Global Warming Causing Cold Winters? Goofy And Denialist Bait, But Maybe True

New research suggests that global warming might be contributing to such extreme cold winters that have cropped up in some spots in the Northern Hemisphere in recent years, including last winter in New England.

Warming wouldn't seem to cause cold spells at first glance. And I'm sure the climate change denialists would spout and steam about how ridiculous this seems.

But more and more research seems to be backing up this thesis.

New research indicates a warming Arctic contributes
to larger dips in the jet stream, meaning more intense cold
blasts in mid-latitudes  

A new study in Nature Geoscience, a peer-reviewed journal says rising temperatures in the Arctic are contributing to some nastier and nastier winters occasionally in parts of North America and Europe.

The Arctic is warming at a much faster rate than points further south. The warmer Arctic makes for bigger northward and southward bulges in the jet stream, that wavy river of upper level fast moving air that largely controls the speed, strength and direction of weather systems.

The Arctic is warmer than it was, but it's still pretty cold in the winter. The sharper, more persistent southward dips in the jet stream, ones that dip more south than they used to, bring repeated waves of bitter air into places like the United States and western Europe.

The latest research builds on previous work by other scientists, including Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, that generally reached the same conclusions.

Of course, other factors are at work, too, so there's no guarantee any one winter will be bitter. For instance, El Nino is going to be a big factor this winter. El Ninos sometimes help prevent some of these big dips in the jet stream.

That's just one example of how the warming Arctic doesn't always cause cold winters in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but it can.

Of course, the concept of cold winters gets the warming denialists all riled up.

Last year, when it was cold, for instance, some guy named James Taylor wrote in Forbes how "ridiculous" it is for climate scientists to suggest climate change could have contributed cold waves and large snowstorms.

This research about the Arctic's influence on the jet stream is valuable, but it will give ammunition to the denialist echo chamber which seeks to discredit climate scientists through some odd leaps of logic.

Next time somebody tells global warming doesn't exist because it's cold outside your own window, just wave them off.

Scary Spanish Hailstorm Bombs Swimming Pool With Baseball Sized Stones

The weather in most of the United States has been more or less calm lately.

Not so in Spain, where there were widespread hailstorms and severe thunderstorms hit lately.

One of the worst storms hit Aragon, Spain, where you can see in the video baseball sized hail hit this swimming pool area. Bet there was lots of shattered glass and dents in this area:

Wild Video: Flash Flood In Utah

Wild flash flood captured by David Rankin in Utah

I've featured these flash flood videos before, but I can't get enough of them.

Videographer and photographer David Rankin caught a particularly good one in southern Utah on August 30. A large storm dumped as much as 2.5 inches of rain over normally dry, mountainous terrain in the region.

Flash floods are a common consequence of these storms, but this one is particularly wild. You can see how dangerous they are, with all the logs and debris these rushes of water pick up.

In the drone footage within the video, you can see the storm in the distance that's causing the flash flood.

Pretty amazing:

"Perfect" Hurricane Pops Up On Beautiful Satellite Photo

Hurricanes Jiminez, to the right, and Ignacio, to the left
closer to Hawaii.  n

This week, an unprecedented three major hurricanes co-existed with each other in the central and eastern Pacific.

In this post, click on the satellite photo to make it bigger and easier to see. The hurricane to the right is Jimena It has to be the most perfectly formed hurricane I've ever seen in a satellite photo.

Too bad hurricanes can be so deadly. Otherwise, at least from space they are among the most beautiful weather phenomenon you will ever see.

The other hurricane in the photo, northeast of Hawaii, is Ignacio, which gave rough weather to the easternmost islands in the Hawaii chain yesterday.

Hurricane Jimina is expected to turn north and weaken over the next few days. It will miss Hawaii.

Third Hottest August On Record In Burlington, Vermont

A pleasant warm evening a couple weeks ago
in Colchester, Vermont. August turned out
to be nearby Burlington's third hottest on record.  

It was generally a pretty warm August in much of the Northeast, and Vermont was in on the toasty summer action.

August ended yesterday in Burlington, Vermont as the third hottest on record.

There was no extreme heat during the month, but the temperatures were consistent. There really weren't any chilly spells like you usually get in August.

The coolest night in Burlington only got down to 53 degrees this past August. That's is perhaps a tie for the warmest "low" temperature on record at the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

Meteorologist Andy Nash found two warmer August lows, in 1900 and in 1892. But in those days, temperature readings were taken at the University of Vermont, which is closer to Lake Champlain than the current measuring site at the Burlington International Airport.

Warm lake water could have easily upped the temperatures a bit at UVM way back when.

