reader “agimarc” writes: As with the Lower 48 states, spring is late and cold here in central Alaska. Fairbanks reported a record low of 2 degrees F above zero Sunday, breaking the previous record of 8 from 1924.
Here in Anchorage, looks like we are around 3 – 4 weeks late with ice of local lakes and snow off the ground. Winter was not particularly hard, but it all changed with a very cold April. And at this point it does not appear things will be warming up soon. So much for manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions.![usak_yestlows_i5_points[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/usak_yestlows_i5_points1.png?quality=75)
Story here: http://www.adn.com/2013/04/29/2883299/interior-alaska-sees-record-breaking.html
Yes, have a look at the image at right.
Here is a complete list of record lows for Alaska in the past 7 days, 996 new record lows were set (click low temp and details tab):
http://wx.hamweather.com/maps/climate/records/7day/usak.html?cat=maxtemp,mintemp,snow,lowmax,highmin,
And the cold is now creeping into the USA, look at the difference between Denver and Kansas City:
Expect a whole new crop of record lows for the USA, and some serious issues to develop with agriculture in the nation’s breadbasket as a result.
This in contrast to last year at this time of 49% of the corn crop planted and the five year average of 31%
The Weather Channel picked the wrong year to name winter storms, the snow and cold may be their Achilles Heel (h/t to Steve Goddard):
Winter Storm Achilles: Snow and Cold Kick Off May | Weather Underground
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Steve Lohr says: “I too live in Colorado. I don’t think there is a better place in the world for seeing weather than Colorado.”
I remember looking out the window at Stearns-Roger in June of ’73 or ’74 and watching the snow come down.
Roger Knights ,
Around these parts it’s tuna fishing . Also , I may be unfair to my compatriots – in my few travels abroad I’ve never discussed safe deposit boxes or water heaters .
Pull My Finger says:
May 1, 2013 at 10:40 am
Thank god no hysteria on the Weather Channel… like the one day in April it broke 70 in Chicago an Al Roker was flailing around like Ron Jeremey on a money shot.
Whooo boy! That analogy is a real stretch….
MtK
Brian Williams-NBC Nightly News- gave the mid-west cold and snow 30 seconds on their 6pm broadcast. Just saying.
Jim
Interesting post, except that
falls flat on its face. This year’s freakishly cold/wet April (and maybe May) no more disproves AGW than last year’s freakishly warm/dry March proved it. The warmers of course seized upon last year’s warm spell, as they had to since these weather events are literally the only play they have left. But I would hope that “…the world’s most viewed climate website”, whose posters and commenters claim to be skeptics, would do a little better; plus, we realists don’t need to hurt our credibility by cherry-picking – the trends, in both temperatures & extreme weather events, are either flat or slightly declining.
However,
Is right on.
As Solar Cycle 24 fades to zip-squat twelve months from now, evidence mounts that 2014 will see the start of a 70-year “dead sun” Grand Solar Minimum similar to that of 1645 – 1715. At its deepest in the mid-1690s this Little Ice Age climacteric brought years of famine to Northern Europe from Scotland to the Urals, depopulating some regions by 60 – 80%– proportions far higher than Ireland’s “Great Hunger” in the 1840s.
The fact that insular and obtuse global governments have not only blindfolded themselves to this reality, but literally sabotaged coal, oil, and nuclear-power resources over forty years, is tantamount to genocidal mass-murder worthy of a Lenin, Stalin, Mao T’se-tung. Until populations in general realize that AGW Catastrophism hates humanity and wants them dead, just so long will the Green Gang hasten post-Enlightenment civilization to oblivion.
Hard frost on the grass this morning, just a bit south of Seattle WA. The late frosts we had the last two springs have apparently convinced my plum trees to delay their blooming enthusiasms this year. Not a blossom showing yet….
I’m hoping for a good plum harvest this year, as I’m running low on both plum jam and plum wine. I have plenty of light plum vinegar though, as last years 5 gallon batch of wine ‘went south’ on me! Makes tasty vinaigrette dressings and sauces…. but I’d rather have the wine.
MtK
How many countries in the world use fahrenheit officially?? One? Time to get with it USA!!
Murray,
Sorry, but the entire world must conform to the U.S.!
But if that’s a problem, we can agree that – 40ºC = – 40ºF! ☺
Pull My Finger says:
“Al Roker… flailing around like Ron Jeremey on a money shot.”
