Seattle has coldest first week of June since 1891
Seattle just experienced the coldest first week of June, according to climate records dating to 1891, said Cliff Mass, University of Washington metrologist. Both 1999 and 2008 share the record, with 1917 falling in second place, he said. “Just wait until tomorrow,” he said, when temperatures are going to be even colder.
Story here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004466972_webweather09m.html
Missoula water park closing due to cold weather ‘to protect children from hypothermia’
Missoula water park closing for week due to cold weather
Associated Press – June 9, 2008 8:24 PM ET MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) – The Missoula Parks and Recreation Department has decided to close the Splash Montana Waterpark this week, because cold weather is forecast.
Story here:
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=8454678&nav=menu227_7
Lobsterman: ““Global warming is having the opposite effect for us”
Costs up, prices down
Water temperature played a big part in the last minute scramble that closed the season with temperatures falling so low the lobsters were not crawling.
In order for the lobsters to crawl into a trap the water has to be at least over the 40-degree mark and Crouse said the spring season has hardly any times when the conditions are right.
“Our spring is just not viable,” he said. “Global warming is having the opposite effect for us and we are seeing the temperatures of the water stay lower for longer.”
Story here:
http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-220834-Costs-up-prices-down.html
Aspen to reopen this June for Skiing
Story here:
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=93380&catid=188
Hey, a thread where we can talk about Pierre behind his back. 🙂 Oh, uh, “Hi Pierre!”
Adding to the anecdotal evidence du jour:
Today’s high here, 98.7F (the official high 8 miles away in Concord NH will be 98.1F) is the highest temperature in my 4.6 year record. The other >= 95.0F temperatures were one each in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
I hate hot weather, but fortunately a cold front comes through tonight, so today is the fourth and last day of the heat wave. As with all anecdotal evidence, take it with a grain of salt. And iced tea. And air conditioning.
I didn’t move to New England until around the time of the PDO flip in the 1970s, so I don’t have a good living memory of climate then.
Pierre: Where’d you hear that the PDO drives Arctic sea ice area? Here’s a graph that illustrates Inverted Arctic Sea Ice Concentration and Arctic surface temperature (land and ocean) from 1870 to 2006. Sure does look like the upward trend in Arctic temperature that starts in 1965 agrees with the decline in sea ice. While there are other influences, it still looks like Arctic temperature helps drive it. Note that I didn’t have to scale that graph. It lined up all on its own. http://i27.tinypic.com/259ydt3.jpg Taking a second look at the graph, the Arctic sea ice may start to decrease as early as 1950. I’d have to smooth that data, maybe tomorrow.
JP: The AMO appears to have peaked in 2005, which would mean North Atlantic temperatures should also be decreasing. This decrease would be very slight on an annual basis. If the smoothed peak-to-trough AMO temperature change is on the order of 0.4 deg C and it takes 30 years to get there, that’s only 0.013 deg C per year.
Check out this SST anomaly loop.(90 days)
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom_loop.gif
SST loop
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_loop.gif
Notice the northward drift of warmer water.
Texas (North) here as well.
March and April were very cold. I had to replant my Sudan and corn did not emerge until late April. Almost all the Sudan is way behind schedule and is still not more than 1 inch tall. Usually we’d have our first cutting.
June has been warm, but we have yet to hit 100 degrees here and its been wet – we are at twice our normal rainfall for the entire month already
In 1998, it was very bad – 100+ every day in may and june with heavy smoke from Mexico.
It looks like it will be a Mast Year at least in North Texas. All my Oak trees are carrying heavy loads of acorn buds.
The passes into Wallowa County, Oregon are still clogged with snow. So far, the month of June has been colder than May and much colder than this time last year. It is now clear that we will not be getting three cuttings on hay. Two at the most. The old timers are comparing these temps to trends in the past and are predicting a few years at least of hard winters and short summers. Farmers and ranchers have learned not to wait on scientists and years of data. They play the risks and rise or fall with the outcome. They “read” their crop and just know. The lushness, height, color, smell, etc, all say something about the sun this year and next. They look at the coat on their animals and “read” the signs. They count the number of birds coming in and prepare for the winter to come when they see and read the signs from the first robin. They even count bats. Bats tell us what to do to prepare for the next winter. The old timers are telling me that it will be colder this winter.
Pierre Gosselin (09:44:15) :
“Okay, these stories are little more than unaverage events and anecdotes. After all, according to AGW believers, these things weren’t supposed to happen.”
Where did you hear that? I understood that the AGW believers suggested that there would be far more freaky weather as a result of climate change. More extremes in temperatures. More floods and more droughts.
The way I see it, this is being borne out by the facts
A colder climate almost sounds like romanticism…like in art and expression of the Little Ice Age.
Almost like we want the earth to change (not…actually it’s pretty damn nice right now relatively speaking)…
So that we can edure life’s many varieties (i.e. weather…tendencies of weather)…and to feel the grasp of earth’s control over us.
We, the global climate skeptics…may not wish for cold but all of us disagree with the null hypothesis that is global warming because of a bias in data accumulation, political interests, and the fearful tactics used. We really want sensible discussion to make our voices be heard…about something we find fascinating and important.
