A Balmy Part Of Antarctica Is Scaring People Worried About Climate Change

Esperanza Base, Antarctica just recorded the icy continent's hottest
temperature on record - 65 degrees. Photo via NBC News
by Vanderlei Almeda/AFP and Getty Images

A temperature of 65 degrees isn't all that hot.  It's nice, sure, but nothing extreme.

Unless you're in Antarctica.

Last week, a research center and weather station called Esperanza Base  on the northern edge of Antarctica's Trinity Peninsula got up to 64.9 degrees, which is the hottest temperature on record in that frigid continent at the bottom of the world.

The old record for Antarctica was 63.5 degrees on March 24, 2015.

True, the Trinity Peninsula is the toastiest part of Antarctica, jutting north toward South America. It's the area of Antarctica that's furthest away from the South Pole, so it is bound to be warmer than the rest of this icy continent.

Still, the area around the Trinity Peninsula, and much of the area around Antarctica has been warming rapidly in recent decades so this does alarm climate scientists.

"To have a new record set that quickly is surprising - but who knows how long that will last? Possibly not that long at all," James Renwick of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand told The Guardian. 

Some caveats to this Antarctic warm record: The area where this warm temperature was set is prone to balmy  northerly winds coming down the slopes of nearby mountains. So this warm day was surely a natural, normal event, probably made a little more extreme by climate change.

Usually, these warm winds allow temperatures at Esperanza Base to rise to only 50 degrees or so.

The 65-degree record is preliminary and will need to be verified by experts.

Scientists are alarmed by warming around Antarctica because certain glaciers and ice shelves are prone to melting in a warmer world. That would contribute to destructive global sea level rise.

About 87 percent of glaciers along the west coast of Trinity Peninsula have retreated over the past 50 years, and that trend has accelerated over the past dozen years or so, according to the World Meteorological Organization, as reported by NBC News.

Record Warmth Today In Vermont, But It's Still Winter Here and Elsewhere

My St. Albans, Vermont yard looked like a winter wonderland
through Sunday. Today, after a thaw, it's looking like March, with
bare patches and branches littering the lawn.

Just before a cold front starting blustering through early this afternoon, the temperature in Burlington, Vermont reached 53 degrees, setting a new record for the date. The old record was 51 degrees in 1991.

A number of other weather stations in the Northeast and Ohio Valley set record high temperatures yesterday and today, so a lot of us got a break from winter.

Funny, our esteemed president used the so-called "polar vortex" last week to dismiss the idea of global warming. Why isn't he sounding the alarm about global warming today? After all, it was in the low 60s yesterday in Bennington, Vermont, which is supposedly part of the Great White North.

Maybe this yo-yo temperature pattern is proof that weather is not climate, but I'd had to complicate the president's day on the eve of his State Of The Union speech.

Anyway, it's still winter, despite the brief shot of springlike weather. Videos keep coming in to prove it. (A couple good ones are at the bottom of this post.)

For us in Vermont, the "heat wave" is over. It'll keep getting colder for the rest of the afternoon. It'll be below freezing for most of us by evening.

And, Oh joy! We've got more mixed precipitation on the horizon!

It looks like we're going to get a little more snow, sleet and freezing rain Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning. It won't amount to much, but it's enough to be annoying on the roads.

The main storm with this upcoming messy spell of weather looks like it'll come in Thursday night and Friday morning. At this point, it seems this next storm will go by to our west, like the last one did, so it'll be primarily a rain event.  I don't think the rain will be super heavy, so flooding seems unlikely. Or if it does occur, it won't be extensive.

This being still winter, it'll get cold again this weekend, but nothing outlandish. Just normal wintertime chill.

Any unpleasant wintertime weather we get here in Vermont over the next few days pales in comparison to what other people are getting.

For instance, Chicago can't seem to catch a weather break lately.  After having warmed up from their record cold last week, now they're facing an ice storm warning for tonight. There might be enough freezing rain there tonight to down trees branches and power lines. What a mess!

If you like snow, head to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Gawd, it has snowed there!  June Mountain got a little under 11 feet of snow since Saturday, with six feet of that coming in just 24 hours. I can't even imagine shoveling that.

A bit of snow on the ground outside this Mammoth Mountain,
California ski lodge.

June Mountain is a ski resort, as are Mammoth Mountain and Kirkwood Mountain Resort. They actually had to close because there's too much snow.

The snow at Kirkwood Mountain is up to the bottoms of the ski lifts. Once the resorts dig out, I'm sure the skiing will be mighty fine there.