Thanks…. spoiled my dinner… may never get that image out of my head.
By some reports, we’re looking at 3-5 inches of snow overnight here in KC. I don’t think I can remember snow in May – hail, yes, but snow, no. Of course, the running joke in this house at the moment is thank God for global warming, imagine how much worse things woulld be without it …
@Murray Sandland
As an engineer, I am equally comfortable using Metric and English units. For sciency stuff metric is easier to use, but on a day to day basis some units make more sense for things you can feel. For example, since Farenheight and Feet are smaller units than Celcius and Meters,it means something more to me when discussing 80 to 85 degrees F outside the difference between 26.6 and 29.4C…its not a huge difference, but humans can perceive the difference between 1F. Also 100 degrees just seems like a lot compared to 37. Also 10 feet of snow seems like a lot compared to 3 meters. I know its an irrational explanation, but for things like this the larger numbers provides a greater sense of scale, It’s like mount everest at 28,000 feet sounds a lot cooler than 8536 meters, and differences in height of mountains sounds easier to grasp when they are measured in thousands instead of hundreds. As far as miles versus kilometers, I don’t care either way.
The research was shortlived. It was intended to provide better predictions of spring runoff in this region. I left the USGS in 1978. However, I offered the observation here as a way of suggesting that the “early springs” or “late springs” might be better explained as the shifting of the phase of this second harmonic, rather than as a warming of the annual cycle. Someone on this thread wrote about paying now for the warm winter weather, and that too relates to this phase shift. Now why the shifting phase, and what it might have to do with “climate change”, I don’t know.
“And it’s *warming* we’re supposed to be afraid of?”
http://www.u.tv/News/43000-carcasses-found-in-snow/cafcb06e-1dfd-4391-934b-2ef5af316942
Yep , I`m sure the farmers were relieved that their livestock didn`t have to cope with the horrors of ………….warm
PaddikJ says:
May 1, 2013 at 3:50 pm
“This year’s freakishly cold/wet April (and maybe May) no more disproves AGW than last year’s freakishly warm/dry March proved it”
———————————————————————
Entirely true , but I suspect that being in a state of freezing Your &%#@ing arse off while watching the collective media numpties blather on that We need to “cool the globe” would tend to impede one`s scientific objectivity a tad
PaddikJ says:
May 1, 2013 at 3:50 pm
“falls flat on its face. This year’s freakishly cold/wet April (and maybe May) no more disproves AGW than last year’s freakishly warm/dry March proved it. The warmers of course seized upon last year’s warm spell, as they had to since these weather events are literally the only play they have left. But I would hope that “…the world’s most viewed climate website”, whose posters and commenters claim to be skeptics, would do a little better; plus, we realists don’t need to hurt our credibility by cherry-picking – the trends, in both temperatures & extreme weather events, are either flat or slightly declining.”
Speak for yourself. It has been going on for a while. Four years ago I started a job in Hamburg, amongst a bunch of warmist engineers. For fun, and because I knew about the big solar minimum and the Svensmark hypothesis, I told them that it’ll be a cold winter, et voila, Hamburg was all iced over that winter, and the next as well. The year after that they had their first Altereisvergnuegen for several decades, that’s a party on the frozen Alster, the lake in Hamburg.
And this winter in Germany has been too long, temperatures in March and April are way below normal.
Of course, I expect several more decades of this. We’re having a Grand Minimum, and CO2 does absolutely nothing to warm the planet. As somebody stated, H2O and CO2 are the only two gases that emit IR from the atmosphere to space, so that says that an Earth without CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere would be incapable of radiatively cooling its atmosphere. Is CO2 therefore responsible for a 33 deg C warming of the planet? That sounds to me more and more like a fairytale because the people who spread this fairytale never computed the alternate system, in which the atmosphere could only cool by giving heat to the surface which could then radiate IR to space. Such a planet would have an atmosphere hotter than the surface.
I have some ‘Hot Tuna’ here and love listening to it.
Would you rather they refer to it as ‘tepid water heater’? In America’s south, skiing refers to ‘water skiing’, up in the northern states, skiing means hitting the snowy slopes and ‘water skiing’ is the explicit statement.
Most everyone I know calls safe deposit boxes, safe deposit boxes… It all depends where in America one is, each region and often locales within a region have their own quirks. On a plant inspection trip to Massachusetts a co-worker ordered a ‘milkshake’. I tried to get him to change the order as I knew what he was going to get, i.e. ‘power shaken slightly sweet milk’ is not what he was expecting, ice cream and milk blended smooth and thick.