Saying that AGW is over – definitely pulls at the strings of belief and trust in the earth/sun’s own abilities: to never stay constant, and being unpredictable. It’s the way we’ve always liked it. Of course some in the path of a huriccane might say otherwise. It’s about survival. It’s about man vs. nature. It’s the thrill of being human….fighting against that which you have no control. Or…at least wondering about it.
Brian D,
latest SST charts looking very interesting and puts the anecdotal comments into perspective, the Indian Ocean is now out of its short cooling spell and warming rapidly, the Atlanic Ocean is much warmer than it should be and the tropical Pacific is out of La Nina. The only noteworthy anomoly is the PDO cool phase wich explains the poor weather in the pacific north west (I thought this was normal for Seattle, on Frasier it is always raining!!). During this extremely quiet period of solar activity shouldnt we be expecting a global cooling rather than a localised area?
If the theory of cycle coalescence holds true (sun, PDO, etc), global cooling will occur here and there, depending on the landscape, and the timing of these various cycles occurring together.
Mike K (01:07:39) :
“During this extremely quiet period of solar activity shouldnt we be expecting a global cooling rather than a localised area?”
We are – the four main sources of global temperature summaries have been reporting a cooling trend for the last year or two. Anecdotal evidence is good for two things:
1) Alerting people to the possibility that something interesting is going on.
2) Providing examples of what a new trend might be bringing.
The current use for anecdotal evidence is primarily for amusement and discussion around the water cooler.
It’s early days yet, but the farmers in the grainbelt are really getting hammered. In places where replanting is necessary, grain yields are predicted to be halved. For those of us that have livestock to feed, it appears that the price of feed will be going up further.
Ken said:
I’m saying AGW has never really started, much less over.
“By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 11, 8:03 AM ET
LONGMIRE, Wash. – One hiker died on Mount Rainier and two others awaited rescue Wednesday after a freak June blizzard caught them high on the volcano’s flank.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080611/ap_on_re_us/mount_rainier_fatal_8
It seems that if I include a link to this story the spam filter kicks it out. So I’ll just post the story. Google it for the source.
“By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 11, 8:03 AM ET
LONGMIRE, Wash. – One hiker died on Mount Rainier and two others awaited rescue Wednesday after a freak June blizzard caught them high on the volcano’s flank.”
I still hate anecdotes.
Yeah, Pierre, anecdotes, by themselves, are worth about as much as a bucket of warm spit. The problem is they just keep coming.
Bob.
Thanks for the post. The Atlantic AMO did peak a few years ago, but I do believe the AMO is still in a positive phase. I think it should remain positive for maybe another decade. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Also, it should be very interesting to watch ENSO the next 12 months. It looks like it is transitioning to ENSO neutral, and we should see another EL Nino within another 12 months or so. If the next El Nino is as weak and short lived as the last one, the negative PDO could turn out to be a 2 or 3 decade event. During the transition from La Nina to El Nino it will be interesting to see if Joe Bastardi’s theory concerning “teleconnection signaling” will occur. Joe B. believes there are some cases where teleconnections can signal each other (how? I have no clue). In this case, a warming Pacific could “signal” the Atlantic, and the Atlantic would correspondingly cool to offset rising Pacific SSTs. Sounds far-feteched.
RE: Pamela Gray (22:39:19) :
Here in NoCal, while we’ve had a reprieve from the cold the past few days (it’s almost, strangely, Indian Summer like), the squirrels are extremely active, as if it were fall. Except, there are only immature acorns. Meanwhile, the raccoons savaged one of my apple trees recently – again, something far more typical of fall. Last year, along the entire West Coast, climatic Fall was ushered in by an extremely early Yukon cold front on July 30th. Could it be that climatic Fall will start this year in June?
Climate change
First they said we’d freeze
in the nineteen seventies.
Then they said we’d burn
from the nineteen nineties on.
Oops, I’m starting to sneeze;
I guess it’s back to freeze.
Reply:
There once a poet name Sam
His posts not regarded as spam
He posts as he please
But he started to sneeze
‘Cuz the Sun’s hiding out on the lam.
~jeez
poetSam, befuddled and blushing from the attention, reconsiders his hobby.
I was about to write another limerick response, after all jeez does rhyme with sneeze, but I actually have to do some “work” so you and everyone else are spared.
…for now
Since you leave the field to the idle, I will take advantage:
Anthony’s the man;
Smart, kind, and well-reasoned.
He’s a man, a weatherman,
for each and every season.
Idle schmidle.
There once was an admin named jeez
who commented on poet Sam’s sneeze.
We know when Watt is away
the admins will play
bringing the site to its knees.
Please jeeze,
you make me wheeze.
Since you have more wit
I quit!
Getting cold in New Zealand too (not that GISS will know as they don’t acknowledge the New Zealand North Island’s existance!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10515979
That solar science conference with the “Sun is dead” quote was held at Montana State Univ. in Bozeman on June 1-6. Temps then were seasonable, yesterday was 17 degrees below average with a low of 32F. Too bad the conference wasn’t this week. 🙂
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KBZN/2008/6/11/DailyHistory.html