And nearly 3 to 1 in the last 30 days, and over 2 to 1 in 2014
From NOAA/NCDC: U.S. Records Summary
The summaries below list the number of records broken for several recent periods is summarized in this table and updated daily. Due to late-arriving data, the number of recent records is likely underrepresented in all categories, but the ratio of records (warm to cold, for example) should be a fairly strong estimate of a final outcome. There are many more precipitation stations than temperature stations, so the raw number of precipitation records will likely exceed the number of temperature records in most climatic situations.
See the table:
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
Unfortunately, it seems NOAA’s map visualization of the record is broken.
The tab “View Selected Records” fails to produce any data, no matter what the setting. I’ve sent a note out tot he NCDC webmaster.
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@Ric Werme at 10:49 am
It looks like I’ll wind up with the 3rd deepest snow pack in my (non-CoCoRaHS) 15 year record.
“Wind up”… This implies you are referring to season total snow fall inches. Yes?
I doubt there are any single day depth records this year, the season 2007/2008 will be very hard to top. (The blizzard of 1888 is also extremely hard to top in regional long term records.)
I don’t worry much about snowfall, snow depth, or “snow depth days” as a measure of climate change, the data is way too noisy to be useful unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data.
If the data is “way too noisy to be useful,” it must simultaneously be unlikely that none of thousands of stations on none of hundreds of days reports a new snow depth record, especially when there are 330 snow fall records in the seven days of the first week of March. 2007/2008 might have been a bad year…. but that didn’t stop March 1-7, 2014 from breaking at least 330 snowfall records from then or other years.
When faced with numbers coming out of a computer that look unlikely, one possible answer is there is a bug in the computer program.
Paul Douglas on Weather, Star Tribune
RE: Minnesota:
Dr. Mark Seeley: “…Though not record-setting it is rare to have snow depths over 40 inches, yet several observers have reported these amounts for this winter including 47 inches near Two Harbors, 43 inches at Isabella, 42 inches at Wolf Ridge and Babbitt, 41 inches at Cook, and 40 inches at Cloquet and Grand Marais. The measurement of 47 inches neat Two Harbors is the deepest snow there since they measured 51 inches in March of 1965. Similarly at Babbitt the reading of 42 inches is the most there since a snow depth of 52 inches in February of 1969. The state record by the way is a snow depth of 75 inches at Pigeon River Bridge in March of 1950…”
I can easily accept in the frozen north the total snow depth might not be a record, if unusual.
Where it seems surprising to me is that places where the snow is usually gone by now, have had some unusually heavy snowfalls. It’s part of the noise. There is no snow for the last half of February, on March 6 there is bad storm. Is there really no place where the snow depth is the greatest on record on a particular day in March?
[Mods: 2:25 pm can be deleted as an unclosed link. Thank you.]
Paul Douglas on Weather, Star Tribune March 8.
RE: Minnesota:
Dr. Mark Seeley: “…Though not record-setting it is rare to have snow depths over 40 inches, yet several observers have reported these amounts for this winter including 47 inches near Two Harbors, 43 inches at Isabella, 42 inches at Wolf Ridge and Babbitt, 41 inches at Cook, and 40 inches at Cloquet and Grand Marais. The measurement of 47 inches neat Two Harbors is the deepest snow there since they measured 51 inches in March of 1965. Similarly at Babbitt the reading of 42 inches is the most there since a snow depth of 52 inches in February of 1969. The state record by the way is a snow depth of 75 inches at Pigeon River Bridge in March of 1950…”
I can easily accept in the frozen north the total snow depth might not be a record, if unusual.
Where it seems surprising to me is that places where the snow is usually gone by now, have had some unusually heavy snowfalls. It’s part of the noise. There is no snow for the last half of February, then say on March 6 there is bad storm. Is there really no place where the snow depth is the greatest on record on a particular day in March?
The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
..
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?
We were told to expect warmer winters due to the greenhouse effect by none other than Dr. Gavin Schmidt and Shindell in the year 1999. Northern hemisphere winter snow extent has been trending up since 1967. Spring snow extent is down though. It still has to make you wonder whether these guys have sufficient skill to advise world leaders on the climate. They really are bloody useless. They couldn’t advise us on the damned weather, just take a look at the Met Office which made a forecast of a dryer than average winter for the UK! LOL.
Winter snow extent Northern Hemisphere
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1
And on April 1st, they will pronounce the winter of 2013-14 to be one of the warmest on record.
DR. JAMES HANSEN 2008
Maybe Hansen does not know enough about the variable weather in the UK. It’s very changeable indeed. It’s not the climate, as Hansen claims, but the weather.
