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What's with this Cold Weather?

This year has been unusually cold. Here in Richmond, Virginia, after a warm fall, a cold spell hit in November, causing it to average below normal. Warm days came back in December, but now in January we have been hit by a major arctic blast of cold air. It has caused low readings all over the place in the Northeast, and the temperature dropped to 8 degrees here at my house. So does this refute the global warming theory?

One place to look is the Arctic itself, especially the ice there. In 2007 about a third of the Arctic Ocean melted into open water. This was a record melt. September ice cover has been declining steadily the last couple of decades. The Northwest Passage opened up for 2 months. You could have sailed or steamed from London to Tokyo by going through the passage instead of all the way around the Panama Canal or Cape Horn. In 2008, the weather was colder than usual, but the ice still melted, to the second lowest level on record, beaten only by the previous year. The entire Arctic ice sheet became an island, and both the Northwest Passage (Canadian Arctic islands) and the Northeast Passage (Russia) opened.

This year Hudson Bay froze up in the middle of December, which was about the same as it has been the previous few years. In January, the Great Lakes began to freeze. This is unusual. Usually they don't freeze until February. Already, Lake Erie is nearly frozen over, there is a sizable chunk of ice on Lake Ontario which usually remains ice-free, and the other lakes have substantial ice sheets on them. The ice on the Arctic Ocean is about the same as last year, and parts of the ice sheet are not expanding.

So it looks like we are having a colder than usual winter. This is something to observe, but it does not refute the global warming theory. The record September melts probably increased precipitation in the Arctic, and if that is snow, there is more of it to reflect light back into space. This may have caused the cool down. The theory is still supported. There have been extremes, such as Nenana, Alaska going from -52 F to 54 F in just three days; this is one effect of global warming. If you look at the graph of Arctic ice amounts for the past few years, you see a zigzag line going down. 2007 was one of the low points, and 2008 rebounded from that and was a little warmer.

So I predict a record melt this summer in the Arctic Ocean - perhaps half of the Arctic Ocean ice will be gone by September 2009.

Global warming is still a problem, and it may cause dramatic climactic changes, as well as forcing coastal cities to build floodwalls. It therefore helps to control carbon emissions, and by the way, this will also delay the ill effects of Peak Oil as well.

Hurricane on August 23?

For the past few days the Global Forecasting System has been showing little or no chance of tropical storms and hurricanes for the next couple of weeks. That changed today. All four GFS runs today show a tropical storm or hurricane forming in the eastern Atlantic on 2008 August 13 and striking the US on August 23. Here are the places where this storm (perhaps Fay, if no other storm forms) would strike:

00Z Hitting St. Augustine, Florida, crossing the peninsula, emerging in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and then hitting Fort Walton Beach.
06Z Within 100 miles or so of the Outer Banks, grazing them and then going out to sea to the NE.
12Z Crossing the middle of peninsular Florida, then crossing the GOM, over many oil rigs, and striking New Orleans.
18Z Approaching the Atlantic coast and coming close on the 23rd, but not as much so as with the 06Z run.

This is way out in the future, and the GFS is notably unreliable this far out. But it does indicate something could happen around August 23 or so. If it strikes the GOM, it could increase gasoline and oil prices considerably. The storm is not visible now; it will form about August 13 and should be visible on maps then.

Further, GFS says another one is coming right behind this storm. It looks like the hurricane season is heating up.

Get Ready for 120 Degrees - Below Zero!

I got this forecast today for Richmond, Virginia, at 2008 June 9 16:38 EDT:

Forecast for Henrico

Updated: 3:33 PM EDT on June 9, 2008

Heat [!?!!?!] advisory in effect until 8 PM EDT Tuesday...

Through 7 PM
Mostly clear. Highs around 101. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Tonight
Clear. Lows in the mid 70s. South winds around 5 mph.

Tuesday
Mostly sunny. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Hot with highs around 100. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30 percent. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Tuesday Night
Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the lower 70s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph...becoming northwest after midnight. Chance of rain 30 percent. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Wednesday
Partly sunny. Not as warm with highs around 90. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Wind chill values as low as 120 below.

Wednesday Night
Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 60s. East winds around 5 mph in the evening...becoming light and variable.

Thursday
Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s.

Thursday Night
Mostly clear in the evening...then becoming partly cloudy. Lows in the upper 60s.

Friday
Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s.

Friday Night through Monday

Partly cloudy. Lows in the mid 60s. Highs in the upper 80s.

You just heard what it says. It's going to be 120 degrees in Richmond. BELOW ZERO. That's right, it will feel like it is -120 degrees F, almost cold enough to freeze the CO₂ out of the atmosphere into dry ice and stop global warming. Right now as I type this I am wearing only shorts and sandals, but if you go out like this tomorrow you will freeze instantly into a statue. You will need the same type of clothing that they wear in Antarctica in August when it hits -127 F.

