By P Gosselin on 9. May 2023
By Christian Freuer, EIKE
(Translated, edited by P. Gosselin)
The western US has had an historic winter. From record-breaking cold spells to unprecedented amounts of snow, this has been a memorable cold season – and one that runs counter to the prophecies of the AGW party.
Starting with the cold – and according to data from the warmth-addicted NOAA – the US has set 7 all-time low temperature records so far this year (through April 24) compared to just one heat record, while 321 monthly lows have fallen in April alone (also through April 24) compared to 66 heat records.
Highest April 1st snow cover recorded this year
Regrading snow, in the official books going back to 2001, the largest area ever covered with snow/ice in the western US at the beginning of April so far was 2019’s 1,030,820 sq km, but this year that figure was far exceeded, with satellite imagery showing that more than 1,149-960 sq km of the West was covered with snow and ice on 1 April.
By comparison, the average snowpack in the western US at the end of March is 242,000 square miles.
According to NSIDC data, snowpack this season was well above the April 1 average in all western states. In the table below, South Dakota, Nebraska and Arizona lead the way with 350% of the average, followed closely by Nevada:
Source: NSIDC
All western US states have seen above-average snowfall; in fact, all have set records:
Meanwhile across the pond, the official UK low of -7.4°C was recorded on April 27 in Loch Glascarnoch, Scotland. This broke the previous low of -6.1°C recorded in 1956 in Glenlivet. It’s been quiet for Britain’s climate alarmists, as record cold blanketed the country.
not to mention ending a decades long drought
Heat waves are climate change. Cold spells are just weather, unless there’s some convoluted way to blame them on man-made climate change, as for both drought and flood.
Does this count as one of Dr. Viner’s “very rare and exciting events”?
Nope – more snow means its AGW is even more catastrophic than ever. As does less snow and the same amount of snow. The climate crisis is worse than EVER!!!!
Are you saying AGW is a snow-job?
AGW is a blow-job.
AGW is anal 🙂
For the taxpayers taking it up the tailpipe, for sure.
Nope – more snow means more water. Water means life.
As does CO2!
Why are authoritarian Lefties against life?
They are not against all life, just all life other than their own.
life is too difficult for them to control
and every place on the planet is worse than every other place- The Science says so!
We saw an abrupt warming in Scotland around the mid to late 70’s. Loch’s we had skated on for years remained unfrozen for decades after. It’s what convinced me there was global warming. It wasn’t until I began trying to understand why that I realised it was likely a momentary (in geological terms) blip which is meaningless.
Humanity will never know what caused it, just as it can’t explain why record cold temperatures were set in the country this winter.
Humans are spectacularly bad at predicting the future. Elon Musk made a clever observation of that failure when he pointed out that had anyone in the late 60’s, following the moon landings, been asked if humanity would be living on Mars by 2023 they would likely have said yes. But had someone said we would be walking around with all the worlds knowledge on a device in our pocket in 2023 they would have been locked away in an asylum.
I wonder what the future holds for us all.
…..we will get ‘just deserts‘
I can help you with that. The world will gift us everlasting variation. Those who fancy their ability to predict the future Climate Alarmists for example, are more likely to be wrong than right.
Still cold here in the UK as we approach mid May. next week it will be slightly colder that this week has been.
well, some will be cremated- I wouldn’t mind being then put in a pot and have some top grade canabis planted- then my survivors can smoke me 🙂
When I said I’d only vote Democrat over my dead body I didn’t mean….
In 1977, the PDO switched modes, about the same time the AMO did, too. Those shifts caused the natural warming cycle blamed on CACA. Same forces were at work during the interwar warming cycle, too.
aliens- illegal immigrants from another planet- well, it’s possible- like you said, nobody would have predicted “smart phones”- aliens have a higher probability, no pun intended…. 🙂
I just encountered an article from 1963 that predicted cell phones. Best I can tell, it’s real: https://www.vintag.es/2021/06/cellphone-prediction.html
But had someone said we would be walking around with all the worlds knowledge on a device in our pocket in 2023 they would have been locked away in an asylum.
I am not so sure about that, Dick Tracy was walking around with an Iwatch long before Apple made their first computer.
The area covered as discussed is high, but may not reveal the actual water equivalency, which would be related to snow depth, which is also very much above average. In west central Colorado, near Glenwood Springs, spring is about three weeks ahead of normal, with a freeze-free week past, and none in the next week’s forecast, we might be done with frost at 6500′. Last frost was Mid-June last year, when Memorial Day is usual. Runoff has been high for a couple of weeks and is not abating. From Oct 1-May 10 for 2022-23 I recorded 15.03″ of water, and for the same period 2021-22 I recorded 10.84″. The water year for 2021-22 was 120% of average for the year, and 2022-23 is 39% above 2021-22 so far. We get about 6 weeks of no precipitation starting in June to mid to late July.
