Like Weird Weather? This March Has Been Your Month

Wildfire near Woodward, Oklahoma
Monday after record heat, gusty winds
and very dry conditions.  

I swear we've packed a year or two worth of weather extremes into one simple little month, March 2015, and we've still got a couple weeks to go.

Between record cold, flooding, ice, snow records, punishing drought and especially an amazing expanse of record March heat in the nation, this is really making me want to say, "Mother Nature, you're drunk. Go home."

I told you about the record heat over the weekend in the Great Plains. Monday the central Plains really got into some incredible hot weather for this time of year.

Temperatures soared into the 90s as far north as Kansas and southern Nebraska, the furthest north I've seen such temperatures so early in the season. Some of these areas had their hottest temperatures on record for the entire month of March.

It was an incredible 94 degrees in Hill City, Kansas, and 93 in McCook, Nebraska, which are pretty typical readings in those towns for mid-July.

North Platte, Nebraska had an all time March record high of 91 degrees, breaking the old all time high for the month of 88 degrees.

This is the first time it's been known to reach 90 degrees in Iowa and Nebraska before the spring equinox. (Sioux City, Iowa reached 90 degrees on Monday.)

A day earlier, on Sunday, Fargo, North Dakota had its highest temperature for so early in the season with a reading of 75 degrees. Grand Forks, in the same state, also set a so early in the season record of 70 degrees. Average high temperatures in eastern North Dakota this time of year are in the mid-30s.

Also on Sunday, Rapid City, South Dakota reached the highest temperature on record for the month of March, with 84 degrees.

It was "colder" in North Dakota on Monday with highs in the upper 40s, still well above normal.

On Sunday, several West Coast cities also experienced their all time hottest temperatures for the entire month of March. Those included 92 degrees in Salinas, California, 91 in Fresno, California, and 89 in San Jose, notes Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground. 

Masters noted that downtown Los Angeles experienced four days in a row of 90 degree temperatures. This is the first March dating back to at least 1877 that L.A. has had four 90 degree days in March, consecutive or otherwise, Masters said.

After it experienced the snowiest February on record, Denver, Colorado on Mondayset a record for the earliest in the season the temperature has gotten above 80 degrees.

All this heat led to a variety of problems. Last evening a wildfire that had expanded to more than 9,300 acres forced evacuations near Woodward, Oklahoma, television station KOCO reported. 

Flooding along the Ohio River in Cincinnati, via
A Guy and His Drone, Facebook. 

In the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in California, they were expected one of the best poppy blooms in recent memory, but the heat was so strong most of them wilted and died. Poppy plants can withstand heat, but this was too much.

Meanwhile, the Ohio River continued to run above flood stage after an abrupt snow melt and heavy rain last week, the Cincinnati Inquirer reported. The Red Cross had to open shelters for some families who were flooded out.  

Winter, of course, is still  hanging on in New England, particularly in Maine, which is just having the toughest time. Today, yet another winter storm warning is in effect for the snowbound eastern part of the state for another six to 10 inches of snow.

Bangor, Maine, which has already by far set the record for the snowiest winter on record with 130.7 inches, is expecting another two to five inches of fresh powder today.

It was even worse in parts of southeastern Canada. The storm that clobbered Maine Sunday was even worse in Prince Edward Island.

Charlottetown, P.E.I. got 21 inches or so of snow Sunday and Monday, bringing the snowfall for the season to 182 inches (463 cm.) That beats the old seasonal winter snowfall record of 177 inches (451 cm) set just last year.

St. John, New Brunswick also set its winter snowfall record by Monday with a total so far of 170 inches, besting 167 inches in 1962-63.

A new storm in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick is expected to dump an additional eight inches or so of snow by tomorrow night.

By tomorrow, all of New England will be colder than the normal temperatures in the depths of winter in January. Some towns in northern New England won't make it out of the teens Wednesday afternoon.

