While early autumn snowstorms aren’t uncommon in US weather history, they tend to be quick affairs that melt off quickly in a day or two. This however is a bit different in that we have a significant portion of the northern Midwest plains and northern Rockies are snow covered and it is not quickly dissipating, in fact it is increasing. Since October 10th the coverage has increased from 13.2% of the USA covered by snow.
This map below is from NOAA’s NOHRSC National Snow Analysis page.
Here is the accompanying table and discussion:
October 13, 2009
| Area Covered By Snow: | 19.9% |
| Area Covered Last Month: | 0.0% |
| Snow Depth | |
|---|---|
| Average: | 0.7 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 728.8 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 2.1 in |
| Snow Water Equivalent | |
| Average: | 0.1 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 403.4 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 0.4 in |
By way of comparison, here is the October 13th USA snow cover for the last few years:
2003- .7
2004- .3
2005- 1.7
2006- 3.7
2007- .3
2008-12.7
2009-19.9
What is also interesting is the 6 year trend of snow depth on this date.
2003- 38.2 in
2004-322.6 in
2005-456.9 in
2006-223.2 in
2007-458.1 in
2008-600.6 in
2009-728.8 in
You can watch the snow cover advance in the animation they provide:
Click for animation of the last 72 hours
Weather Summary
A series of potent systems moved across the coterminous U.S. this weekend, and they brought snow to the north and rain to the south. Late last week, heavy rain fell across the south, which continued to aggravate river flooding and keep soils most.
On Friday, up to 1 foot of snow fell at higher elevations in Wyoming, mainly due to upslope flow from a surface low which moved across the Plains. This same system produced up to 1 1/2 feet of snow to mainly Nebraska Friday and Saturday. Lighter amounts – up to 1/2 foot – fell across the southern Dakotas. On Monday, another system produced light snow across the Upper Midwest and western Great Lakes.
Much of the Western snowpack is cold and stable due due to unseasonably cold air temperatures in those areas. Along the southern edge of the snowpack – from southeastern Idaho to southern Wyoming and from southern Nebraska through southern Iowa, warm and melting conditions were present.
A deep, strong offshore system off the West Coast with potent onshore flow will cause widespread heavy rainfall across the northern two-thirds of California. Up to a foot of snow is possible in the high-elevation central Sierra Nevada, but it will be mixed with rain.
The energy of this West Coast system will shift northward and bring moderate rainfall – 1 to 2 inches – to the coastal Northwest and the Cascades on Wednesday and Thursday.
A midlevel trough will develop across the eastern U.S., and a stationary front across the South will be a focus for heavy rainfall through midweek, and this rain will shift to the Middle Atlantic states late this week.
As the West Coast system lifts northward, midlevel ridging will develop progress smartly across the West. Daily maximum temperatures are expected to be above freezing in much of the West by Friday. The ridge will move into the central U.S. by the weekend and bring seasonable temperatures to the Plains and Upper Midwest, causing snowmelt there.
Snow Reports
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h/t to WUWT reader Mike Bryant
I have to admit it seems like the initial graph and date of Oct 13th might be a bit cherry picked (I don’t mean to insinuate that it’s deliberate). I agree with the premise in general…that Winter is early this year, but I live in the affected area and I can tell you it came with a storm recently.
Looking at the rest of the data for October 1st through 13th for ’03 through ’09 it seems that the snowfall comes and goes rather quickly. There are sudden increase in snowfall in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009 within this 13 day period, which suggest these are large regional snowstorms. It is fair to say that 2008 and 2009 are the largest such occurrences which, while it may not constitute promotion to “climate” as opposed to “weather”, is certainly still worthy of note.