OBSERVATIONS by the Met Office.
UK winter 2009 / 2010
“Mean temperatures over the UK were 2.0 °C below the 1971-2000”
UK winter 2010 / 2011
“The UK mean temperature for the winter as a whole was 2.4 °C, making it less cold than winter 2009/10 which was 1.6 °C but still the second-coldest winter since 1985/86…”
UK winter 2011 / 2012
“Mean temperatures over the UK were 0.6 °C above average during December, 1.3 °C above in January and 0.7 °C above in February.”
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/uk-weather-reportwinter-201112/
UK winter 2012 / 2013
“The mean temperature over the UK for winter was 3.3 °C which is 0.4 °C below the long term average.”
UK winter 2013 / 2014
“Mean temperatures over the UK were well above the long-term average for all three months with a mean winter temperature of 5.2 oC which is 1.5 oC above the average and the fifth highest in the series. “
The vast majority of the record cold temperatures in the U.S. are in smaller cities and rural sites. Due to the heat island affect it is more difficult in major metropolitan centers to break cold records (much easier to break warm temperature records). This makes the depth and breadth of the recent records all that much more impressive. Also, it has not just been in the U.S. Cold records have also fallen across much of Canada.
Village Idiot says: (March 8, 2014 at 9:51 am) “Weather weirding from the drunk Arctic continues. Record warmth and ice maximum minimums must have some consequences: http://www.dmi.dk/groenland/arktis/middeltemperaturer/”
Idiot, the warmth in the Arctic is a result of the jet reaching farther north around Alaska and Europe (before it dips south over N. America and central Asia). The warmth is an effect, not a cause, Idiot. One possible cause of the Alaska ridge is the warm anomaly in the north Pacific which is both feedback from and forcing from the ridge. Perhaps you would look into that warm pool some more and see if you can blame that on global warming to somewhat enhance your otherwise mindless harping.
Sceptical Eric,
You’ve clearly misunderstood my comment. As I’m sure you wouldn’t do so deliberately, and couldn’t out of ignorance, I can only assume that English isn’t your first language.
You see, I said “… must have some consequences.” You replied “The warmth is an effect, not a cause, Idiot.
In English a synonym of consequence is ‘effect’ while an antonym is ’cause’.
In my record of weather since last July, I have noted 6 apparent records (5 set, 1 tied), all cold records, including one for lowest maximum temperature. I say “apparent” because the temps I record are here in Mechanicsville at my house and at a local school, not at RIC, Richmond International Airport, the official site. The most recent was March 4, which had the all-time low record for March at 10 degrees. No record was set at the airport, which recorded 11 degrees; but out here in the boondocks of rural southeastern Mechanicsville we had 7 degrees, well below the record of 10. Obviously, Mechanicsville felt differences from airport readings long before I started keeping records, so I have no way to know what the actual record low here would be if accurate records had been kept. Nonetheless, I can safely say that the UHI effect is alive and well at the Richmond Airport but has dissipated substantially out here.
Stephen Rasey says:
March 8, 2014 at 2:07 pm
@Ric Werme at 10:49 am
Me>> It looks like I’ll wind up with the 3rd deepest snow pack in my (non-CoCoRaHS) 15 year record.
Stephen> “Wind up”… This implies you are referring to season total snow fall inches. Yes?
No, greatest daily snowpack, this season should be 30″ (on Feb 20). We’re down to 16.5″ this morning. It’s unlikely but possible for a couple big snow storms to get past 33″, the second place figure.
I should update my records table from http://wermenh.com/sdd/ne-0708.html
>> I doubt there are any single day depth records this year, the season 2007/2008 will be very hard to top. (The blizzard of 1888 is also extremely hard to top in regional long term records.)
Me>> I don’t worry much about snowfall, snow depth, or “snow depth days” as a measure of climate change, the data is way too noisy to be useful unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data.
Stephen> If the data is “way too noisy to be useful,” it must simultaneously be unlikely that none of thousands of stations on none of hundreds of days reports a new snow depth record, especially when there are 330 snow fall records in the seven days of the first week of March. 2007/2008 might have been a bad year…. but that didn’t stop March 1-7, 2014 from breaking at least 330 snowfall records from then or other years.
Right, when I said “unless you are looking at large regions or have a century’s worth of data” I was saying my data is inadequate to show any trends. The whole of the national data (or a longer period where I live) can show trends. New extremes from individual storms (your “at least 330”) are just records and contribute to tends but don’t demonstrate them.
Stephen> When faced with numbers coming out of a computer that look unlikely, one possible answer is there is a bug in the computer program.
