Cold event setups in atmospheric circulation patterns are aligning. Two days ago I brought to your attention that there was a strong downspike in the Arctic Oscillation Index and that the North Atlantic Oscillation Index was also negative. See The Arctic Oscillation Index goes strongly negative
Yesterday, Senior AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi let loose with this stunning prediction on the AccuWeather premium web site via Brett Anderson’s Global warming blog:
What is facing the major population centers of the northern hemisphere is unlike anything that we have seen since the global warming debate got to the absurd level it is now, which essentially has been there is no doubt about all this. For cold of a variety not seen in over 25 years in a large scale is about to engulf the major energy consuming areas of the northern Hemisphere. The first 15 days of the opening of the New Year will be the coldest, population weighted, north of 30 north world wide in over 25 years in my opinion.
The Climate Prediction Center discussion for their forecast also concurs with both of the above:
THE AO INDEX WHICH RECENTLY HAS BEEN VERY STRONGLY NEGATIVE IS FORECAST TO INCREASE SLIGHTLY IN VALUE BUT REMAIN STRONGLY NEGATIVE THROUGH DAY 14. TODAYS BLEND CHART INDICATES BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS ACROSS ROUGHLY THE SOUTHEASTERN TWO-THIRDS OF THE CONUS, AND ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS OVER THE NORTHWESTERN THIRD OF THE CONUS, CONSISTENT WITH A STRONGLY NEGATIVE AO.
Here are two of the CPC forecast maps for the days covered by Bastardi’s forecast. It is fairly typical to see an above average temperature in the west when we get a cold deep jet stream in the east:
I was going to include some Met Office forecasts here but after trying to find something useful at their web site and failing to find anything, I gave up looking.
If you live in these areas: bundle up, stock up. Get ready.
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@ur momisugly MikeinAppalachia (08:00:18) :
realitycheck-
Interesting correlation-the winter of 1977 was the “winter of record” for the Ohio River Valley area and especially so for SE Ohio. IIRC, from mid-January onward for 45 days, the daily max was below freezing with nighttime minimums below zero F for about 50% of that time period.
I didn’t know that. No wonder I remember it being so cold. Kids don’t feel the cold the way adults do, so to remember that it must have been freezing.
Even my kids have been complaining about how cold it’s been (even my daughter who tries to leave the house in flip flops)–they’ve never been through a good old, 70’s type winter. I feel like an old timer when I tell them, “I remember when…”
“TonyB (05:23:30) :
Its the time of year for a bit of frivolous fun. Those outside the UK may not
know that anyone can put in a planning application for a site that they do not
even own (although of course if they wanted to carry out any work following
permission they would have to own the site)”
A prison?
A new religious order retreat? Same thing, perhaps.
http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/india-it-could-turn-out-to-be-the-coldest-calcutta-winter-ever-%e2%80%9d/
Record cold India and of course we have been following records in Europe.
Joe Romm is blowing a gasket.
Maybe I am dense but for me this map is a warm up.
In Guilford NY it has been cold lately with highs in the lower teens and lows below zero, more like January weather than December.
The weather report says the same thing, warming up to highs of 30 and lows in the twenties.
Here’s a hint for you that animals are pretty good weather pattern sensors. In the past 5 years, Canadian Moose have been moving SOUTH! We now have a small herd in the Wallowa Mountains in NE Oregon.
JonesII (09:21:29) :
So there is no cure for the AlGor Effect. The reduction in temperature with his appearance means that heat is escaping due to the expiration of the warranty.
Met Office said winter would be milder than average, but there was a 1 in 7 chance of it being colder than average. This is called having your cake and eating it. Also in The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland) their editorial said the cold weather did not invalidate global warming. Well, guys, it sort of does because you see we take an average and if it isn’t getting any higher then there is no global warming. These guys see AGW as a philosophical construct. Scotland is really being blasted this winter. You might think it is a cold place but winters are not usually that severe due to the maritime influence. But year it has snowed and snowed. Temps of -16 C in the Highlands and that is cold for us. Never seen a winter like it in my 62 years and this is only December. The clown Salmond (First Minister) is still banging on about renewable energy since the wicked fossil fuels will cause warming. Could do with some. It is really bad here. Three years ago the newspapers carried stories about skiing in Scotland being a distant memory. Guess what? We have had three splendid skiing seasons since then.
Moose
http://www.wallowacountychieftain.info/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=101&ArticleID=16792&TM=47695.89
The winter of 1976-77 was a total drought in the West with severe cold storms in the East. That has not happened this year. Pattern doesn’t match.
This does not compute. Error.
Thanks! (strange, I was considering to drop you an email on the issue!) It is understandable that forecasts are problematic under these conditions. But if one can’t get the current temperature right within 10C (or even 20C as you suggest), there is no point in trying to estimate it, IMHO. It would then be better to just report whatever actual observations that exist, even though they may represent only a subset of locations.
