New York City Seasonal Snowfall Now 3rd Greatest in the Record (since 1868); Frigid Moscow
Guest post by Joseph D’Aleo, CCM
New York City metro area after a welcome thaw late last week, saw cold return this weekend and then a light snow this morning. A snowblitz in January delivered 36 inches of snow, the second snowiest month, behind only the 36.9 inches set last February.
This moves the city into third place behind just 1947/48 and 1995/96.
Minneapolis received another foot of snow and now. Snowplows had trouble keeping up.
As of 6:00am on February 21st, this winter season is guaranteed to be at least the 11th snowiest on record in the Twin Cities. The current seasonal snowfall total stands at an impressive 73.4 inches. The average seasonal snowfall in the Twin Cities is 55.9 inches. The following graphs were both updated shortly after midnight on February 21st.
Snow Season Amount (inches)
1983-84 98.6
1981-82 95.0
1950-51 88.9
1991-92 84.1
1961-62 81.3
…
2010-11 73.6 (11th snowiest so far)
With an active stormy pattern and another month to go, both cities and more in between have a chance to advance in the seasonal rankings. See how NOAA study shows snow records last winter in Mid-Atlantic had natural causes.
Also see how Moscow Shivering In “Coldest Winter In 100 Years” Minus 30°C for days…13C below normal…homeless people dying…hands and feet are freezing…
That’s what we are hearing from a few media outlets in Europe, those who have dared to mention the “cold-snap” word and to write about reality. It’s been cold in Scandinavia, much of Europe, North America and Russia too. Where’s all the warming? Heck, even the oceans are below normal.
In the UK, after the hugely cold December, January and February have been nothing abnormal in England. There’s been quite a bit of snow in the Scottish mountains, which means that the doom and gloomers who said winter alpinism was dead in Scotland have realised the folly of their ways……..
To me, it looks like a winter with quite a lot of extreme anomalies from the mean, both colder and warmer, as well as snowier/drier.
All one hopes is that the truth will out…….
Thanks for the weather update. Historically (over thousands of years, and based on ice core data) the warmer periods have seen the highest snowfall accumulations.
See: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
For the very basic truth of this.
Just sayin’…
Except that, using your chart, the correlation does not hold up that well for the small scale variation in temperature. In other words, we’re in a high period of both temperature AND snowfall right now, historically speaking, and variations are not well correlated.
Of course, you being only 40% skeptic makes it difficult to dig into such a detail objectively, I’m sure.
Mark
Just sayin…
Mark
February 2010 thru January 2011 is less than a year and totals 72.9 inches. Yes I know the year isn’t counted that way.
But if Tiger Woods gets credit, and rightly so, for holding the four majors in a year just, not a single year, then snow totals can count that way too.
the warmer periods have seen the highest snowfall accumulations …
In Iceland …
A headline from today’s WSJ – part of news summaries
“Home Depot’s fiscal-fourth-quarter profit climbed 72% amid heavy demand for snow-removal gear. The also retailer boosted its dividend nearly 6%.”
HD is scattered far and wide so they are not picking up some local weather phenomena when they see snow removal equipment sales surging. It doesn’t prove anything but it says that lots of consumers spending big bucks think it will snow again. They are not sitting around wondering if their children will know what snow looks like.
The question I keep asking warmists who contort facts to make big snowfalls fit their theories is this: If lots of snow in winter now “proves” global warming or climate change or whatever you’re calling it this season, what did it prove in 1872?
No answer so far.
I’m not very sophisticated and I’m certainly not a scientist but whenever I hear some “expert” declaring a weather event to be proof of their desire for anthropomorphic global climate disruption/warming/change, I ask “what was causing this type of weather in 1936 or 1948 or 1956” or whenever it is that I find it happening in the past. With the advent of the internet it’s simple to produce weather records to show that no matter what is going on now, it’s all happened before.
AlGore’s acolytes certainly have been shot in the foot by his “invention”.
For the “very basic truth” of it, R. Gates, look at the bloody temperature trend over the last 8,000 years, in your graph:
See: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
R. Gates says:
February 22, 2011 at 11:36 am
Thanks for the weather update. Historically (over thousands of years, and based on ice core data) the warmer periods have seen the highest snowfall accumulations.
