We’ve seen a lot of anecdotal evidence of a cooler than usual summer in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. This one caught my eye though, because I can’t ever recall of hearing a freeze warning being issued for this region before Labor Day.
Here are the normals and records for Monday, August 25th:
THE DULUTH CLIMATE NORMALS FOR TOMORROW
NORMAL RECORD YEAR
MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE (F) 72 95 1888
MINIMUM TEMPERATURE (F) 52 40 1950
It looks like a new record could be set for Duluth, and likely Ely, also.
Here is the latest warning from the NWS in Duluth:
URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DULUTH MN
146 PM CDT SUN AUG 24 2008
…FREEZE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 8 AM CDT MONDAY…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DULUTH HAS ISSUED A FREEZE
WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 8 AM CDT MONDAY.
.A COOL AND DRY AIRMASS UNDERNEATH CANADIAN HIGH PRESSURE WILL
PERSIST ACROSS NORTHERN MINNESOTA AND NORTHERN WISCONSIN TONIGHT
AND MONDAY MORNING. THE COMBINATION OF CLEAR SKIES AND NEAR CALM
WINDS WILL ALLOW TEMPERATURES TO DROP TO NEAR OR BELOW FREEZING
IN MANY LOCATIONS EARLY MONDAY MORNING.
OVERNIGHT LOW TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO FALL INTO THE 28 TO 32
DEGREE RANGE… WITH A PERIOD OF 2 TO 3 HOURS OF READINGS BELOW
THE FREEZING MARK. SOME FAVORED LOW LYING AREAS NEAR AND JUST
NORTH OF THE IRON RANGE MAY SEE TEMPERATURES DROP AS LOW AS THE
MID 20S FOR A SHORT TIME. TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO RAPIDLY
REBOUND INTO THE 40S AND 50S BY MID MORNING MONDAY.
Here are the numbers for the region provided on a nice map they provide:
It gets personal. Now James Hansen wants to tell me we shouldn’t build a power plant in my county.
http://www.thestate.com/editorial-columns/story/501134.html
REPLY: Louis my suggestion is this: as a citizen of South Carolina (Hansen is not) you should raise hell with the newspaper and demand an opportunity to respond.
The last Bond event began in +-450 AD. We are due.
The Younger Dryas is now confirmed as a Bond Event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500-year_climate_cycle
Like I said earlier, we have the four possibilities to consider.
1. Warmer.
2. The same
3. Grand Minimum
4. Dryas event
Stevie:
They used to say 20 years was a climate trend. They would pull this out when someone said “10 years with no warming”.
Now some are starting to say 30 years. I suspect that this is the new position because 20 years of no warming could well happen due to the PDO shift.
David
Thanks Austin, veerry interesting, but scary.
hyonmin (07:33:51) :
“Hoonah, Alaska seems to be swinging 40degrees every 4 hours?? Equipment problems? Bifocals required?”
Here’s the official answer:
“08/016 – SVC ASOS TP/DP UNREL. WIE UNTIL UFN. CREATED: 14 AUG 21:51 2008”
It’s a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen), for PAOH (Hoonah Airport) and it says “ASOS (Automated Surface Observing System) Temperature/Dewpoint unreliable.”
(And the rest says, WIE (with immediate effect), UFN (until further notice)
Apparently the system has been busted for more than 10 days, so I don’t know why it’s temp. & dew point reports are still getting into the system.
REPLY: This might be the reason – the HO83 thermohygrometer, which is notoriously unrelieable. We’ve looked at it quite a bit, see links below.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/guest-weblog-by-professor-ben-herman-of-the-university-of-arizona-maximum-temperature-trends/
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/inside-the-asos-ho83-tempdewpoint-sensor/
-Anthony
Stevie B (08:13:45) :
Anecdotes are evidence. The next step up generally requires planned observations that are designed to cut down on noise, i.e. “empirical evidence”. Get enough of that and then you can come up with statistical evidence. See my http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html for of my definition of types of evidence.
As for the warmists to accept cooling? That may not happen until hell freezes over.
Or maybe when they pay their heating bill this winter.
Austin (08:45:35) :
” The last Bond event began in +-450 AD. We are due.
The Younger Dryas is now confirmed as a Bond Event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500-year_climate_cycle
Like I said earlier, we have the four possibilities to consider.
1. Warmer.
2. The same
3. Grand Minimum
4. Dryas event ”
We’re due for a Bond Event, we’re due for SIM (Solar Inertial Motion) solar minimum
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
we’re due for a multi-decadal period of low solar activity
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/SC24Clilverd.pdf
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
probably a Grand Minimum of solar activity,
even Milankovitch Cycles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#The_future
“…this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.”