The real issue to me is that giving data for the mean/median of the first half of October would be more informative and provide more context for consideration. Something like this for example:
Year, Mean, Median
2003, 0.14, 0.0
2004, 0.17, 0.2
2005, 3.08, 2.3
2006, 1.03, 0.1
2007, 1.61, 1.0
2008, 2.71, 0.4
2009, 8.88, 7.5
Obviously it still shows a spike this year, and as I said I don’t disagree at all with the premise that we have a lot of early snow this year.
>> Bob Shapiro (09:27:27) : What effect would a solar wind at solar maximum have had on repelling these meteoroids, keeping them from reaching the earth? <<
No effect. A meteoroid would have to be smaller than one micron for solar radiation pressure (sunlight) to push it out of the solar system (IIRC, the number is close to 1/10th micron for a particle of density 2.5 gm/cm3). The solar wind pressure is about 1/4th of the solar radiation pressure. Just deflecting it would take less, but it still becomes negligible for particles one mm or larger.
TerryBixler (12:17:14) :
“Have they flipped F and C at LAKE MORAINE, CO.”
Lake Moraine is at 10213 ft.
Wray is at 3667 ft.
It’s likely that the information is correct. I haven’t been there, but Lake Moraine is a reservoir and probably sits in a bowl, where the cold air settles.
Perhaps “Retired Engineer” knows the location.
Al Gore is right now preaching in Argentina:
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2009/10/14/um/m-02018674.htm
Is it 270 times more thermal mass in the oceans than in the atmosphere?
Earlier snow than usual in Scandinavia as well and it doesn’t seem to melt. Norwegian snow maps at http://senorge.no
PS – The mean/median data I posted above is for Oct 1st through Oct 13th for the respective years.
Could you please post one of these showing the Canadian Shield?
DR – NOAA would have been a great reference were it not for issues like this, “To enable them to make the case the oceans are warming, NOAA chose to remove satellite input into their global ocean estimation and not make any attempt to operationally use NASA’s Argo data in the process. This resulted in a jump of 0.2C or more and ‘a new ocean warmth record’ in July. ARGO tells us this is another example of NOAA’s inexplicable decision to corrupt data to support political agendas.” Please do not reference politically driven pseudo-science in the future.
Mod. Please delete the bold code if in error.
——————————————
tallbloke asked, “Yeah, what’s happening in Canuckshire?”
Up here in the Frozen North it is, err … well, it has been frozen for about one week. Mean temps similar to mid December.
Records shattered all across southern Alberta. Have a boo here for Waterton National Park:
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?StationID=26850
Those mean daily temps for Oct 9 through Oct 12 are ~22C° below mean! The three consecutive days of -22°C to -24.5°C were all new records. I think the -24.5°C broke the previous record (2002) by something like 8 C degrees. (TBV.)
Calgary .. “Temperatures dropped to –16.1 C in Calgary early Monday, breaking the day’s previous record, from 1928, by about three degrees.”
See here..
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2009/10/12/mb-snowy-cold.html
Anyway, accord to the elves at Environment Canada we are to return to normal temps tomorrow.
Lots of cranky folks here in Canuckistan. ☺☺
Clive
Steinar Midtskogen (13:07:29) : Earlier snow than usual in Scandinavia as well and it doesn’t seem to melt. Norwegian snow maps at http://senorge.no
In Norway it is colder than usual too – Røros with a new astonishing record -13.9 C today. No wonder it doesn’t seem to melt…
News in English:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.adressa.no/vaeret/article1398424.ece&ei=OzPWSuv8F4nz-QaD46SOAw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&ved=0CAgQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DKulderekord%2Bp%25C3%25A5%2BR%25C3%25B8ros%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
News in Norwegian:
http://www.adressa.no/vaeret/article1398424.ece
Simon (12:31:30) :
Global Warming alarmists go sit in the corner.
Hmmm early snowfalls and record low temps. Is Al Gore planning to speak somewhere?
I love skiing, therefore I love [this] global warming!
