Valley shivers as winter weather makes a premature appearance
Big snow flakes fell early Friday evening, turning Downtown Boise into a giant snow globe for people on their way home from work.
The snow caught many people off guard, including this bicyclist heading down Idaho Street between 8th and 9th around 5:45 p.m. Across the Treasure Valley, tree branches heavy with wet, snow-covered leaves fell on power lines, causing scattered power outages.
This is the earliest measurable snowfall in Boise since recordkeeping began in 1898, according to the National Weather Service. At 10 p.m., the Weather Service said 1.7 inches of snow had fallen. The previous earliest recorded snowfall was Oct. 12, 1969, when a little more than an inch fell. And if the snow wasn’t enough, meteorologists say winds across southwestern Idaho will average 25 to 40 mph through Saturday afternoon, with gusts up to 55 mph. Sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph are expected, which can make driving difficult.
There is also some early and record snows in Billings Montana
A snowfall record for Oct. 11 was set in Billings yesterday.
According the National Weather Service, Billings saw 3.1 inches of snow Friday. The old record of 2.8 inches was set in 1969.
Vehicles drive through the snow and slush Highway 3 between Zimmerman Trail and the airport Friday October 10, 2008.
Here in Northern California, we are getting some much earlier than normal cold weather. As you can see on my Bidwell Ranch Weather Station, we got into the 30’s last night, not a record, but darned early for fall weather here:
Russ Steele reports on his Nevada County Watch blog that his first freeze came last night, about a month early. Also a hat tip to him for alerting me to this story.
Pamela Gray in comments points out this record report from the NWS:
000
SXUS76 KPDT 111801
RERPDT
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PENDLETON OR
1100 AM PDT SAT OCT 11 2008
…NEW DAILY RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR OCTOBER 11TH…
NOTE: STATIONS MARKED WITH * INDICATE THAT THE STATION REPORTS ONCE
PER DAY. FOR CONSISTENCY…THESE VALUES ARE CONSIDERED TO HAVE
OCCURRED ON THE DAY THE OBSERVATION WAS TAKEN BUT MAY HAVE ACTUALLY
OCCURRED (ESPECIALLY FOR MAX TEMPERATURE) ON THE PREVIOUS DAY.
STATION PREVIOUS NEW RECORDS
RECORD/YEAR RECORD BEGAN
*JOHN DAY(CITY), OR 23 / 1990 21 1953
MEACHAM, OR 20 / 2002 15 1948 :SINCE MID
*MITCHELL, OR 26 / 2002 21 1949
PENDLETON(ARPT), OR 33 / 1990 25 1934 :SINCE MID
*PENDLETON(CITY), OR 24 / 1890 22 1890
*PENDLETON(ES), OR 23 / 1990 18 1956
WALLA WALLA, WA 35 / 1987 33 1949 :SINCE MID
Harbinger of a colder than normal winter perhaps.
We didn’t get snow in western Colorado, but at 16F at 5am it is cold. It got up to 45F Sunday, a good 30 deg. drop from the day before. Denver was 43F during the game, but only dropped to 33F overnight. We must be subject to the RCI (Rural Cooling Influence) on this side of the Mtns.
Wait a minute. I was in Idaho Falls in 96, we had snow on July 4th. Snowed for 6 hours straight. Does that count as the “latest” snow fall or the “earliest”.
I notice that the NOAA three month prediction is forcasting above average climate through 2/09 in the US. It is especially likely to be warm in the Dakotas, Minn., Mich., Mont., Wyo., Neb., and Iowa. In the eighteen months I have been checking this feature of theirs, it never forcasts anything but warmer than normal, or an equal chance of being above or below normal.
Here in San Antonio TX we are having milder fall weather (IMO) – but the oddest thing has happened to the ducks at the lake I live near. They never went into breeding plumage this spring (but there were many ducklings), and in the past 3 weeks they have gone all-out with the breeding plumage, complete with males fighting over females, lots of crazy mating… and one of the ducks has *8* ducklings! Last year there were absolutely no ducklings after September, and they were no longer in breeding plumage.
I have no idea what environmental cues birds use when they ‘brighten’ up into breeding plumage – I would’ve thought that increasing daylight hours or something would be the cue – but I find this really, really weird (especially after our extremely hot/dry summer).