If the “AGW” movement had started, say, 100 years ago, today those guys would be ruling a Low Carbon “sustainable” world, and we’d be in even worse shape for the future than we are now.
I think the Modern Warm Period has bred complacency (not surprisingly – we’re only living the life our ancestors could only dream about for countless generations), and we are not ready for the big SLAP of reality which is, I believe, inevitable.
I think we are in for a September surprise, in Northern California. It could get ugly for ag.
Farm markets should not be affected much by this because there are not many farms there. There is a lot of shallow bedrock and forest (including Chippewa and Superior National Forests and many state forests).
Map of corn acreage: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/pdf/CR-PL07-RGBChor.pdf
State forests: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_forests/map.html
Nearby newspaper: “Frost hits parts of Iron Range, misses most of Northland; dry spell continues”
Agricultural summary from Cattle Network: “In the Corn Belt, mild, dry weather prevails. Scattered frost was reported this morning from northern Minnesota into Upper Michigan, well north of corn- and soybean-production areas.”
Looks like they need more warm moist air.
Drew Latta (07:11:33) :
crosspatch–any idea on the really important cereal grain – Barley – the stuff that goes the maltsters?
Drew,
Are you worried about the price of barley or the commensurate impact on the price of brew? 😉 We may need something stronger than beer to get through this winter.
I live in Central Wisconsin, and I can attest to the fact that this is simply a continuation of the last year. I know we aren’t to apply global implications to regional variations, but we had the onset of winter weather early in 2007 compared to most prior years in memory. In conjunction, we had a late snow melt compared to any recent years. May was very cool and rainy, and I specifically remember the fisrt summery weatehr being mid-June, because I lucked out with that – welcomed a new baby on June 14th, took three weeks off work, and had glorious weather to enjoy. But normally, that would have first come in May.
It’s been a beautiful summer since, but notably we’ve had zero days hit 90 degrees here. While Wisconsin is not known for its warmth, it is unusual to have no days above ninety. Only a handful of days have exceeded 85 degrees. A lot of average temp days, a lot of below average temp days, and very few above average temp days.
On warm days, it seems that the nights have cooled off more than in recent memory. Not cold, but cool enouogh that shorts and a t-shirt don’t quite cut it.
Our tomatoes are behind. Our pumpkins are behind. Our watermelons are non-existent. Some crops did very well, but those that need more warmth and sunlight are not doing the greatest.
All anecdotal, but this year feels quite different than any in recent memory. The frost warning, thankfully, is north of us. But that’s pretty early even for us northern folk.
From looking at the ASU sat data it looks like August is about .15C cooler than July and most forecasts have continued cool weather forecast for the rest of the month.
I know in DC it is supposed to hit a high of 79F tomorrow — 79F , in DC, in August, are you kidding me?
I like to check out these maps on a weekly basis:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/
Comments:
(1) Right now, there look to be a number of negative departures (especially Australia – our friends down under appear to be freezing), and most other regions are around average
(2) Can someone explain to me what the deal is with Mexico? It’s a bizarre map, to say the least.
(3) The one area that is bright red is part of the Former Soviet Union. I wonder how much weight that are will be given in the final anomaly analysis.
These reports make me wonder WHY cold weather is happening in Wisconsin/Minnesota/Alaska but not here in Southern California? Is it something like the jet stream being north of it’s usual position? Does the trend there mean anything for where I live? Often when we get good rains here, Washington state reports a drought, and vice-versa. It seems like a zero-sum game.
I am trying to figure out what to call the short term trends (maybe I just did). Weather is defined as the conditions in the air right now. Climate is some kind of long term trend. What do you call what happens in between, lets say 2-3 months, or 1-10 years?
BTW. Thanks Anthony for making such a great site. It seems very friendly here.
REPLY: Thanks, everyone has to behave here.
Steve W. (14:17:17) :
“What do you call what happens in between, lets say 2-3 months, or 1-10 years?”
“Subseasonal” is a term I predict you’re going to be hearing more
http://weatherclimatelink.blogspot.com
Warning: This is an acronym-intensive website. This site
http://www.weatherlinkhub.com/climate/telec.html
may help you sort through it all.
High plains of northeast Oregon at the base of the Wallowa Mountains: 23 degrees colder than last month, 18 degrees colder than last year. I had to wear a jacket at 2:00 in the afternoon to mow my lawn.