All this snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is great news for California. During their epic drought a few years ago, there was hardly any snow in those mountains, which led to some near-water crises.

This spring and summer, all that snow will melt, and keep water reservoirs nice and full.

The weather pattern appears as if it's going to stay very active coast to coast at least for the next two weeks, with plenty of storms, and occasional Arctic cold shots here and there.

We'll just keep enjoying our big winter weather ride.

Now for some videos:

During last week's Arctic cold snap, there were numerous intense snow squalls across the Northeast. I love this compiliation of New York City snow squall time lapses. I especially like the street view one:



Here's a 24 hour time lapes of snow piling up in the Tahoe area. Note the cars in the background that keep getting stuck, but then are pushed out by other people:

Dangerously Stormy March Lion Roars In After Record February Heat

Areas in orange can expect a foot of snow out of the upcoming
storm, but that's not the biggest worry with this.
Severe coastal flooding is likely in New England
and the Mid-Atlantic states, and high winds will
be a problem throughout the Northeast.

The Northeast is bracing for what really does promise to be a destructive storm that will bring a huge area of coastal flooding, high winds, flooding and very heavy snows in some inland areas.

It's only the first of March, and 2018 is already turning out to be a wild, wild weather year. And this storm will make it wilder.

This slow moving monster will cause widespread damage, I'm afraid.

It still looks like Vermont will be on the edge of the storm, but questions are still there as to how interesting things will get in the Green Mountain State.

Record warmth yesterday closed out one of the hottest Februaries on record, by the way. I'll get to that after more storm discussion.

As noted, large areas of the Northeast will received damaging winds. High wind warnings and watches extend from New England to North Carolina, so you know that a lot of people are going to lose power.

But the biggest problems are going to be along the coast, especially from New Jersey to southeastern New England.  This will be a powerful, slow moving storm, so destructive storm surges and battering waves will go through at least three high tide cycles Friday and Saturday.

You might remember the storm in early January that caused such a damaging storm surge in parts of New England. That was only one high tide cycle. This time, the storm surges look like they will at be at least as bad as the one in January. But it will happen three times, not once.

Combine hurricane force wind gusts, repeated storm surges and battering waves, and you can see how destructive this will be along the southern New England coast. The long duration storm will erode beaches and sand dunes, leaving homes and other structures that were thought protected vulnerable.

Inland flooding is also a concern. The developing storm has already triggered widespread flash flood warnings in much of Arkansas and parts of Mississippi and Tennessee.  Flood watches are now in effect in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, southeastern New York and southern New England.

This is a tricky storm as far as snowfall is concerned. Where it does snow, it could come down incredibly heavily. In some places, snow could come down Friday at a rate of two inches per hour, and some high elevation locations could clock in with two feet of new snow.

It will be a wet snow in most places that do get it. Combined with the strong winds, that's a recipe for huge power failures. The places most under the gun are the Catskills, western and central New York, maybe the Poconos in Pennsylvania, the Berkshires in Massachusetts and possibly the far southern Green Mountains of Vermont.

Speaking of Vermont.......

VERMONT EFFECTS

Given the size and force of the storm, and given the fact Vermont will be on the edge of this monster, there's a high chance of a forecast bust.  Count on things not exactly working out as forecast, but at least we have an idea of what will happen.

Right now, the biggest effects still look to be in southern Vermont. Precipitation will be heaviest there, and winds will be strongest - gusting to 50 mph or even a little more on Friday.

Temperatures will be marginal for rain versus snow, with the highest chance for snow in the upper elevations, of course.

At the moment, the National Weather Service is forecasting snow to spread south to north overnight tonight across Vermont.  It seems as if enough warm air will wrap into the storm to change the snow to a cold rain, especially across lower elevations on Friday.

That's not guaranteed, so we'll have to wait and see if that actually happens.  In Vermont's southern two counties, a winter storm watch is up for four to 10 inches of heavy, wet snow, combined with gusty winds and possible power failures.

As I said, precipitation is still expected to be relatively light in northern Vermont. But it will be a nasty day with temperatures in the 30s with gusty east winds. It's still possible that heavier precipitation than expected will work its way even into northern Vermont. A slight nudge to the north in the storm track could make things more interesting than forecasters think at the moment.

There will almost certainly be surprises with some areas getting more or less snow than expected, some areas getting more or less rain than expected, and some areas getting more or less wind than expected. So, any forecast you hear will be relatively accurate, but not perfect.

