to provide some instability.
In fact, they had a little snow on top of Mt Washington. Not much, but enough to get the weather watchers in the observatory all excited. It has snowed in every month of the year up there, but snowfall in July and August is pretty scarce.
http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/comments/
Summer moves back Saturday, and what may be our first heatwave of the year may start Sunday. (Heatwave – 3 or more days with max temp > 90°F, about 32°C.)
rbateman says:
July 3, 2010 at 10:51 am
I suppose I could, though having grown up in the snow belt in northeastern Ohio I’m more interested in snow fall and snow depth. Especially the latter – if you sum the depths for every day in the snow season, you get “Snow Depth Days”, a handy figure to gauge how snowbound an area is.
The main thing I’ve learned is that the season-to-season and site-to-site differences are so big it would be tough to find any useful correlation.
I’d be reluctant to use rainfall data too – we get impacted by nor’easters (think broad tropical storm) and they often bring a wide range of rainfall to different areas.
Mark Twain was the first person to successfully describe New England weather, see http://wermenh.com/sdd/index.html and follw the link near the bottom.
“There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger’s admiration — and regret.” The “European” weather forecast model was predicting a high temperature in part of Massachusetts this coming Wednesday that would be above the all-time official high temp in the state. I think it’s backed off a bit, but it will be hot. NWS says 96°F, 10° below the all time record. A good day for the White Mountains – on a mountaintop.