Bad data is worse than no data.
Unprecedented!
“Bridget H-S (10:10:08) :
Its the time of year for a bit of frivolous fun. Those outside the UK may not
know that anyone can put in a planning application for a site that they do not
even own (although of course if they wanted to carry out any work following
permission they would have to own the site)”
Cultist Deprogramming Therapy Clinic.
ALGOR MORTIS = “The cold of death”☺
The Gore effect decoded
Cracks me up.
realitycheck (03:12:21) :
Hmm, for some reason I recall feeling sorry for the Ohio cold weather disaster the year before the bicentennial, but the climate page makes it clear it was 76/77. 77/78 was also cold, but more so to the west
I grew up in Ohio, and was in Pittsburgh PA from 1968-1974 in school and work, but lived in Massachusetts from 1974-1978.
76/77:
Between the coal barges being frozen in place on the Ohio River and a shortage of natural gas, schools and industry were forced to shutdown for a couple weeks.
An aside – The state had been leaning on the Amish community to send their children to proper state-run schools. The Amish schools stayed open with their wood stoves for heat and the state gave up in defeat and dealt with more serious issues that winter.
Time magazine has a good look at that winter, see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918620-1,00.html (Jan 31, 1977)
77/78:
New England wasn’t particularly cold, but there were three major snow storms that season:
Jan 20: a new 24 hour record for snow in Boston, 25.1″.
Jan 26: rain in New England, “The Blizzard of ’78” for much of the midwest. Cleveland recorded it lowest ever barometric pressure.
Feb 6/7: Boston records for 24 hours (23.6″), single storm (27.5″), and total snow depth (29.0″). Oops – I have a mistake there, either one of those 24 hour records is wrong, or my memory of a record set in January being broken in February is srong. At any rate, this is the “Blizzard of ’78” for southern new England, and is referred to in a current local coffee commercial.
See http://wermenh.com/blizz78.html and http://wermenh.com/blizz78a.html (I posted those recently on another thread too).
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (10:26:49) :
” IMHO. It would then be better to just report whatever actual observations that exist, even though they may represent only a subset of locations.”
The trouble is that there aren’t that many stations which have existed in the same location for a long time. Often they move a few km, which especially during winter may make a huge difference. If climate researchers only base their work on whatever actual observations that exist, they don’t have much to work on. So they extend the series by homogenisation, i.e. modelling/guessing what the temperature would have been in locations where no observations were made. An example of this by our met office is Svalbard lufthavn, a very important station for studying climate change in the arctic. From 1912 to 1975 the temperature at this place near the sea which not unfrequently remains open during the winter has been reconstructed using observations from a valley some km away, or from observations tens of km away, or simply interpolated for years with no data within a few 100 km. Voila, you’ve got 100 years worth of data for a single location and you can plot nice, continuous graphs.
“We are not sure” is science that is difficult to publish, nor does it attract mush interest, so if the data for getting useful results are missing, they model them.
TonyB
I vote we turn Hadley into either A) a sauna or B) an ice rink.
OMG [snip] Blue Peter was right and the Ice Age is coming!
Plamen Petkov,
“And how about the fact that our winter was 2 months late in coming where I live in Bulgaria and it didnt arrive untll late December? Last time I checked, Bulgaria is in the northern hemisphere. And surprise surprise but for the last 3 days we have had record HIGH temperatures here.”
You may be unaware, but North America is bigger than Bulgaria. Much, much bigger.
JonesII (09:14:25) :
“vukcevic (08:58:04) : It seems that though that oscillation (LOD) it is near reality it also would oscillate within another one, or be modulated by your sun’s magnetic polar field strength oscillation.”
LOD may be related to the E’s core responding somewhat differently due to viscous separation from the solid crust. GMF is probable generated somewhere nearby so the variance of both is a manifestations of the same excitation.
The formula here
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-SW.gif
is preceding solar by 16 years (but could be a few more or less), i.e. the s/w deviation may be driven by the E’s magnetic (via GCR regulating precipitations over Central Siberia), which precedes the solar by about 30-40. The E’s and S’s magnetic events could be linked, as is suggested here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-GMF.gif
Now, if that is confusing time line would be:
– External force applied
– GMF & LOD respond simultaneously at time T
– Solar at T + 35/40 years (inertia of much greater mass)
– Precipitations at T (controlled by GCR via GMF)
– Artic and Atlantic currents (controlled by the Siberian precipitations affecting Arctic Ocean salinity) regulate AMO at T+16 (+ – 3 to 4) years
– CET summer/winter temps respond to AMO also at T+16
Hence SSN, LOD, GMF, GCR, AMO & CET correlation.