Whether it’s pop, tonic or soda, it’s a drink; bagged or sacked groceries or whether you’re saving them or putting them away, linguistic quirks are common. I’ve lived or visited for extended periods various American locales and I quickly learned to not order hoagies north of New York (They broil sandwiches, limp lettuce, yuk), or accept meatball sandwiches ‘dressed’ in New Orleans; dressed means everything added, especially mayonnaise. Nor do I order ‘milk shakes’ north of New York, even frappes are not thick or flavorful enough; I rather just order ice cream.
Cold coming as in possible freeze. darn! I just moved all of my orchids and tenders tropical outside. I think that around here, May 7th is the last day for historical killing frosts, so I guess I should’ve known.
Corn does not generate well when soil temperatures are low; so farmers check soil temperature and use that as the guide for when to plant. Corn planted too early may lose some kernels to fungus, but more irritating to the farmer is that the corn will sprout unevenly so the crop will mature unevenly.
The other danger is all of the plants that have already flowered and set fruit. I guess I can expect a complete loss of peaches, plums, nectarines and cherries this year.
Good news is that the pea crops like cool weather.
I sure hope that people are choosing rails carefully in a number of climate research locations. It used to be a somewhat American tradition that, when caught, shysters, con artists, flim flammers, cheats and similar were well doused in tar, covered with feathers and run out of town on a rail.
Collect those old feather pillows, keep the tar hot an ready and make sure the rail is fresh split, rough and splintery. Rails are a reference to fence rails split from trees, often pine; rails are triangular and of course the bark edge is what lies on the good citizens shoulders and they transport the tarred and feathered out of town. When the tar cools sufficiently, it an be slowly peeled off; think hot wax treatment only much more severe.
There that should be a warming thought as we ponder those who deserve the treatment.
In the rest of the world, they changed their temperature scale. In the Unites States, the temperature scale changes you!
Umm, we don’t particularly like following others, this is something folks can’t seem to understand. The way you folks in Oz suddenly up’d and changed your entire system to join others and is not appealing to us.
Centigrade and Metric are human designed arbitrary systems no better than anything else. The only reasons for switching we ever hear is that “Hey, 10’s are easier for everyone” and/or “Well, everyone else is doing it“.
Besides, it’s real simple to explain the difference to the young’ins these days. Take a look at your cellphone or laptop Wi-Fi signal strength or battery meter and explain why using a basis of 5 bars is better than 10 bars. The world is full of examples of arbitrary systems used for tradition or whatever reason. In microcomputers we mostly use base 16 hexadecimal providing a larger quantity in a smaller space which is a fine example where base 10 just will not do and their are many other bases as well. If we switch school grading from A, B, C … F with + and – to a pure 100 percentage basis ( or perhaps 1-10 ) things might be nice and uniform but nothing is really gained and some tradition and character is lost.
No-one has anything against Centigrade, and as others pointed out we happily multi-task over here. Trying to get us to change because others cannot multi-task or are troubled by simple math does not compute. Personally I don’t think basing everything on base 10 math ( or “Tensies” as we called them in grade school because they were the easy ones 😉 is a great selling point because it reeks of pandering to the math-challenged, or, conforming to elitist group-think. We don’t do that.
John A. Fleming says:
May 1, 2013 at 5:53 pm
In the rest of the world, they changed their temperature scale. In the Unites States, the temperature scale changes you!
==================
Nope, its funding making the changes.
F scale has 180 degrees between freezing and boiling. C scale has only 100 degrees. F is accurate using whole numbers while C scale is almost twice as likely to need a decimal to identify the same temperature. F being more relatable – presists.
Missing CO2 created water vapor here in NE Oregon! Down to 18% humidity under clear skies and ANOTHER freeze warning tonight. My long red hair is standing up like it has been wired to Frankinstein’s static electricity machine! The lilac buds frooze. My poor dogs don’t dare sniff the local text messages on fire hydrants because their noses get snapped!
Canola farmer’s are starting to panic on the canadian prairies as they need at least 1400 growing degree days to maturity and the ground is frozen. It might be a struggled getting there and it appears the polar vortex will be sending another cold finger down through the prairies next week.
Pamela Gray says: “My poor dogs don’t dare sniff the local text messages on fire hydrants because their noses get snapped!”
Those aren’t text messages; those are p-mail.