Another shot of frigid air is expected to blast into New England Sunday. Temperatures then could easily be the most below normal of any place in the Northern Hemisphere.

It seems like the weather might become a bit less extreme in the United States as we head into the second half of the month, but I'm sure there will be some pretty big surprises, given how things have been going.

Will The Same Mucked Up Jet Stream That Froze New England Spawn Deadly Heat Waves?

This schematic shows very big ridges and dips
in the jet stream. New research backs up
claims that global warming might
be contributing to weather patterns that
make the jet stream get stuck in weird positions
like this, causing extreme weather and disasters.  

As we warm the planet by belching extra CO2 into the atmosphere, are we also making our weather patterns get stuck in weird positions, like a contortionist who suddenly develops back spasms?

The evidence seems to be growing that the answer is yes.

I've mentioned the idea that climate change might be getting the jet stream "stuck" in weird positions in this here blog thingy before, but new research strengthens the idea this jet stream theory is right.

While scientists agree that global warming is occuring, there's often not total consensus on what oddball things might come out of climate change or how these things will play out.

As the Washington Post notes, Rutgers University's Jennifer Francis has for a few years now postulated that the rapidly melting Arctic has been screwing around with the jet stream. The Arctic is warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics, reducing the contrast in temperature between, say, Cuba and the North Pole.

Francis says this helps make the jet stream dip and bulge and swerve much more than it used to, and get stuck in these weird positions more often.

The upshot of this is that areas of the globe then get trapped in extended periods of extreme weather, perhaps like the drought in California and the New England cold and snow blitz this winter.

A number of climate scientists, though, didn't buy Francis' theory.

However, the Washington Post says several papers have come out in the past couple of years that back Francis' assertions, and a new report in the journal Science expands on this.

Says the Washington Post:

"The new paper, by Dom Coumou and two colleagues at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Potsdam in Germany, finds that the melting Arctic is indeed messing with the jet stream (as well as the broader atmospheric circulation) and our weather.

But it also goes goes further by asserting that there's a strong effect in the summer in particular. The progress of weather is slowing during the summer, the authors assert, and the result could be a very deadly one - including 'more persistent heat waves in recent summers.'"

An unprecedented, long heat wave contributed to the deaths of up to 35,000 people in Europe in the summer of 2003, says New Scientist.  An incredible heat wave in Russia during 2010 killed an estimated 55,000 people was one of the worst weather disasters of its kind, says Nature.

If the new research is right, any spot in the northern hemisphere, and perhaps the southern one as well, is now much more at risk of these destructive, deadly heat waves.

The theory goes like this: When the temperature contrast between the Arctic and the tropics is as strong as it used to be, the jet stream is also stronger, so storms zip along its path. Also, the jet stream's northward bulges and southward plunges aren't usually extreme, and change positions fairly often.

This means bad or extreme weather tends not to linger in any one place for too long.

With the climate now changing, the temperature contrast between the Arctic and the tropics is decreasing.  As that temperature gradient grows fainter, the jet stream slows, weather systems don't move fast, and once the jet stream doesn't change positions as often.

That would mean people stuck under a big northward bulge in the jet stream get trapped in a heat wave that seemingly never ends. Those at the bottom of a big get stream dip stay cold for a long period of time and the people on the east side of a big dip, where the storms congregate, get extended periods of flooding rain or deep, deep snow.

Any kind of stuck weather pattern like this is a recipe for a deadly disaster.  They'll keep studying this threat more, I'm sure, but it might be another reason for climate change deniers to stop throwing snowballs on the U.S. Senate floor and actually enact some economic growth policies that reduce our dependence on carbon.

Just a suggestion, guys.

  

Boston Breaks Seasonal Snow Record; Twitterers Rejoice. Or Not

Enormous icicles cling to Boston buildings
after a record snowy February. Snow that fell
Sunday evening in Boston ensured the city
this year had its snowiest winter on record.  

