This is interesting. Midday temps in the USA and Canada:
BTW every one of these temps comes from an airport thermometer.
Since the snark patrol will say “so what, it’s cold” my point is that I produce this map, and I don’t recall seeing this extent of the CONUS colored purple. Usually SoCal and South Texas at least have some warmth. The temperature difference between Miami and Atlanta is also striking.
Of course just a couple of days ago, there were high temperature records set ahead of the arctic outbreak:
Click image for interactive view
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What I see is Winnipeg more than 20 degrees warmer than here! as is Great Falls yet we have no big warming in our forecast?
The first to say “It’s not just whether (you believe in CAGW)!” ?
It seems strange to have a reord high temperature right next to a record low temperature. Must be all that global warming.
The Records Map is an interesting one but it really has me thinking about how the pointing to record temps or precipitation to prove anything is so questionable. Record high temps will be beside record low temps just a few miles apart. It kind of puts a damper on the signficance of these “records” when they are viewed in this manner.
We are in the very early stages of gathering information about the weather/climate. What Mark Twain said about science is what we can say about the weather and climate.
“One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact
Our record of “weather records” is a mere trifle.
I can foresee that 2011 will be the hottest year on record regardless (after data treatment in their GIGO SuperComputer).
/sarc
I will agree that the temperatures in south Texas are extreme. Brownsville’s temperature usually falls somewhere between Orlando and Miami. But it is not unusual for Dallas or Atlanta to get a inch or two of snow and have it stay on the ground for 48 hours. In the late Nineties, Atlanta had snow on the ground and below freezing temperatures for ten days straight. That just blew all of us away. Atlanta natives could not have imagined such a thing.
Can someone recommend a website that has weather fronts on the home page along with a menu for temperature and all the other good stuff? Wunderground had that but has just remodeled and now makes you search for stuff.
Have you got some archive-temperature readings from 1850 or 1880 handy, to compare it with?
Actually with 18 in Moosonee (on James Bay) and 36 in Winnipeg, it is actually quite warm for February in the north.
Looks like all the CO2 sank down to Miami /sarc
I would be interested in a short study to see how many record highs are set in El Nino vs. La Nina years. Or El Nina…
My intuition says that there should be more record highs, but it’s hard to know because the global temperature rankings are based upon annual averages of monthly averages. Are the extremes really getting more extreme? The Meehl et al. paper that is cited so often about increasing number of record high/ record lows, and the ratio — only goes back to 1950. The sample size needs to be quite large, perhaps 300-years in order to have a robust set of daily highs and lows that reflect the climate at a given time. Unfortunately, since the climate has never remained the same, you have to get your bootstraps on — and make up data. Sigh.
For a long time the blocking pattern meant that the cold plunged down into the middle of the country, and up in the northeast corner we were tucked out of the way, and even benefited from a sort of back-wash of the mild, maritime air that warmed western Greenland and Hudson Bay. I think they had more below zero mornings in West Virginia than in New Hampshire, last winter; and Portland, Maine had forteen straight months of above Average Temperatures.
Alas, the times they are a changing, and last month, despite the first two days being 17 degrees above normal, the cold even reached Portland, and the arctic blasts in the second half of January resulted in a month slightly below normal, and Portland’s streak was broken.
The snow here in Southern New Hampshire is getting so deep it is really getting to be a pain in the butt. I’ve got better things to do then pull snow off my roof with a snow-rake. 4 to 8 more inches predicted for tomorrow, and more for next week, too.
I blame the quiet sun. I haven’t a clue of the mechanics involved, but it seems the “home grown” cold air from Canada, (as opposed to the Siberian air that gets here due to “cross-polar-flow,”) is just that much colder.
The worst part for New Hampshire is that even a change in the pattern, bringing warm air flooding across the south and up the east coast, (as is more typical of a La Nina,) just puts us on the northern edge of a whole lot of moisture, and we can still get snow even if temperatures are above normal. (For Concord, New Hampshire the normal range of temperatures is now 32-10, which gives you an average of 21 (F). So it could be ten degrees above average, and the average would still be 31, below freezing.) I expect snow, snow, snow, and then bad spring floods.
May can’t come too fast for me.
That color between Kansas City and Dallas is very close to the color of fermenting Cabernet Sauvignon. The thought occurs that the USA’s climate and vinous knowledge are at about the same level and can be improved with collaborative investigations and education. Grow grapes, grow!
classic.wunderground.com is still there. I don’t like the redo either.
Ah yes, this is exactly what the models predicted which only lends further credence to global warming.
Just to rub it in, I’m in South Florida. Brrr.
Check out the long range GFS for next week.
Snow in Miami Beach?
Please don’t get me wrong, I am definitely an AGW sceptic but what happened to the forecast of the Corbyn group’s “Europe freezing over and one of the 3 coldest Winters in 100 years?”
Sure, there was a cold snap some weeks ago but was has resulted since?
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-app/reports?MENU=EuropeanSummary
Or is Piers still rattling the bones?
Looks like he might have some explaining to do as to what has changed. That might be good, I would like to see more detail on his methods rather than just his bagging when he gets it right.
More co-operation, less conflict perhaps all round ?
funny bit about airport weather stations, depending on the model and agency responsible for the care and feeding of them, the operational limits are anywhere from +/- 1f to +/-2.7f.
Southern Alberta is in the midst of a very nice chinook, 9C at my house (48 F), but we are about to get a cold draft starting tomorrow…and then right back into cold. But, its just weather….
Theo Goodwin says:
February 4, 2011 at 11:06 am
Can someone recommend a website that has weather fronts on the home page along with a menu for temperature and all the other good stuff? Wunderground had that but has just remodeled and now makes you search for stuff.
Here’s the new location on Weather Underground:
http://www.wunderground.com/maps/
Look under current conditions.
For what it’s worth, the high temp record for February in Moosonee was 12.4C, set in 1981.
http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=ONT%20&StationName=&SearchType=&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=4168&
Winnipeg has a max temp record for February of 11.7C, set 1/2 a century ago in 1958. In fact most of Winnipeg’s max monthly temp records date back a ways, none set in the last 15 years.
http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=MAN%20&StationName=&SearchType=&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=3698&
Greetings from Tucson, AZ. Overnight low of 15 deg F. High was 36. This must also be “consistent with” (fanfare) GLOBAL WARMING.
They take us for fools.
It may be cold in most NA locations, but here in Alberta, we are pulling out our shorts. It is 9°C here!
My wife is visiting a friend in New Mexico and some of the problems she’s had haven’t made it on to the news media I see.
For a while Interstates 25 and 40 were both closed due to snow. These are major roads around Albuquerque, which was supposed to be a one night stop for Paula. Among the many low temperature records are several daily and all-time record lows, some by rather large amounts (those might not have long histories though). Santa Fe broke the daily record by 11°F (6°C) and equaled their all time record with a -18°F reading. (-28°C or so. Mental math.)
See http://www.srh.noaa.gov/abq/?n=cliquickfeaturejan31-feb03_2011 for an analysis by the NWS.
I see there’s a hard freeze warning in Tuscon AZ and environs today.
Irony – Kitt Peak (home of major solar observatories) New Feb 3 record -2F, old record 18F in 1970). That’s the biggest offset listed the Tuscon NWS office.
Paul Hildebrandt says:
February 4, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Thanks much!