Top post for a day or two, new posts will appear below this one.
Normally quiet and reserved WeatherBell senior forecaster Joe D’Aleo (co-founder of the Weather Channel with John Coleman) almost never writes (email subject lines) like this. When he does, it gets my attention. A new forecast shows the cold blast in the eastern half of the USA extending well past Groundhog Day, Feb 2nd, according to their models. WeatherBell has had an excellent track record this winter so far. He says he hasn’t seen anything like it since 1918 when the big flu pandemic hit the USA. Have a look:
D’Aleo writes in a follow up email about the forecast graphic below.
This is the GFS model depiction of the mean anomaly (in degrees C) for the 16 day period through 12z on February 6th.
It covers the coldest period of the winter season climatologically in most areas. The other global models agree through at least 10 days. This is the most severe run thus far. We have been alerting clients to it for weeks. Here is the day by day anomaly for the mean of the GFS ensemble runs which agree on the steadiness and generally the severity of the cold.
The mainstream media blames it on global warming of course.http://news.yahoo.com/global-warming-freezing-104500272–politics.html
UCAR downplayed the last brutal cold as being brief unlike the cold of the 1970s and 1980s.http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/opinion/10928/cold-but-brief
Lets revisit their insightful analysis after the next few weeks.
1917/18 and 1993/94 were winters Joe Bastardi and I have been looking at. See the similarity of the SSTA in the Pacific in Jan/Feb 1918 to this year.
January 1918:
January 2014:
That warm pool in the Gulf of Alaska drives the persistent Alaska and western ridge and downstream cold vortex. That year had an extremely cold January.
==========================================================
Powerful stuff. readers may recall that 1918 saw the great flu pandemic in the USA.
WeatherBell models expert Dr. Ryan Maue adds:
http://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/425700249076654080
Meanwhile, weather, not climate, is hitting the US government hard:
Federal Government Shuts Down for Snow Storm Offices in Washington, D.C., are closed for the second time this winter.
Snow falling in Washington area; 4 to 7 inches expected, as flights canceled across US
There is a story out today at Bloomberg that attributes part of the ongoing price spike in U.S. propane heating markets to record amounts of inventories used up for grain drying in the Midwest during harvest season. Now I just wonder what government mandate that happens to use food for motor fuel blend could possibly cause that much market distortion now spilling over to punish home heating users today?
I signed up as a charter subscriber to Weatherbell because of Anthony’s plug. It has been an education to say the least. I have the highest respect for D’Aleo and Bastardi. Their analog reconstruction of ocean phases with past year’s correlations is a good method for long-term forecasts. Anthony is right they are on a roll this winter. Joe Bastardi would tell you Joe D’Aleo is the genius (he is probably right) but they both have given me a great meteorological education. Bastardi is always trying to get out in front of the models: he gets run over once and a while. He loves risk. D’Aleo is always digging up the most interesting correlations between solar and weather. Weather History: he does remember 1918 as though he were there. If you can afford the twenty bucks a month it costs to subscribe to Weatherbell you will get a great education. For me its worth the money. Thanks Anthony!
Jeff Duntemann says:
January 22, 2014 at 10:38 am
I have never had a flu shot in life. I rarely ever get sick and that has been that way since the 70s. However, I did get clobbered in 1954 in San Francisco. I was 4 years old. The cowboys and indians on the wallpaper were chasing each other around the room, quite a show. My temp was up to 106+. I remember the doctor talking with my parents, and answering their question ” If his lung starts to collapse, then we can put him on an iron lung but that is all we can do. The flu that I had was very likely the same flu that killed dozens of people in San Francisco and points south. This flu was released off of the coast as a biological warfare experiment. It was exposed by the 60s and the lawsuits over the deaths went on for the next 3 to 4 decades. Only by the grace of God did I survive that. I remember that experience.
Richard D says:
January 21, 2014 at 7:34 pm
RE, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC).
….it cannot be considered as a universal treatment for influenza pneumonia. http://www.jnrbm.com/content/10/1/5
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
citing a study on only 10 mice given a “lethal dose” of murinized swine flu. The study shouldn’t have been published.
All human studies on NAC demonstrate a benefit.
NAC – cheap, safe, no patents, no priestly caste of doctors needed to give you permission.
Every winter after 1954, I would get heavy sinus conditions, and I also remained susceptible to flu bugs. When I left SF in 1969 and moved to the mountains that was the end of the sinus condition and ever since I have been very flu resistant.
Mark Maguire: Wow, NG prices blew way past my mark of $4.50 this morning, so I only put a stop-order in. Price went up further, so I raised my stop this afternoon. They are forecasting the price to hit $5, and storage to drop to 1.256 T cu ft by end of March. Tomorrow’s report on the current draw-down rate will help show where we are headed. Yeh, 1 T level would be a stretch, but two or three more of these Arctic air blasts would have us knocking on the door.