An unexpected burst of heavy snow swept into Boston this evening behind a departing storm system, and that burst of snow meant Boston, finally, officially broke the record for its snowiest winter on record.

It was still snowing as of 7 p.m. Sunday, but by then 108.6 inches of snow had accumulated this winter. This broke the previous record of 107.6 inches set in 1995-96

Given the angst of something like six or seven feet of new snow between late January and late February, people were itching for the bragging rights of a new record.

The blast of snow that slammed Boston dwindled by the time March started, and the city was stuck just shy of the record snowiest winter.

Until today.

Snow had been expected in Boston, but it didn't look like it would amount to much.

But as a storm that brought up to a foot of snow to Maine Saturday night and Sunday moved off to the east, cold air blew into Boston via the north winds behind the storm. Those north winds carried that band of snow which sealed the record for the snowiest winter.

The Twitter reaction this evening was a mix of celebration for breaking the record and a desire to move on toward spring.

Here's some of the reactons:

"Champions again! Never gets old."

"We're #1! We're #1."

"Awesome (?)"

"Finally. Now, can we quit? Can we? Pretty please?"

"Mission accomplished. 80 and sunny starting tomorrow, please."

Not likely.

It was still snowing pretty hard as of 7 p.m. in Boston so the record will widen. Temperatures are expected to remain well below normal through this week, and probably beyond in New England.

Plus, there's the chance of another snowstorm next weekend.

Records are made to be broken. Maybe this Boston snow record is one that's REALLY meant to be broken.

New England Still Wintry, But Heat Is On Elsewhere

Dude, where's my garden? My back yard in
St. Albans, Vermont doesn't look too springlike
today. While winter continues in
New England, much of the nation
is experiencing record warmth this weekend.  

As has been the case much of this winter, while New England shivers, a lot of other places are warm.

It's snowing in much of New England this Sunday, with Maine once again expected to take the brunt of it.

The winter storm is expected to dump a total of 8 to 12 inches of new snow there before it all ends tonight.

As of yesterday, Bangor, Maine was up to 123 inches snow for the season. That's more that five feet above what they should have gotten by now, at least on average.

Despite my harping on New England, because that's where I live, the real weather story this weekend has been the early season heat in much of the rest of the United States.

Most of California is experiencing record heat this weekend. Records Saturday include 93 in downtown Los Angeles, and 84 degrees in San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton, California, notes the Los Angeles Times.

The heat has sent people to the beaches, forced an earlier start to the Los Angeles Marathon today to avoid the worst of the heat.

Speaking of worst, some fires were reported amid the hot, dry conditions around Malibu and in Ventura County in California.

That's very odd for this time of year, but the extreme drought continues, and worsens amid the heat. Hot temperatures make water evaporation more efficient than when it is cooler, so what little water there is in California is going fast.  

Meanwhile, as this Sunday webcam image shows,
all the snow is gone and the ice has long
disappeared from the Missouri River in
my relatives' hometown of Yankton, South Dakota
as temperatures climb to record highs of near 80 today. 

Plus, the tiny bit of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains is melting prematurely amid the record heat.

By some estimates, California could run out of water in its reservoirs for public consumption with a year, says the Los Angeles Times and many other media outlets

Not much rain is in the forecast, and what is normally California's wet season ends in just the next few weeks.

That drought calamity makes me almost relieved it's snowing today outside my Vermont window.  At least I'm not going to run out of water anytime soon.

Record heat is continuing to back the Plains of the United States, too.  For instance, my relatives in Yankton, South Dakota are experiencing an unbelievable March.

It was a summery 79 degrees in Yankton Friday.  A record highs of 82 degrees is expected today, with 80 degrees on Monday.   It was cooler in Yankton when I was out there visiting last June.

Widespread 80 degree weather is expected in much of Nebraska and Kansas, and parts of Iowa and Missouri today and tomorrow. That's pretty unbelievable for March.  Record hot spells occur from time to time but this early season warmth is off the chain.