——————————————
I imagine that not even you would claim that what causes evaporation in a given region at a given time is the global temperature averaged over latitude, season and diurnal variation. You would probably hesitate to attribute the coolness that produces snow rather than rain to that same average. But you happily imply that the two together are the product of an average global teperature.
R Gates 11:36 am
“Thanks for the weather update. Historically (over thousands of years, and based on ice core data) the warmer periods have seen the highest snowfall accumulations.”
Then we are in trouble because its also very cold.
RGates:
Thanks for the weather update. Historically (over thousands of years, and based on ice core data) the warmer periods have seen the highest snowfall accumulations.
See: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
For the very basic truth of this.
Just sayin’…
——————-
Sorry old boy. I don’t trust those “reconstructions”. For one thing, the O18 to 016 proxy, is just trash as far as I’m concerned. (And YES, I have the background!)
I found like 3 papers correlating Snowfall with “average” temperature…in the Northern Hemisphere. Trend was always consistent. Colder winter, more snowfall (based on “average” temperature for the season.)
I think what you and the AWG apologists are missing is that, yes, when it is VERY cold, the snow is less (air can’t hold the water), when we talk about the “average” seasonal temperature…over the span of a season, if it drops EARLIER to the snowfall capable range, it starts SNOWING earlier. And likewise, continues LONGER on the far end of the season.
Most interesting is my histogram analysis of MN temperatures, (based on a local meteorologist’s reconstruction using data going back to 1820, from Fort Snelling, Mpls, MN) shows the fact there there almost always is a “seasonal drop” over a period of a week to 10 days, and a commensurate “jump” on the spring side.
Then in the WINDOW between, it snows. Sure, in our area there are 1, 2 or 3 weeks with multi degree F below zero, but this is a small part of the season, and effects overall snowfall consistently and with little regard for the “average temperature effect”.
Thus the old phrase, “It was a cold AND snowy winter!”.
Max
stop cherry picking…..
…it’s the 140th lowest
for the basic truth of this….
…..Jan 2011, -0.01 deg. C
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Jan_2011.gif
More on its’ way according to Accuweathers’ new long-range forecaster, Paul Pastolek, whose first forecast could have been written by Bastardi himself :
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/46107/pastelok-more-winter-coming-fr.asp
Just watch the outbreak of “Global warming causes more Tornadoes” BS if his projections for the mid-Mississippi and Tennessee valleys prove correct……
Interesting that none of those record snowfalls occured in the 1970s when we were on the verge of descending into an ice age.
Forecasters are calling the the possibility of snow in the San Francisco Bay area this weekend according to the SF Chronicle.
@RGates
Interesting how that shows temperature has been dropping steadily but slowly since 10k years ago. Makes you wonder what caused the enormous, sudden spike though of around 10C, eh?
So, 6 out of the 10 of the snowiest months are in the last 20 years out of 139
and 2 of the 6 snowiest winters are during the same time period.
(similar ratios seem to exist up here in MA.)
maybe they are right – global warming does cause more snow /sarc
The Central Park seasonal chart isn’t clear. Does it include any Feb. ’11 data? IAC, another 16″ puts the total over the top, all-time.
If the “season” includes March, should be a slam dunk!
R. Gates says:
February 22, 2011 at 11:36 am
Umm, I don’t think Joe meant to compare this season to the tail end of the last glaciation.
The “very basic truth of this” in D’Aleo’s context applies in places where you can have some warming but still be cold enough to have a snowy winter. It is false in areas where warmth means several would-be snow storms become rain storms.
Had the New York City area had a warmer winter this season they would have had less snow. The storm track would have shifted north too, (unless your brand of global warming keeps the jet stream in place), and I would have had a warmer and snowier winter. Fortunately, we can get some good snow storms in New Hampshire in March.
Off the top of my head I would have thought the spread in snowfall between Central Park and Minneapolis would have been much more dramatic. Without looking at the records I would probably have guessed close to double. You learn something new every day.
R. Gates, that’s a very impressive graph. However, I think they did a bit of cherry picking of their data.
The last 10K years look like this.
All the data (last 50K years) looks like this.
The basic truth does not appear all that impressive, does it ?
The data can be found at NCDC.
R. Gates,
I think you failed to notice that the temperature scale is inverted at
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
Snowfall is increasing with decreasing temperature