RECORD HEAT

Last day of February in northern Vermont yesterday and
I was already out getting spring projects started.
Record warmth provided the opportunity. 

As we were anticipating the storm, yesterday afternoon, at my house in Vermont just 12 miles south of the Canadian border, I was outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt, beginning my spring projects and garden cleanups. In February!

It was an unexpectedly warm, record toasty day, for sure.

Burlington had a record high of 59 degrees Wednesday, breaking the record of 55 set in 1903. St. Johnsbury had a record high of 56 degrees and Montpelier set a record of 55 degrees, breaking the old record by six degrees.

February, 2018 turned out to be the second warmest February on record in Burlington, with a mean temperature of 30.6 degrees. The previous holder of the second warmest February was last year. (The hottest February was in 1981)

We've been on a remarkably hot streak of Februaries in Vermont. Four of the top 10 warmest Februaries in Burlington have occured in the past six years.  Fourteen of the daily record highs in February - half of them - have happened since 2001. (Burlington's records go back to the 1880s)

We ended up with another warmer than normal meteorological winter, too. (It goes from December 1 through February 28) Despite a frigid start in December and early January, Burlington's meteorological winter averaged out at 24.3 degrees. That's 2.3 degrees warmer than normal.

Why Very Nice Weather Is Scary

My St. Albans,  Vermont yard Tuesday as the thaw
really took hold. 

If you're outdoors and it's partly sunny and 77 degrees, you should not be scared of the weather. After all, such weather sounds pretty pleasant.  

If you were in Bennington, Vermont yesterday, February 21, you experienced just that kind of weather. Note I said Vermont. In February. You can see why such weather in this case can be a little unnerving.

The weather extremes keep getting more extreme. A few years ago, I would have said it's pretty much impossible to get to 70 degrees in Vermont in February.

Then, yesterday, it was in the upper 70s. And we've now had two Februaries in a row in which it has been in the 70s in Vermont. The winter before that, it was 70 degrees in Vermont on Christmas Eve.

I keep telling you that a weather event on one dot on the map like Vermont does not tell you much about climate change. That is still true.

Yet, the entire East Coast was baking yesterday.

No fewer than 21 cities in the eastern United States from Florida to Maine broke records Wednesday for their hottest temperature on record for any February date.  Wells, Maine; Manchester, New Hampshire and Bennington, Vermont all hit 77 setting February statewide records across northern New England.

Tampa, Florida also hit an all time February record high of 89 degrees this week.

Same spot as above, 24 hours later. 

The weather extremes here in the Green Mountain State seem like they're getting more extreme and more frequent. That wouldn't be that big a deal except the extremes are getting more and more wild across many if not most parts of the world.

Of course, the trouble is, how do you measure the frequency of extremes. The overall temperature of the Earth is rising. That's relatively easy to measure. (NOAA just said that January for the Earth as a whole was the fifth warmest on record. And that means the Top 5 warmest Januaries have all occured since 2007.)  

Climate scientists tell us global warming will cause greater weather extremes. Anecdotally, that's easy to see. In addition to Vermont's February roast, a persistent stalled fetch of deep moisture is once again drowning parts of the Gulf states and South in flooding. The temperature is about to go above freezing at the North Pole like it's done a few times in the winter in recent years, which is very odd.

Arctic ice extent is at record lows for this time of year, and a bitter cold wave is heading toward western Europe from Siberia.

One way to look at the frequency of extreme weather is by examining warm spells, like the kind we just experienced yesterday.

Back in 2014, before many of the latest big, big heatwaves, Real Climate said record hot months at stations around the world were outpacing record cold months by a five-to-one margin. You can infer from this the world is warming as an unchanging climate would produce roughly equal numbers of hot and cold months.

An incredible  36-month streak of daily record maximum records exceeding daily record low minimums at weather stations throughout the United States ended in January, where record lows slightly outpaced record highs.

We're back to our old tricks, though. So far this month, U.S. weather stations have seen 1,707 daily record high temperatures versus just 174 record lows. Also so far this February, 37 weather stations have recorded their all time highest temperature for the month of February while just one recorded an all-time record low.

Another way to look at extreme weather events and trends in those events is the growing field of attribution science.

As Annie Sneed explained in Scientific American last year, computer programs are getting better at simulating the cause of extreme weather events, then estimating what would have happened without climate change. I'd better let her explain it:

"In our experimental set-up, we simulate the event in today's world, and then we remove anthropogenic emissions from the climate model's atmosphere, and do the same experiment again.  ...... Assuming everything else being equal, what is the influence of greenhouse gas emissions?"