???
SOI index (predicting La Nina)
For 7 weeks in a row above 6.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/indicator_enso.jsp?c=soi&p=weekly
And as it is said 8 weeks in a row normally means La Nina.
But – i would like if anyone could comment on this: Is it then likely now that we have a new La Nina? I think the pacific looks quite neutral..
[…] Did Al Gore just visit Boise? Because his coldening effect is well-documented. No word if the Goracle attended, but they did just have a climate change conference, so maybe that explains this: […]
The signifigance of this storm is obvious. If GHG AGW is driving our climate, the natural source regions for both Maritime Polar and Continnental Polar air masses should be modified to such an extent that they would either fail to build up large pools of cold air, or at the very least those pools would remain bottled up well above 55 degrees North Latitude.
Instead, Cp air masses have been building steadily all summer across the NW Territories and portions of Alaska. It is now early October and the first push of Mp air made its way into the mid-latitudes. While this isn’t significant if your time frame is a 100 or 200 year period, it does create problems for the Alarmists who’ve moved thier interval from decades down to seasons. According to Hansen et als., we are within a decade of reaching the Tipping Point. If that was truly the case, La Ninas would be few and far between and cold airmasses would remain far to the north in Canada.
Must be a result of Global Warming 🙂
St Andrews the spiritual home of golf at risk from ‘Climate Change’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7666809.stm
In other news, global warming sinks St. Andrews.
You can’t make this stuff up, but the BBC has more imagination.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7666809.stm
It looks like we can stop scrutinizing the climate models now because they’ve fixed them…
——-
Scientists resolve long-standing puzzle in climate science
A team led by Livermore scientists has helped reconcile the differences between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.
Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from computer model simulations archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL researchers and colleagues from 11 other scientific institutions have refuted a recent claim that simulated temperature trends in the tropics are fundamentally inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets.
Fred: “It looks like we can stop scrutinizing the climate models now because they’ve fixed them…”
S’funny how they so hotly denied that such a discrepancy even existed (the data must be wrong!) …until they came up with a suitable ‘explanation’ for it.
‘Climate change’ protesters are trying to storm parliament in London
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7668288.stm
In the past hour “Demonstrators against the expansion of stansted airport in Essex and Heathrow airport in west London, tried to get in to the building in Westminster.”
Must have been inspired by our mate Al.
According to the Telegraph Wet summer causes shortage in berries to make sloe gin the poor sloe harvest this year is due to “the cool spring and wet summer” which is blamed on global warming: “For that reason [climate change], it’s been a bad year for all stone fruit including plums. It’s all down to global warming.”
Another ancedote from central MN:
Reached low eigthies yesterday, today low 50’s. The jet stream and high pressure held up the western weather since Friday on a stationary front right over our heads.
It’s been rather grey, with light rain every other day for weeks now. Not unwelcome, just different than weather over the last decade.
And in Ohio, it’s 82F. Anecdotal evaluations of what’s happening on a particular fall of a particular year don’t really tell you all that much about global weather patterns. What matters is the overall average temperature of the planet and even the fastest climate changes happen over the course of centuries. This is ignoring the forest for the trees.
One cannot legitimately use tactics of gotcha politics when it comes to to things like climate science. you need to put together 50 to 100 years of measurements across the world, average them together and compare them over long stretches of time. Individual weather can be and is erratic, following local fronts and atmospheric conditions. Climate is much bigger than that.
REPLY: Who said anything about “climate” in the original posting? The post is tagged as “weather”. I posted it because I found it interesting, and because weather is my passion and my livelihood. I think you are reading too much into it. – Anthony
Fred, I am just an amateur, but it seems to me like if you follow their method for resolving this to their full implications, you are going to get a lower climate sensitivity. Which has been the skeptic’s argument all along.