The August low of 53 in 2015 is tied with 2011 with a similar low. Four other Augusts had lows of 53, but those were in the days when temperatures were recorded at UVM

In August, 2015. there was some heat, of course, including four consecutive days of 90 temperatures from August 18 through 21.

It was dry, too. Burlington only got about half its normal rainfall. Usually about four inches falls in August. This time, it was a pinch under 2 inches.

September is getting off to a warm start, too. Yesterday, Sept. 1, reached 85 degrees in Burlington. Daytime temperatures in the 80s are expected daily today through at least Tuesday. There might even be a 90 or two thrown in. That's about ten degrees warmer than normal for this time of year in Vermont.

However, the Green Mountain State is not headed toward its warmest year on record, like the world as a whole is. We had a brutally cold winter, including the third coldest February on record.

Through August 31, the mean temperature for 2015 in Burlington is running at about 1.7 degrees below normal.

As Hurricanes Miss, Pacific Northwest Gets A Big Wind Blast

One of many fallen trees in Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada after a wicked weekemd wnd storm  

Tropical Storm Erika fizzled, Hurricane Fred is way out over the eastern Atlantic, so it looks like the United States is escaping a hurricane, at least for now.

(Though Hurricane Ignacio is going to cause tropical storm conditions in Hawaii.)  

However, the Pacific Northwest in the United States and British Columbia on the west coast of Canada got a hurricane force blow over the weekend from a regular, albeit powerful storm that came ashore.

Winds gusted to 90 mph in Oceanside, Oregon and 85 mph in Nasalle Ridge, Washington.

These kinds of strong storms with wind gusts to hurricane force affect the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia from time to time in the winter.

But it's very rare to get something like this in the summer. There's still leaves on the trees, and in wind storms, the leaves act like a multitude of little sails. The leafy "sails" pull the trees in the wind much more than if they were bare, so more trees than usual toppled in the weekend storm.

Falling trees killed two people in Washington State, and 450,000 or so of the state's residents lost their electricity.

In British Columbia, at least 400,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity. Parks and other outdoor activities were shut down Saturday over fears that trees would fall on people.

The storm has moved on and things have calmed down in the region. With drier air moving in, the wildfires, though, will continue.

Here are some weekend scenes from Vancouver, British Columbia:

Erika Still Dead(it) But Hurricanes/Tropical Storms Abound

Major hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena lined
up in the Pacific Ocean.  

The much-discussed Tropical Storm Erika, now dead as noted yesterday, is still a zombie torturing Florida.

The dead-ish storm is still producing gusty winds and heavy rains in Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba.

There's still a slight chance Erika will regenerate into a bonafide tropical storm as it heads into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but don't count on it.

That doesn't matter anyway. Winds will still gust to 40 mph in parts of Florida, and more importantly, drenching rains will hit the state.

As I said yesterday, to an extent that's good, because South Florida has been in a drought. But these tropical rains are too much too fast, so flooding is definitely a problem.

The remnants of Erika will probably eventually head into the Florida panhandle and the southeastern United States later this week with more heavy rain and possible flooding there.

Now, we have a new Atlantic tropical storm named Fred.

Welcome to the world, Fred!

Fred was a disturbance that came off the African west coast the other day. It developed remarkably rapidly after getting out into the Atlantic. Usually it takes a few days, but this one revved up.

The National Hurricane Center said Fred is only the fourth tropical storm they know of, out of many hundreds, that formed east of 19W longitude.

True, Fred was only packing winds of 40 mph early Sunday morning, but it's expected to strengthen quickly into a hurricane and threaten the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic over the next couple of days.

After that, Fred will head out into the open Atlantic, where it might encounter the kinds of strong upper level winds that destroyed Hurricane Danny and Tropical Storm Erika. Even if it survives, Fred poses no immediate threat to land after it leaves  the Cape Verde Islands.

PACIFIC OCEAN

The Pacific Ocean continues to be wild in the hurricane department. For the first time in modern history, there were three major hurricanes lined up in the central and eastern Pacific - Kilo, Jimena and Ignacio.

As you can see in the photo at the top of the post, these three hurricanes lined up are quite a sight on satellite photos.

Ignacio is the one that is being most closely watched. It is expected to skirt east and north of Hawaii, but come close enough to produce tropical storm force winds on the Big Island of Hawaii and other nearby islands. Flooding is a risk, too.

Tropical storm warnings are up for Hawaii, a place that has had a very stormy late summer, with near miss tropical storms and downpours aided and abetted by El Nino.

Hawaii is definitely not the sunny tropical paradise it usually is.