I have seen reported that the snowpack in California is quite deep, with predicted flooding when it melts.
Cliff Mass said (cross posted here a few days ago) that the intermediate Western US outlook is for below average temperatures. If so, then the above average snow pack will melt at a below average rate, lessening flooding and recharging western Sierra ground water, now badly depleted by pumping for Central Valley agriculture. Fingers crossed.
Could use an engineering boost. Natural recharge areas in the deep sandstone aquifer of the Central Valley where it comes to the surface along the eastern border of the valley have been identified where Sierra Nevada rivers cross the sandstone.
These areas could be greatly expanded by excavation along the formation and filled in with talus-fan coarse “gravel” which is abundant along the edge of the valley (should a grown-up ever win election to the governorship, of course).
.
It’s been raining all afternoon in Boulder. My water barrel that was empty is now about a third full.
High T was about 55F, at least 15F below the forecast.
The snow water content is quite substantial: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=PLOT_SWC.pdf
As it turns out, climate (weather) volatility is just as lucrative for climate carpetbaggers as volatility is for stock market traders. It just requires pushing some narratives–anything will do really.
Three weeks behind all planting this spring already. No sense planting seed when it wont germinate because the soil is too wet and cold.
This is not the end of snowfall in the mountains of California.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/webAnims/tpw_nrl_colors/alaska/mimictpw_alaska_latest.gif
Greenland isn’t very, is it?
Many places i N. Minnesota, N Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula had record snowfall too.
So too did famously snowy Buffalo. Not just northen MN, but Minneapolis as well.
My brother in the TC paid $8,000 for plowing services at his house.
I shoveled about 2 feet of “global warming” from April 3 to April 5 of this year in Salt Lake City. In previous years, the apricot tree in the back yard would be in bloom during the first week of April, but it wisely waited until later this year. The north-facing front yard was covered by at least 6 inches of snow from shortly after Christmas through mid-April.
There was a bright side–business is booming at the ski resorts east of the city, some of which may remain open until June or July. The reservoirs are full from the runoff, and there likely will not be restrictions on irrigation this summer.
So when California Governor Gruesome tells his subjects to give up gasoline-powered cars to “prevent global warming”, those living in the mountains might start wondering how to power the snowplows.
You have identified a new opportunity — electric snowplows. Lobby for your subsidy and get rich.
I was traveling to Texas by air in 1980 with a stop at SLC along the way.
The elevation at the north end of the SLC runway is 4224 feet, while the elevation of the Great Salt Lake at the time was 4212 feet.
In 1980, the lake was at or near its highest recorded elevation, and the shoreline was half a mile or less from the end of the SLC runway. Not all that far away as one perceives it when you are covering the distance at 180 knots landing speed.
When the airplane landed, we went to the far south end of the runway, turned right, and then turned directly north to get on to the airport’s inner taxiway.
While we were making the turn, I said to the man sitting in the seat next to me, “This must be a Polish runway. It has a U-turn in the middle of it.”
His response was a scowl. So I said to him, “I’ll guess you are of Polish descent. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” was his pointed answer. (No further questions, please.)
That seems to have changed as far as monthly records go. Year-to-date, monthly record max highs now outnumber monthly record min lows by 346 – 324 (May 10th). https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
346 to 324? Is there a heatwave and blizzard going on at the same time?
Here’s more of the info:
America’s a big country.
There’s a mix of units in the article
1,030,820 sq km = 398,001 sq miles
1,149, 960 sq km= 444,002.04 sq miles
626,777.12 sq km = 242,000 sq miles
Nice report.
P. Gosselin, “By comparison, the average snowpack in the western US at the end of March is 242,000 square miles.”
It would be helpful to express this value in square km, to more easily compare.
A lot of snow is bad and little snow is bad, both caused by Climate Change®.
A lot of rain is bad and little rain is bad, both caused by Climate Change®.
Heat is bad and cold is bad, both caused by Climate Change®.
A lot of wind is bad and little wind is bad, both caused by Climate Change®.
Climate Change® appears to be all things to all people, but all bad.
Which tells you it’s nonsense.
Tax payer dollars hard at work.
Updates seem a bit slow recently. Latest data must not fit the narrative. The Antarctic ice sheet was bouncing back, but no data now since last November.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/
The USCRN “state-of-the-art” temp data for the last decade has also been flat, but all the visualisation data seems to have been taken off-line for some reason.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/national-temperature-index/
It’s updated daily here.
The Antarctic ice sheet is currently at its lowest extent in the observational record for the time of year.
Nothing there about the total mass trend?
Total Mass Trend is given in the link you provided yourself! It’s in the top right corner of the very first page. The rate of change since 2002 is quoted as downwards by 151 billion metric tonnes per year since 2002.
