An interesting story for the the MSM, but of course with with obligatory obeisance to the Everything-Imaginable-is-Predicted-By-Climate-Change ~ctm
By Barry Burbank November 15, 2018 at 7:00 pm
BOSTON (CBS) — Despite the snow blitz of 2015, many baby boomers still insist that, overall, we don’t get the harsh bitter cold and deep snowy winters like we did in the good ole days.
Weather records prove that just isn’t the case and despite the ongoing claims that snows are becoming rare and hurting winter sports, this millennium has been a blessing to snow lovers and winter sports enthusiasts.
Just as the Saffir-Simpson and Fujita Scales were devised to categorize hurricanes and tornadoes, the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) was created by Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini of the National Weather Service to rank high-impact Northeast storms. This scale has 5 categories including extreme, crippling, major, significant and notable. In addition to meteorological measurements, the index uses population information which provides an indication of a storm’s impacts on society. The NESIS scores are a function of the amount of snow, the area affected by the snowstorm and the number of people living in the path of the storm. The aerial distribution of snowfall and population information are combined in an equation that calculates a NESIS score which varies from around one for smaller storms to over 10 for extreme storms.
The last decade stands out like a sore thumb! It has had 29 major impact northeast winter storms with NO previous 10-year period with more than 10 storms! In Boston, 7 out of the last 10 years have produced snowfall above the average 43.7 inches.
2008-09: 65.9″
2009-10: 35.7″
2010-11: 81.0″
2011-12: 9.3″
2012-13: 63.4″
2013-14: 58.9″
2014-15: 110.6″ Greatest On Record Back To 1872
2015-16: 36.1″
2016-17: 47.6″
2017-18: 59.9″
Additionally, the trend for fall snow across the northern hemisphere has been increasing, defying the forecasts over the last two decades for snows becoming an increasingly rare event. The 10-year running mean of the Boston area snowfall has skyrocketed to the highest level since snow records were kept and that goes back about 145 years! Fluctuations in the temperature regime and annual snowfalls are a function of about 25 global factors including changing oceanic oscillations mainly sea-surface temperature anomaly locations which impact atmospheric conditions creating certain jet stream configurations plus others such as solar activity and irradiance, geomagnetic activity, volcanism, etc.
Interestingly, some scientists have stated that increasing snow is consistent with climate change because warmer air holds more moisture, more water vapor and this can result in more storms with heavy precipitation. The trick, of course, is having sufficient cold air to produce that snow. But note that 93% of the years with more than 60″ of snow in Boston were colder than average years. The reality is cooling, not warming, increases snowfall. Note the graph depicting declining January through March temperatures for 20 years at a rate of 1.5 degrees F. per decade in the Northeast!
HT/Bruce, Bruce Courson, Latitude, Bill Curry
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“The reality is cooling, not warming, increases snowfall. Note the graph depicting declining January through March temperatures for 20 years at a rate of 1.5 degrees F. per decade in the Northeast!”
No, that is not the “reality” at all.
I hope we don’t refute the physical fact that warmer air can hold more WV?
From a basic meteorological standpoint, the NE states get the majority of their snowfall from “Nor’easters”. These are formed by tropical air over-riding polar air as cyclogenesis takes place across an intense baroclinic gradient there.
It is the cold air that makes the precip solid, yes… BUT it is the over-riding warm/wet air that gives the intensity.
Polar air has shown a trend in being more frequently pushed south over recent years, and because of geography, the the NE states are in the firing line – (simplified) the Rockies “bends” the PJS south preferentially as it flows over and rounds the top.
And BTW – here is the global temp profile for winter 2014/15.
notice where the (only) blue is in the NH?
Also in AGW – the “G” means Global.
Some places in some seasons can go the other way (for a little while yet)
Your graph is showing surface temperatures.
Snow is formed in the air-mass of tropical origin thousands of feet above in the case of Nor’easters.
Which is likely contains more precipitable water
Anthony
Am I wrong in thinking that above average SST’s (in the Gulf of Maine, for example) are extra fuel for nor’easters?
Here is a current look at subsurface temps off the New England coast (black blob at top right). Surface temps are similar.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/weeklyenso_clim_81-10/wksl_anm.gif
Yes the “fuel” for the Nor’easters comes from the SST’s.
Higher temps both increase the baroclinicity (gradient of atmospheric deltaT) as that air is pushed north against the polar air moving across Canada, meeting over the NE states AND increases the available precipitable water.
I should add that both baroclonic squeezing and higher preciptable water aid cyclogenisis. The former by creating greater +ve vorticity aloft given an advancing PJS trough behind and higher WV via release of LH aloft.
Thanks, Anthony
The NWS agrees,
“the Gulf Stream help keep the coastal waters relatively mild during the winter, which in turn helps warm the cold winter air over the water. This difference in temperature between the warm air over the water and cold Arctic air over the land is the fuel that feeds Nor’easters.”
https://www.weather.gov/safety/winter-noreaster
Doesn’t snowfall cause more of the sun’s energy to be reflected back and not warm the earth? I think I hear words to that effect each night on the evening weather when there is snow on the ground. Or does the snow just keep the ground colder and then the up-welling radiation from the reflection off of the snow perturb more CO2 molecules and thus make the upper atmosphere and thus the globe warmer?
Snow cover is an insulator of heat flux coming up through the ground.
It is also an efficient absorber/emitter of LWIR and radiates it to space copiously given a dry atmosphere.
Therefore down-welling LWIR instead of being used maintain a steadier balance between up-welling ground heat flux, is radiated away whilst the up-welling flux is cut-off.
Result – temperatures can plummet as the sun goes down. There can even be a decline in temps during the day under calm, clear sky conditions as outgoing outstrips incoming, even in places such as the UK.