The only comparable March heat wave I can think of was in March, 2012, which was more widespread than the current heatwave. The March, 2012 warmth, which spread 80 degree heat from California to Vermont and Nova Scotia, was pretty much thought impossible until it happened.

This weekend's heat wave in the middle of the country is just a half step less incredible that March 2012.

The Plains heat is causing some of the same problems that California is having. In addition to the heat, the humidity is very low and it's windy. That means there's a very high risk of rangeland fires from Oklahoma all the way to the Dakotas today. 

There have been some destructive fires in the Plains in recent years that have burned a number of houses, so let's hope we don't get a repeat.

Additionally, the hot, dry conditions across pretty much all of the Plains seems to be trying to plunge the region into a drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the Plains dryness so far isn't too, too extreme in most regions, but it will rapidly worsen if this kind of early season heat, wind and dryness continue.

It will cool down quite a bit in the Plains next week, probably reaching readings that are pretty close to average for this time of year. But no nice rainstorms are in the offing out there, so the drought worries will continue.

There has also been record heat in Florida in recent days, though temperatures there will edge down just a tiny bit over the next few days.

As I wrote this blog post late this morning, the snow flurries outside my window in St. Albans, Vermont turned into a pretty heavy snowfall. The road in front of my house suddenly iced up, and there's an inch of new snow already.

The forecast is grim for the next two weeks in New England for warm weather lovers, as winter will pretty much maintain its grip.

Yes, I'm jealous of the warm weather in much of the rest of the nation, but it's also good it has so far not been getting too warm, too fast in New England. That would set off ice jam flooding. But we could be just kicking the can down the road and setting ourselves up for flood trouble in April.

We'll see.

Spring here will arrive eventually. It'll be just our luck that summer will be New England's turn to experience the record heat everybody else has been getting lately.   I want it to be warm, yes, but not 100 degrees.  (My cocker spaniel Jackson with his thick black fur HATES hot, humid weather, too.)

Let's hope for a nice, normal spring and summer this year.

Scary South Pacific Storms To Help Spring Temporarily Vanish In Northeast U.S.

Satelllite view captures the swirl of four
cyclones near, north and east of Australia.  

The oceans near, north and east of Australia exploded with four simultaneous tropical cyclones this week, and at least two of them have spread death and destruction.

Hurricanes are called cyclones in this part of the world and they're fairly common in the region.

But you almost never get so many at once, and you don't get them as strong as the worst one, Cyclone Pam.

According to The Guardian, at least eight people, and possibly dozens, died as the powerful Category 5 strength Pam roared over the small island nation of Vanuatu.

It sounds like a very scary mess.  The Guardian reported that the capital city of Port Vila in Vanuatu was totally trashed:

"Save the Children's Tom Skirrow, speaking from Port Vila said: 'The scene here this morning is complete devastation, homes are destroyed, trees are down, roads are blocked and people are wandering the streets looking for help.'

Care International's Charlie Camon said 'Homes have been blown to pieces, and even evacuation shelters, where people had sought refuge, have been flooded and left exposed to Cyclone Pam.'"

The islands Pam struck are home to nearly 100,000 people. Peak winds with the storm were 155 mph, one of the strongest on record in the region.  

Damage from Cyclone Pam in Port Vila, Vanuatu  

Meanwhile, in northwestern Australia, Cyclone Olywyn slammed ashore, damaging quite a few houses, cutting power, setting of floods and storm surges and trashing agriculture in the region, said the Australian Broadcasting Corp. 

The other two cyclones in the region have not hit any major land areas.

CYCLONES AND U.S. COLD WAVE RELATED

All these storms were able to pop up due to something called the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO.

According to the Weather Channel, the MJO is a wave of energy that moves eastward around the equator every 30 to 60 days or so.

When the MJO goes overhead, it tends to create upward motion in the atmosphere, which can form clouds and thunderstorms, some of which have the potential to create tropical cyclones.