The Temperature Anomaly Outlook for September to November 2008 is expected to be below normal for most of Canada. The southern portion of the Prairies and the majority of Ontario are expected to be at near normal temperatures. Quebec and the Maritimes look to be getting a mixed bag of normal, below normal and above normal temperatures.
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/saisons/image_e.html?img=s234fe1t_s
Bill (13:58:16)-
DC was 92 today, +7 on the high. A 79 tomorrow would be -6. I don’t see the big deal. August will finish about normal on the month, following a very warm June and a warm July.
Pamela, that is not very encouraging. The Far West is having a bad summer. Not only did it start late, it was affected by insolation reduction due to smoke. And now, summer is over weeks prior to the equinox. Oh sure we’ll get a couple more “heat waves” but those will be autumnal type events. By the normal time of such events, weather will likely be more of a true winter pattern.
Dan McCune,
A bit of facetiousness, no doubt. I have read that Germans were having some problems with reduced barley acreage due to the competition between brew and fuel. (Home)brewers have been already hard hit by real hop shortages in terms of price and availability. The Great Hop Shortage of ’08 is mostly due to market practices that plague commodities markets across the world (boom and bust cycles) and some bad weather in a few places.
Of course the corn crop in the Corn Belt is up from dismal predictions early in the summer with all of that La Nina rain we got this spring/early summer.
The solution (I guess): switch to grain alcohol. 😉
Steve W: Don’t know about CA, but I was reading that the warmer weather in Alaska resulted from the colder canadian air dipping further south which is what gave the northern U.S. some colder weather in the spring… it certainly was cooler, and later, here in Iowa!
On the other hand, I recall in the 60s that frost almost always came in early September (like Labor Day, the first week of school) and a freeze by October 1st… but that hasn’t seemed to happen at all, the last 10 years at least. If we were getting frost by Sep 10th or so, regularly, I would think that frost in MN about now would not be unusual… freezing temps of course are, but is that widespread or just localized? And, will it continue, or is it just a temporary departure from the norm?
This winter was extremely snowy (which is the main reason for the disastrous flood here in Cedar Rapids), and that was due to a warmer winter (when it’s colder it doesn’t snow)… except that we usually have a warm spell sometime in January/February, which we didn’t this past winter.
On the other other hand, a few years ago it was SO warm that it was too warm for snow (it rained all December, which is why I finally mowed my lawn for the last time of the season in January that year, when it dried out), and April got into the 80s and never went down (but, in even earlier years it has actually snowed in May, not to mention April of course)
So, what to make of all this ‘evidence’? I have no idea, except that I predict it will be colder this year and less snow… unless it’s warmer, in which case we’ll probably have less snow… (We had a LOT of snow this past year!)
By the way, I wonder how Norway is doing? Form what I understand it was a very warm winter there, I wonder how their summer is?
But ultimately, I do have a question… accuweather keeps showing the monthly charts showing most of the world is warmer, even through this summer, with lots of red dots (+ variance) and only a few blue ones… yet I see so many people here talking about global cooling. How are the two resolved, where are the charts that show global cooling, I’d like to see that…
Diatribical Idiot,
Nice site you linked to. w/respect to “Can someone explain to me what the deal is with Mexico?” I was there in late July, north of Mexico City (Queretaro and Tecozautla), and I had to wear a jacket in the mornings, it was high 50’s low 60’s where I was. Warmed up nicely during the day. Its a dry, mountainous area so maybe that’s not so unusual, but the map colors that area pink, as warmer than normal.
Similarly (more anecdotal) a few weeks before that I was on the coast of the Dominican Republic in the last week of June, first part of July and I was very comfortable taking afternoon naps with only a fan going. In April 2007 I was sweating like a horse in that same area, this year’s July was much milder.
But I agree, the map for Mexico looks strange.
JP Rourke: “except that we usually have a warm spell sometime in January/February, which we didn’t this past winter.”
Good observation. I remember that now. It never really melted enough to clear all of the snow/ice off the sidewalks during the winter.
My prediction is that we’ll have a bumper crop of bright leaves if this cooler than average weather pattern holds up without a freeze. (Since it is almost useless to predict the weather for the winter…)
Holy Crap! I just found out we have a frost advisory in Southern Oregon right on the California border! Just over the border in California is a major wine growing region and grapes have not yet been harvested. Bet the wind machines will be out in force tonight.
REPLY: I’ve posted on this, thank you for the tip. – Anthony