Certainly could be, I’m sure something is messed up. I wasn’t responding to that point. It’s also quite possible the database has space for but doesn’t track snow depth extremes. A lot of Co-op (I think) and CoCoRaHS reporters don’t track snow depth. Heck, I don’t have my snow depth data in my database except may for one year. I need to update that program and get that data in one of these years.
I was imprecise with “I doubt there are any single day depth records this year.” I meant to refer to my site. Over the country I agree there ought to be some record daily snowpacks.
Idiot, you said “Record warmth and ice maximum minimums must have some consequences” and showed graphs of the warmth and the ice. Since that was your first comment in a thread about record low temperatures in North America, one would assume that you were implying that the record low temperatures were such a consequence. So there are two possibilities, either your comment was off-topic blather or your comment was suggesting the record lows are a consequence of the Arctic warmth. If there is another interpretation please state it clearly.
What the words mean: the UK’s climate is: “changeable weather”.
Ric Werme and Stephen Rasey, I don’t know where NCDC and Weather Underground are getting their snow depth data from, but it sure ain’t from the reliable NRCS, where for example Northern Colorado’s Deadman Hill Snotel site reports 76 inches, a record for the period 1979 (start of monitoring) to present. Yesterday NCDC showed 3″ at the same site, today no report. Strange goings-on.
NRCS Deadman Hill Snotel report:
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/reportGenerator/view/customSingleStationReport/daily/438:co:SNTL/-7,0/WTEQ::value,SNWD::value,PREC::value,TOBS::value,TMAX::value,TMIN::value,TAVG::value
Weather Underground US snow depth map (animate it and watch deep snow melt overnight in Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, etc.):
http://www.wunderground.com/maps/us/Precip.html#?type=SnowDepth
NCDC map for Colorado snow depth here (select Current Snow Depth):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/recent.php?period=c®ion=05
chuck says: March 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm: The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
..
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?
——–
yes, in Western Europe no winter at all, just the second warmest ever;
6,0 Celsius against 3,4 Celsius average;
http://www.knmi.nl/cms/viewimage.jsp?number=118275
so in Holland no possibility to skate…
chuck says: March 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm
The cold in the continental USA is impressive.
Anybody know how the other 97% of the globe is doing?
Well here’s a sample chuck from my home town Adelaide in South Australia-
http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/forecasts/adelaide.shtml
in particular for a holiday Monday-
Location Min Max
Adelaide 22 29
Elizabeth 22 30
Glenelg 21 27
Noarlunga 21 27
Mount Barker 19 28
So you notice the variation in a sprawling city of over a million. Glenelg is west of the city on the shore of the Gulf and ditto Noarlunga but further south and no prizes for guessing what influence the sea does to the respective temps. Now inland about 12 kms Adelaide gets a bit warmer as does Mt Barker up in the Adelaide Hills(SE of the city) and Elizabeth on the plains to the NE and Mt Barker has the coldest minimum due no doubt to its elevation.
Notice the city (Adelaide CBD influenced) is a couple of degrees warmer than my suburb of Glenelg. How much has that difference changed over time you might ask? Well we wouldn’t have a clue because in the seventies the ‘Adelaide’ temp measure changed from the West Parklands to east of the city at the BOM at Kent Town east of the city and over that time the CBD has grown with more buildings and has largely become airconditioned.
If you were an honest meteorologist you’d openly admit you wouldn’t have a clue how ‘Adelaide’s’ temperature has changed in the last century or more but that doesn’t stop them kidding themselves, the media and anyone who will listen, that they do.
Nice weather we’re having after that summer heat wave a few weeks ago and at my age I’ve experienced plenty, just that there’s lots more crybabies and paid worryworts around these days, despite the airconditioning.
eric1skeptic says:
March 9, 2014 at 5:52 am
*******
Me thinks the Village Idiot is living up to his name.
Sure the arctic has been warmer due to a semi permanent high pressure ridge. The high pressure ridge bought a lot of air from the tropics (the fat santa cluas..). When this air sinks and returns to the earth’s surface – in this case/place Alaska, Siberia the air warms as it descends and compresses. Nothing man made about that!
What is then really impressive then is this recycled air cools rapidly and then is pushed southward (or pulled maybe – don’t quite understand the fluid dynamics of this….) a good old fashioned arctic outbreak happens and the Mardi Gras in NOLA sucks because of the cold.
Also VI does not seem to mention that if the arctic ocean has less ice than normal and no appreciable sunlight then the net energy flow will out of the arctic not into it and thus more cooler water will enter the global circulation system either through the Bearing Sea and down the west coast or down the west coast of Greenland (Really Leaf?) if I remember my circulation patterns correctly.
Nothing like a double whammy there.