This MJO was particularly strong and was able to contribute to these four cyclones.

If you live in the United States, you should care about the MJO for reasons beyone wanting to help the people in Vanuatu.

That's because this MJO is going to put a temporary stop to spring in the eastern United States.  At first, when the strong MJO was developing, it nudged the jet stream to finally end the persistent frigid weather than had plagued the Northeast for weeks.

Now, with the MJO heading east, for complicated reasons it will help throw the jet stream back into basically the same arrangement it had in February.

The MJO is, of course, is only one of many complicated atmospheric cycles and systems that affect the weather way up here in New England.

Still, the MJO's shenanigans, combined with the way weather circulations are oriented now,  mean spring weather is vanishing from the Northeast.

The opening salvo is a bit of freezing rain this morning in southern New England, and some pretty heavy snows in parts of northern New England and southern Quebec tonight and tomorrow.

Accumulations will probably amount to a slushy coating in central New England, one to three inches in much of central Vermont and central New Hampshire tonight as rain changes to snow, up to five inches in northeastern Vermont, and anywhere from five inches to as much as a foot in southern Quebec, including Montreal, northern New Hampshire and much of Maine.

Winter storm warnings are flying tonight and tomorrow for northern New Hampshire and most of Maine.

After that, we get repeated cold waves in the eastern United States through the end of the month. There might be some little thaws between cold blasts, and given that it's getting into late March, this won't be as bad as February, as I've noted previously.

Still, it sure as hell won't feel like spring for the next couple of weeks.

If You Thought New England Snow Was Bad, Try Eight Feet In One Day In Italy

Clearing more than eight feet of snow in
Capracotta, Italy last week. How
would you like to shovel that?  

It's going to snow in New England again this weekend.

Yay! As if the region needs it.

The heaviest snow will come down in the higher elevations of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, where anywhere from four to 10 inches could accumulate.

In the valleys, and in southern New England, the storm will start off Saturday with a cold rain, possibly mixed with sleet or freezing rain for a couple hours at the onset. It'll gradually change to snow Saturday night.

Boston needs a little less than two inches of snow to break its all time record for snowiest winter, but I don't think it's going to do it with this storm. It's possible enough snow could fall there Sunday, but it is iffy.

The National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont is considering putting up winter weather advisories for the mid and high elevations of the state Saturday night and Sunday.

The National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine might be tempted to hoist winter storm watches for part of that state later today to go into effect over the weekend.

If you're in New England and can't stand the thought of more snow, it could be worse.

Last week, an Italian town called Capracotta reported received nearly eight and a half feet of new snow in just 18 hours or so.

If that's true, it would break the world's record for the most snow within 24 hours. The current generally accepted world's record is 90.6 inches in a day on Mount Ibuki, Japan on February 14, 1927.

The United States record for 24-hour snow is 76 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado in April, 1921.

The Capracotta snow measurements will have to be verified for accuracy, probably by the World Meteorological Organization. 

As the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang notes, we may never really know if this weeks Capracotta snow is the world record.

It's hard to measure snow, as it drifts, compacts and melts. Also, different nations have different standards on how to measure snow. Do you wait until the storm ends, then measure it? Or do you have, as we do in the United States, guidelines that have you measure an area every six hours, wipe it clean and start over, until you geta storm total?

With the different ways of measuring, you get different amounts of snow compaction, so it's hard to say really how much fell.

One thing I can say for sure. Nobody in New England will get eight feet of new snow this weekend

That, my friends, is a promise.

Below is a video slide show of the scene in Capracotta this week:

Sorry, Springtime Fans, Winter Redux To Overtake Eastern U.S. As Official Spring Arrives

It'll be awhile before we see this
in northern New England. Unfortunately for
spring season lovers, winter redux
is coming for the second half of March.  n

Here where I live in northern Vermont, the hints of spring we've had the past couple of days is history.