At this point I think most people would not object to more global warming. Heat’s a witch, but cold is a killer. My sympathies to those on the West Coast suffering drought, but if you are familiar with the history of south-west droughts you know it could get a whole lot worse naturally (research the fall of the Anasazi culture).
I’ve just received notice from my propane supplier that there is a severe shortage here in the Midwest. They are limiting deliveries to 150 gallons, and then only to customers with less than 15% in their tanks. They are urging us to use alternate sources of heat if possible, and they are not sure if these measures will be sufficient. Hope we weather the storm, and it gets warm enough that my heat pump will function.
Fred says:
January 22, 2014 at 8:54 am
2013 was fourth warmest year on record. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/13
No it wasn’t, all the other global data sets didn’t agree, enjoy your cherry. I wont use any global data set that regularly cool down past temperatures from decades ago.
Jean Parisot says:
January 21, 2014 at 12:48 pm
If this keeps up the Government could be closed until March and the economy might recover.
Ding!
I visited that yahoo site mentioned in the article, where they implied the cold snap may be caused by global warming, and they falsely said arctic sea ice is rapidly decreasing. I noticed that their comments section is down, so no one can leave or read comments. I suspect people visiting from wattsup injected enough factual comments that someone decided to shut it down.
Looks like one last gasp of mother earth before she sucuumbs to global warming. She is putting up a fight and we can all say she fought to the end.
Australian ABC has now defined 35C (83F) as extreme heat.
When I was young 45C (108F) was described as ‘hot’.
Says a lot about present population that live and work in air-conditioning. They are brainwashed to think 35C is extreme and coming out of a 25C building it does feel hot and they buy the Global Warming mantra.
1965 in Central Queensland (Tropic of Capricorn) we had a real heat wave for 10 days of 45C – 47C. In 1976 we had a very cold winter when all the wheat crops were frosted and ice formed on troughs. Both examples are weather.
Well. I’m glad Joe D. gave us the forecast up until Feb 2. After that, good ol’ Punxatawny Phil will tell us what to expect.
I use propane for my work of glassblowing, so propane prices this winter are definitely hurting. I can go through over 500 gallons in a month.
Speaking of propane, remember that famous 70’s song about propane?
“If you wanna hang out, you gotta break out, propane.
If you wanna get down, get down on the ground, propane.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, propane. She don’t lie, she don’t lie, propane.
If your day is done and when you wanna run, propane.
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues, propane.
If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on, propane.
Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back, propane.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, propane. She don’t lie, she don’t lie, propane.”
Australia maybe hot but the Long Hot Summer promised us by NIWA hasen’t materialised as yet. Summer? ..Still waiting
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10769896
They have been wrong about the rain too.
Most yrs there is at least some occurrence of a late ‘January thaw’ here in the mid-Appalachians — a day or several of well-above avg temps. Be interesting to see if that happens this yr.
@ur momisugly Old woman of the north
“When I was young 45C (108F) was described as ‘hot’.”
Exactly. I did my Leaving (High School year 5 public examinations) in the iron-roofed exhibition hall at the Adelaide Showgrounds. In December. There was no A/C. Temperatures inside reached 112F. (In 1962 we still used Fahrenheit for weather.) And we stuck it out.
Young people today ….
The talk about the flu and medicine reminded me of my Great-grandmother. When she was in her 20’s at the turn of the century she caught a cold and went to the doctor. He told her to take a shot of whiskey when she got up in the morning. She did. And that’s all she ever drank. One shot of whiskey in the morning every morning for the next 60+ years.
(That might help with the cold too!)
So, if we are starting out like 1918, how did the rest of 1918 go for the US?
-13 F for western New Hampshire tonight. I don’t even want to know what the wind chill is going to be 🙁
=================================================================
8-())))))))
(Chattering teeth “smiley” suggested by one of the ModSquad.)
Just throw another hockey stick on the fire.
If weather patterns hold and the pressure center slowly moves east, as it has been doing for about two weeks, Then NY and vicinity should be getting hammered about superbowl Sunday being dead center of the flow pattern. And the impulses are about every three days placing a major storm in the vicinity + or – a day…. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
And this pattern is not waning, its becoming more solid leading me to believe late spring storms will be a reality along with cool ground temps into late spring.
Most of the pandemic cases among the military were with troops who hadn’t yet been deployed out of the US to the war.
It was said that more military casualties from the pandemic while in the US than there were in the the actual war.
This is a publicationwhich refers to the influenza pandemic in 1918.Dr Lance Jennings is a New Zealand virologist known to me. who has spoken of influenza pandemics in lectures for the non medical public.
http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS147330990770049X.pdf
http://www.otago.ac.nz/christchurch/departments/pathology/ourpeople/otago014223.html
ME from New Zealand too
It has been a bit colder here in Austin, TX. However, our average high has been about 60 F and average low about 40 F in the past 2 months. We’re still much better off than most areas. Stay warm, Northerners!