RE: your reply to gfish’s comment: I’m not an AGW proponent, but I think that the implication of this post is pretty clear: the recent unusually early and cold weather is a sign of whats really happening (i.e., global cooling). At least, that’s how I read it (with no small amount of hope that the implication is correct). I think the point of your post in general is valid: annecdotal accounts of weather events, one way or the other, do not prove or disprove climactic trends. But I feel compelled to comment given how often AGW proponents are criticized on this site as being intellectually dishonest. Maybe you did really only post it because it’s an interesting weather story, but I wonder whether you’d have posted stuff about a heat wave (or another weather event that could be seen as “evidence” of global warming).
I also sympathize with gfish – here in Texas I’m waiting for the recently-changed PDO, the imminent La Nina, and the decline and solar activity to amount to some cooling that I can feel. All we’ve got right now, however, are highs that are 5-10 degrees above average. And it blows.
Your site is fantastic, and I will continue to be a daily visitor long after Cycle 24 disappoints us all and picks up to relatively normal levels. Thank you!
Farmers MUST pay attention to at least regional trends that most consider to be weather and not climate. Why? Because we have to decide what to plant and how many cows to pasture and inseminate all based on a risky bet on temperatures and precipitation a year ahead of time. A site like this helps us to make better decisions that what can be gleaned from reading the Farmer’s Almanac.
Just as an example, it takes 3 years to establish a vineyard that produces wine grapes at the quality required for wine. If a farmer can’t make an educated guess about what the weather/climate might be in the next 6 years, they run the risk of losing their vineyard before they can harvest for profit for the first time, and they risk losing the next 3 years that would establish the grapes as a dependable crop. AGW’s tell us the global warming is a done deal so go ahead and plant in these marginal areas because the temperature and growing season will eventually be warmer and longer, just perfect for grapes. However, this past very cool and short growing season resulted in many vineyards not doing well. If you were a farmer, what bet would you make right now? Will it cool again next growing season, or will warming return? And by the way, the growing season isn’t your only worry. If the ground freezes deeply during the winter, your vines will die.
Yep. Irrigation costs for fruit crops, the possibility of losing the developing fruits to a late frost or a windstorm….farming is a gamble. The local cotton fields were badly damaged by flooding from TS Fay, and it isn’t sure whether the planting, fertilizer, and picking costs will be covered, let alone make a profit. A little further north, the crops were damaged by drought.
APM,
Not all atmospheric oscillations render predictable results in all areas. El Nino can cause droughts in the Northeast Plains, but flooding in California, and winter snowstorms in New England. In Texas, La Nina is most evident in late Winter and Spring (in the form of severe thunderstorms), but normally does not effect temperatures (with the exception of West Texas high country during the winter). During periods dominated by La Ninas, the “cooling” is gradual and not very noticeable for people living in the Southwest. But what you will see is changes in precipitation patterns.
In a regime dominated by El Ninos, the dynamic synoptic weather patterns that give the eastern half of the US its major midwest snowstorms, deep freezes, and severe weather are shifted significantly northward. Winters become warmer, night time lows not as cold, and many areas become drier. There is also a better chance of long term drought/summer heat waves.
But climate is never that easy. Scientists are just now realizing how the combination of long term oscillations in both the Pacific and Atlantic can determine short term to decadal climate variations. The Great Plains Dust Bowl years during the 30s, many scientists believe, was caused by a warm Atlantic (postive AMO), and a Pacific that either had a neutral change in temperatures or a slightly cooling at the Equator. By the mid 1940s, both the Atlantic Basin were cooling and La Ninas began to dominate the Pacific. The 1930s saw record heatwaves, droughts, and tropical cyclone activity.
Pamela,
I think it may depend on your grape variety. Here in northern IA, the ground certainly freezes in the Winter, but you can get grapes and there are (some, really!) vineyards.
To continue the weather topic, we turned from very nice in the morning to nippy during the last 24 hours. Leaves have been turning and dropping for over a week. No frost yet, but getting close.
Mike86
Wow and wow backwards! Record lows are being set all over the inland NW and parts of the pacific NW! With this much cold air, we might start to see a DECREASE in snow fall since cold air is less moist than warm air. The winter of 2006 saw temps in the double digit minus area for days at a time in Wallowa County, freezing pipes everywhere, even the freeze resistant deeply buried pipes. We didn’t get much snow either, forcing us to use way less water then we needed for late fall pasture and third cutting fields. I certainly hope that winter does not repeat itself.
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=pdt