As of 1 p.m. today, it was in the mid and upper 20s, and northwest winds gusting to over 30 mph has the wind chill down to about 10 degrees.  

That's still better than the subzero cold of February and very early March, I suppose.  But it's much worse than the sunshine and 50 degree readings of Tuesday and Wednesday.

Now, there's less snow on the ground, there's bare spots here and there, and we had  really decent maple sap run for you syrup aficianodos.

Spring really did hit coast to coast this week. Wednesday, the only state in the nation experiencing cooler than normal temperatures was Texas, due to clouds and rain there. Heck, they needed the rain so that's OK.

The springlike weather is still in full force in most of the country, New England excepted.

After a hard winter, though, you have to expect a few hiccups on the road to spring. One HUGE hiccup is coming.

The current cold weather in New England will ease up Saturday and Sunday, with near normal temperatures with rain in southern New England and rain mixing with or changing to wet snow in the north.

Sugar snow, you have to expect that.

Meanwhile, out in the Plains, it's practically summer, at least temporarily. My relatives in the southeastern South Dakota city of Yankton today are basking in record high temperatures that could flirt with 80 degrees.  Record highs in the 70s are going to be widespread today in the Dakotas, Iowa, and Nebraska.

The only problem with that is it's also very dry and windy in those parts. The prairie grasses and shrubs and dry and brown from the winter, so there's an extremely high risk of fires today. 

The very dry, warm conditions in the upper Plains are expected to last into Monday, so the risk of fires will be high. After temperatures "cooling" to levels that are still 20 degrees above normal tomorow and Saturday, more record highs are likely Sunday.

But even there, the forces of Canadian weather are gathering, and it's going to turn cold again in the upper Plains and Midwest later next week.

The overall weather pattern is in the process of shifting from the pretty springlike weather of this week right back to that extreme and brutal configuration we saw from late January through early March.

That means it's going to turn wicked cold, especially in the Northeast, so don't get your spring groove on just yet.

The first blast comes in Tuesday and lasts a couple days. New England temperatures will be about normal for January (Highs in the 20s north, 30s south, lows 5 to 15)

The temperature might ease up a little after that, but it looks like repeated shots of Arctic air will come down into the Midwest and Northeast hrough at least the end of March.

Between the blasts, there might be some thawing as it will be late March, after all. But other days will feel just like midwinter. Sorry.

On the bright side, at least it won't be nearly as cold as February was. It's almost impossible to have subzero temperatures in late March, except in places like Minnesota, the upper Pennisula of Michigan, New York's Adirondacks and in much of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Those places might briefly go below zero during the upcoming cold waves. Oh well.

The upcoming pattern is also potentially snowy and stormy in the Northeast as well. It's hard to pick out this far in advance how any storms will play out and how big they will get, but it seems damn certain New England isn't done with the snow yet.

This makes me worried about spring flooding, with Maine under a particular threat.

So far, the deep snows in eastern New England have been melting gradually. There's still a lot of it, and still a definite flood threat later this spring, but at least some of the snow is now gone after yesterday's 60 degree weather, so the amount of potential water for a flood has gone down somewhat.

Not so in the eastern half of Maine. There was some thawing there, but a lot of snow remains on the ground there.

The snow is still 40 inches deep in parts of Maine, and in much of the state, the amount of water locked up in the snow is the equivalent of six to nine inches of rain. 

The upcoming cold will delay the slow melt we expect this time of year, and will add snow to what's already on the ground.

If April turns warm and wet, Maine could be in for catastrophic flooding.

In western New England, in places like Vermont, the snow cover and water equivalent is more or less normal for this time of year. Some snow melted, but there's still quite a bit in the mid and high elevations. River ice is thick in Vermont, so ice jam flooding could be a real problem in April.

Plus, if a lot of snow falls during the upcoming two-week (at least!) cold wave, and then it turns hot and wet in April, we here in Vermont could face some unwanted flooding.

First, though, we'll have to endure the winter redux to close out March.