Yeah, I know. And if you hover over the graph, the last update was November last year. Six months ago.
Like I said, tax payers $$ hard at work.
Record snowfall on land in the NH will be a feature of weather reporting for the next 8,000 years. We are witnessing the termination of the modern interglacial. And so focused on demonising CO2 that it is going largely unnoticed.
Heat_Ice_Stores.pdf
So … CAGW (remember that?) causes record snow?
I think kids will remember what “snow” is.
(Hopefully in both senses of the word.)
We had a 70’s type winter in W MT, lasted 6 full months. November and
December were way below zero, with little snow then a nice January
thaw then back to real winter till the end of April. The backcountry skiing
was not very good.
A bit above 100% snow pack in our drainage, we went from shoveling snow
to 80*F in a week which has melted most of the snow pack off which is a concern.
To the north in Alberta they are in a severe wildfire situation here in early May..
Kinda like the Ft Mack fires of 2016. Something like over 100 fires
running wild…The pacific currents were in a off phase it seemed, not sure if
it was the PDO or what. California got all the snow.
But but…
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?West
Seems huge swaths of drought are under the snow. This is the lie of how
“drought” is reported.
yep, its always behind and never accurate. they love reporting drought as if it something they can control.
April was pretty much bang-on average temperature in the UK. 7.8C versus 7.9C for the 1991-2020 period (1961-90 average was 6.7C).
Where was the record cold that blanketed the country?
Good God, Rusty! How do you avoid heatstroke with temperatures threatening to break double digits by July?
I was asking about the “record cold” that “blanketed the country (UK)” in April. When exactly did that happen? There’s no record of it and I can’t find any news reports of it, etc.
Are we agreed that it didn’t happen? In other words that it’s a figment of the writer’s imagination? If not, can anyone link to some evidence for it please?
“US Has Had a “Historic Winter” As “All Western States Have Seen Record Snowfall”________________________________________________________
The IPCC says
IPCC AR4 Chapter ten Page 750
Mean Precipitation
For a future warmer climate … Globally averaged mean water
vapour, evaporation and precipitation are projected to increase.
Blind squirrel or they got it right?
Snow?
Snow is prcepitation.
Anyone making a reference to “place” ought to give a general location.
For example, if I write that I’ve experienced a cool spring, so what?
I need to say I’m in central Washington State, east slope of the Cascade Mountains.
Thanks. 😊
But wasn’t winter skiing supposed to disappear by now due to global warming?
Ahh, we get it …. global warming causes global cooling, such that global warming must remain unfalsifiable because it is the Truth no matter what actually happens in real life.
I thought the Climate-loonies had lack of global warming covered by rebranding it Climate Change – cold, hot, wet, dry, normal = climate change.
FOR THE RECORD, WE PUBLISHED IN 2002:
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
– by Sallie Baliunas (Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian), Tim Patterson (Paleoclimatologist, Carleton U), Allan MacRae (Professional Engineer, retired (Queen’s U, U of Alberta)
I PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2002 in the Calgary Herald:
3. “If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
I UPDATED MY GLOBAL COOLING PREDICTION IN 2013:
3a. “I suggest global cooling starts by 2020 or sooner. Bundle up.”
[Some say global cooling started in Feb2016, but I prefer Feb2020.]
Here in Utah, the snowmelt is getting under way. Great Salt Lake has risen more than 3 feet. Lake Powell is expected to get a 50-foot boost. Luckily cooler temps prevail, but some flooding is happening. I was supposed to do a coating job at Alta May 1, but the deck is still under several feet of snow.
Thanks for the post. RE:
“… satellite imagery showing that more than 1,149-960 sq km of the West was covered with snow and ice on 1 April.
By comparison, the average snowpack in the western US at the end of March is 242,000 square miles.”
A unit conversion would be helpful here. If you’re going to “compare” two figures they should be in the same unit. 1,149,960 sq. km converts to 444 thousand square miles, almost half a million square miles – nearly twice the average snowpack.
That figure sticks and is worth converting for people in U.S.
It was the Oz megafires wot dunnit with the chilling-
Black summer bushfires may have caused rare ‘triple dip’ La Niña, study suggests | Bushfires | The Guardian
I don’t make this stuff up you know. These people are experts with letters after their names.
The Eddy Minimum has begun, will last until 2055. Review info. on the Marauder minimum (1645-1715) and the Dalton minimum (1790-1830) to understand what the Climate could look like over the next three decades. There in a lot more info. on Europe and China describing conditions during these years.
Our kids might want to venture out west to look at the snow because it will soon be “unavailable” according to the warmistas!
In over 90% of winters since (and including) the one of 1879-1880, at least one snowfall record was set somewhere in the US, that still stands.