Off course all events have built-in inertia (with a bit of random noise thrown in, local elements, etc.), which cannot be precisely defined, as the celestial mechanics ‘the mother of all natural oscillations’ can.
Just a hypothesis, but feel free to take note of (or maybe I need a rest).
!?
I was fortunate? to grow up in northern Alberta during the 1950’s where it was really cold; one of my earliest memories is my father lighting a fire under the outside propane tank to thaw it out so we could have heat in the poorly heated cabin we were living in while the town of Hinton was being built. It seemed natural to me that if you left water in a glass on the kitchen table and it was frozen solid by morning. As propane boils at -44 C, the temperature outside must have been lower much of that winter.
When I lived in Calgary it seemed normal to walk 3 miles to and from school in -40 C weather and no-one seemed to complain much about the cold as natural gas was really cheap in the early 1970’s. When I finally did get fed up with the weather was in January of 1979 when Ottawa had a few weeks of freezing rain which made it very difficult to walk and cross country skiing (my main way of getting around in the winter) was impossible. That’s when I moved to Vancouver and realized how subjective peoples opinions are on how cold it is outside During the winter of 1984/1985 I remember waiting for a bus in Vancouver when it was -15 C and I had dressed appropriately but everyone I ran into seemed to be traumatized by this degree of cold in what is supposed to be a non-Canadian climate during the winter. The first few places we lived in Vancouver seemed very cold during the winter and I suspect that insulation was a foreign concept to Vancouver builders.
I suspect that people who grew up during times with mild winters will be much more affected by the cold during the times that we get severe winters. What has stuck me about my notes of those early years is that I only kept track of when the first snow fell and stayed (a reason to celebrate as it meant I would be able to cross country ski/snowshoe) and very rarely did I make any mention of how cold it was as I had good parkas and gloves. Now my only concern about how cold it’s going to get in Kamloops is whether my fruit trees are going to survive the winter.
Ric Werme (10:58:13) :
The high pressure system sat over the Western US for months on end in 76-77 and the storms went ‘over the top’, passing far to the north into BC.
At this point in time in 76, the West was dryer than popcorn.
The winter in the Eastern US in 76-77 was the basis for Leanord Nimoy’s “In Search of the Coming Ice Age”. The previous winter (75-76) was dry, but not anwhere near as bad as 76-77.
By Sept. 77 the reservoirs across the West (Ca, Ore, Wa) were nearly empty.
Nobody hit the Panic Button and the winter of 77-78 hit and filled them back up.
I was in the central Mother Lode of Ca. at the time. We had an October 76 rain downpour lasting 1 or 2 days, and the system then went into total shutdown.
The current situation does not resemble that of 76-77 by any means.
Neither in winter climate nor solar activity preceeding.
Well as a west side resident i am happy to say i know where my sunglasses are.
By the way the title of this thread says “Northern hemisphere”; what does Europe and Asia look like? Are they in for a 25 year cold snap as well or is the “Northern Hemisphere” claim a stretch?
TonyB (05:23:30) :
Its the time of year for a bit of frivolous fun. Those outside the UK may not know that anyone can put in a planning application for a site that they do not even own (although of course if they wanted to carry out any work following permission they would have to own the site)
The Met office is 15 miles away from me. They occupy a very large prime site on the edge of Exeter. For a £100 application fee we could apply for planning permission for anything on their ste. A supermarket. Pub. A comedy club. Furniture store. Research unit to examine global cooling. Religious centre.
Any suggestions?
The more satirical to the Met office ideals the better 🙂 (after all they cost us Brits Millions)
Tony,
How about a center for the study of Alchemy, Astrology and Fortune Telling? They could share duties with what should replace the CRU and would be of much greater benefit to civilization than what they do now.
Thanks for the many suggestions for alternative uses for the Met office site
(See my 05 23 30)
Clear favourite so far is an ice rink which has a beautiful irony as far as I’m concerned and would also be wildly popular in Exeter.
However, I must admit a sneaking desire to go with the suggestion of a coal fired power station, if only because that would annoy so very many people who deserve to be annoyed. The Monbiot coal fired power station?
Tonyb
@ur momisugly Boris Gimbarzevsky (11:25:02) :
Your father lit a fire under a propane tank?
…
I have read it is possible to draw off the propane fast enough that a tank will “freeze up” (specifically with a blacksmith’s gas forge). For that it is recommended to place the tank in a tub, use warm water.
But directly heating a metal pressurized propane tank, with fire?
The thought makes my brain freeze up.
Pamela, are you sure they’re Canadian moose? Maybe they’re American moose that are lost… do they have a Canadian flag stitched onto their backpacks?
Most moose I encounter have no passports, and with the latest border crossing rules that is a no-no.
Or they could be Mexican moose…
Anyway, if they’re Canadian, they’re probably after your beer.