Same here, this side of the Atlantic, Austria, Czechia, Germany still in orange alert for snow storms. Many ski resorts in the Alps accumulating over 3 feet in the last 48 hours. Below a map of snowfall in the past five days: http://tinyurl.com/yz968hd
The terra Modis shows a beautiful image of all of the Eastern Alps covered in white: http://tinyurl.com/yzh8gqz
it is clearly visible to the top right of the image
“Fear the cold, not the warm.” savethe sharks
Wait! Doesn’t cold weather keep pests in check?
May it get as cold as necessary to discredit the “sky is falling unless you pay us” crowd.
Young scientists! Don’t trust anyone over 30 — x 10^1 pounds!
David S (13:43:15) : said
Hmmm early snowfalls and record low temps. Is Al Gore planning to speak somewhere?
Where is that pesky ManBearPig?
See what Piers Corbyn have to say about winter in Britain:
http://www.youtube.com/user/1weatheraction#p/a/u/1/Yyld9QH55dw
Buy a forecast and you will know what is going to happen.
Bookmakers refuses to take his bets about the weather, must be a reason for that!
Well so much for that 50 year storm.
So howcum I never noticed it when I walked out to lunch yesterday. Well yes I did put a hooded sweatshirt on over my office duds, and I did take my umbrella with me, because it was raining all the way; but no the umbrella didn’t get turned inside out, and yes the rain did blow in under the brolly, and soak my trouser legs.
Biggest proble was that the drainage system for all the UHI parking lots that I cut across to get to my favorite eating plaqces, so I was walking in about a half inch of ruinning water both coming and going; but nothing that I haven’t seen before; even as recently as last year so phooey on the 50 year BS; we get 50 year storms pretty much every year. Yeah I saw some branches blown off trees; largely because the city weenies won’t allow people to cut all that bric-a-brac off their trees.
So today was sunny and cloudy; funny how clouds appear out of nowhere when the surface warms, and puts moisture in the air.
So the DMI temperature finally seems to be taking a dive, but not before the JAXA ice dropped a tad below (I think) 2008; but so what; the minimum was well above last year, so that means we muct be growing some two year and three year ice now. All in all the ice now seems to be back in the historical normal range.
So what did cause all the DMI temperature hiccups earlier this month ?
Bob Shapiro (09:27:27)
Further to Tom_R (13:00:34) :’s reply almost all(I’m guessing greater than 99.999%) of meteoroids entering earth’s atmosphere originate within the solar system).
The vast majority are in the meteor showers, all of which are solar system origin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_showers
Snowfall records for Mammoth Mountain by month since 1968-69 season.
http://www.mammothmountain.com/MyMammoth/
Snowfall this season to date is double the average over the last 50 years.
Looks like great season with very early start for Mammoth.
“Mammoth is opening Friday, Oct 16, 2009! 2nd earliest opening EVER!”
20″ base already.
Yippee
“jorgekafkazar (09:14:48) :
NK (09:03:29) : “The Earth has a fever”.–ManBearPig
I’d say it’s got the chills.”
Put it this way. The Earth has feverish chills. 🙂
Simon says
“Don’t let it get too cold or the Bees will die off.” The bes pollinate the flowers that give us our fruits, and others as well!
Too wet to harvest crops and moisture damage to corn, soybeans and small grains is what I found on a google search yesterday. Since stormx ag/news/weather ceased to exist this summer locating good real time agriculture information has been difficult. Despite very late plantings this spring the crops looked to be an improvement over 2008 despite USDA stating it would be a mirror year. That was up until the moisture settled in and cold returned.
I grew up in Winnipeg. Winter of 1955/6 shovelled snow every morning for 100 successive mornings. When it didn’t snow, it blew. You young fellows jest don’t know what a real winter is like! :>). I tell people that Winnepeg (Winterpeg) is a great place to be FROM. Murray
I don’t need a forecast to see what’s happening.
Last year, it was Alaska and the Yukon that got it bad.
This year, the joy of Winter comes early and often, and has much it wants to share with us.