What's more, the weather folks think they can get this type of chill out of a roasting 101 degrees F above zero. To me, hot feels HOT. It's not going to feel bitter cold. I think the problem is a misprint in something called METARS, but when it comes up, the results can be positively hilarious. You weather people need to double check before you enter these METARs or whatever creates these forecasts.

I will again wear shorts and sandals tomorrow, not an Arctic parka. By the way, it is 32 degrees and overcast with occasional rain and snow in Barrow, Alaska.

Arthur/Alma the Sex-Change Bear

Earlier I reported indications this week of a hurricane or tropical storm hitting Florida and then coming up the coast. Later runs of the GFS showed the storm to stall out in the Gulf of Mexico or the Bay of Campeche. When the storm first formed, it wandered into the Pacific, becoming that basin's first storm of the season, Alma. Alma headed back inland and lost its tropical characteristics. It then entered the Caribbean, and reformed, whereupon it was given the name of Arthur, the first Atlantic storm. So it went through a sex change. I have been waiting for a storm to do that. But in any case, Alma the Bear, which became Arthur the Bear, fizzled out because it stayed on land too long - it even formed on land.

The lastest run of GFS that I show shows no tropical storm development.

The Bear

The hurricane threat still remains. Some of the Global Forecasting System runs have been strange. Most of them have something going on in the Pacific Ocean south of Nicaragua, crossing Central America and moving north, developing into a storm which heads towards Florida, and then to the Gulf of Mexico, up the Atlantic seaboard, or out to Atlantic sea, depending on the run. One weird run has it splitting in half in the Gulf of Mexico, with one half heading towards Houston, and the other to peninsular Florida, and then out into the Atlantic. The GFS now shows the storm forming on May 31 near Central America, hitting Florida on June 3 and Virginia in the wee hours of the morning of June 6.

None of the local weather people or public forecasts of NOAA say much about the storm, but the meteorologists are aware of it. Here is what the Area Forecast Discussion says about the storm at 2008 May 25 14:46 CDT today:

THE GFS AND ECMWF WERE DIFFERING IN THEIR HANDLING OF THE TROPICS BY DAY SEVEN. THE GFS HAS A WEAKNESS IN THE UPPER RIDGE PRESENT OVER THE ENTIRE GULF COAST STATES. THE ECMWF HAD A STRONGER RIDGE IN PLACE FROM MEXICO ALL THE WAY EAST INTO FLORIDA. THE GFS AND ECMWF DEVELOP A SURFACE LOW IN THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN BY THE UPCOMING WEEKEND...WITH BOTH MODELS THEN GOING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WITH THE SYSTEM. GIVEN THE TIME OF YEAR IT IS BEST TO SAY THAT THE TROPICS BEAR WATCHING.

That's right. They say the tropics bear watching. So I am going to name this storm The Bear, until it gets an official name, if it will get one. If it gets a name, it would be called Arthur. That sounds cute: Arthur the Bear. The adventures of Arthur the Bear.

With this type of storm already persistently showing up in the GFS, it looks like a bad hurricane season may be ominating this year. We have warmer temperatures, cold air to the north, and warm sea temperatures, all of which mean an active season. The Bear probably will come about because of a cold front that dragged too far south for this time of the year. I hope it stays away from us. We have already had problems with bears recently, including Bear Stearns and a bear in the Richmond area that wandered around before being clobbered on I-95 by a tractor trailer. We have also had problems with power outages. My area used to be safe from such outages, getting them only in the worst hurricanes and ice storms. We have had an 8-hour and a 12-hour power outage this year from ordinary storms and their wind, scarcely gale force. So please stay away, Bear.

Tornado? Wow!!

Tornado in Colorado 2008 May 22

Arthur on June 2?

Winter is over now. I recorded 34 storms or lows which created forecasts containing wintry precipitation in them this past winter, but nothing produced more than a dusting or perhaps an inch of snow. The most dangerous was a brief sprinklet lasting about an hour of freezing rain, but it caused hundreds of accidents in the Richmond area on December 7.

So now summer is coming up, and what comes near the end of summer? Hurricanes, that's what. Already we have a tropical storm threat. None of the weather people say it yet, because it is more than a week away, but the Global Forecasting System has been forecasting it for quite a few days in a row. Apparently a disturbance near the end of May in the southern Caribbean is going to move north, clip Cuba's western part, and head to Miami about June 2. The storm, which may be a strong tropical storm or hurricane, then will go out to sea off the Atlantic seaboard.

If this materializes, it would be called Arthur. So far the GFS runs have been consistent in predicting this storm, and the European Model (ECMWF) is now showing it as well. So residents of Florida need to keep aware of the forecast. There may be a hurricane headed your way.

Don't be concerned by the earliness of this storm. The year 2007 started with a subtropical storm, named Andrea, that did not do much except pinwheel around and ruin weather on the Atlantic coast. But keep a watch of it.