This is all great, of course, but still, is there a way to measure the number of extreme events, say 100 years ago, compared to now?

I haven't come across such statistics, but I wish they existed.

Every time something extreme happens in the weather, climate change denialists and skeptics will point to a similar extreme in the past.

Yes, wild weather has always happened and always will, with or without climate change. Yes, it was in the 70s in New England yesterday, but it was 120 in the Great Plains in the summer of 1936.

However, are big hot spells more frequent than they were early in the 20th Century? The denialists and skeptics won't answer that question.

Muddying things further, some extremes that happen are just bad luck and have nothing to do with climate change. Or they would have happened anyway, but were possibly or probably made worse by climate change? How do you measure and prove that?

The consensus among scientists is that weird weather, like yesterday's summery February East Coast heat wave, is becoming more frequent with climate change.

The February heat wave wasn't as harmful as some big extremes, though budding flowers and crops up and down the East Coast will probably fall victim to normal spring freezes. In the past, if it got cold in March, who cares because plants hadn't started blooming yet.

Now we're getting these weird hot spells. California had a record warm winter, forcing crops and trees to start blooming too early. Then the inevitable winter frost and freeze hit last week.  The states $5 billion almond industry was almost certainly damaged by this.

Last year also had record February heat along the East Coast. Cherry blossoms in Washington DC bloomed too early, then many of the blooms were zapped and killed by a March freeze. Those blossoms are starting to bloom again this year, way too early. Will the same thing happen again.

As nice as this week's incredible February warmth felt to many of us, any weather extreme is bad, as I've just outlined.  And if extremes are getting wilder and more frequent, there's lots of trouble ahead.

Which is why I was scared yesterday when it was a very pleasant 77 degrees in Bennington, Vermont yesterday. In February.  Even as, exactly 24 hours later, Bennington was right back to normal February conditions: 30 degrees with fairly heavy snow falling.

Incredible February Heat Records In Vermont, Northeast And Arctic Beyond Unprecedented

This was a snow covered scene in my St Albans Vermont
yard two days ago. Today, amid record heat, I felt like I
should have been planting flowers. 

This is just a quick Wednesday evening update, as I will have more to say about this tomorrow, but some temperatures were recorded today in Vermont and elsewhere are just beyond belief.

A bit of history: Last February, Burlington and Bennington, Vermont reached 72 degrees, breaking by a large margin the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Green Mountain State during the second month of the year.

At the time this happened, I remember saying that even in the worst case scenario for global warming or whatever is going on, chances are we wouldn't see something like that in our lifetimes.

Boy was I wrong!!! Bennington, Vermont reached an amazing 77 degrees today, five degrees above last year's record and so warm it's scary.  I mean, really scary. That's a typical summertime high temperature. In February!

A cold front arrived in Burlington today before maximum temperatures could reach their highest potential. Still, it got up to 69 degrees in Burlington. Had last year not set the February record, Burlington would have exceeded the previous record high for February, which until 2017 had been 62 degrees.

Also today, Montpelier reached 70 degrees, by far their hottest February reading on record. Elsewhere, New York City's Central Park got up to 78 degrees, its hottest February temperature on record.

While all this was going on, extreme weather was causing all kinds of issues elsewhere in the nation. Record lows are being reported in the northwestern third of the United States, but those lows, while very unusual, can't compete with the bizarre warmth it the Northeast.

An airmass with a record high amount of moisture for this time of year today unleashed flooding downpours in Louisiana and Arkansas. These are states that have had an increasing frequency of flooding in recent years and decades.

Also today, freezing rain was falling from Minnesota to Texas.

And up in the Arctic, temperatures are expected to rise above freezing around the North Pole by Sunday. That's something that used to never happen this time of year.

Arctic sea ice is actually decreasing in extent this week. The Arctic ice is already at a record low extent for this time of year. The ice should still be expanding this time of year. It's only February.

According to the Washington Post, temperatures in the Arctic are now as much as 45 degrees above normal. The northernmost weather station in Greenland was above freezing this week for a full 24 hours. This in a place where the sun set in October and won't rise above the horizon again until March. Yet, they've had a thaw.

I'm not a scientist, but these developments are all very unnerving.

I  MUST give you the caveat that an individual weather event isn't proof of global warming. But the extremes today are consistent with global warming. Also, in terms of extremes, today's weather is also beyond the worst fear of many climate scientists.

I'm sure things will settle down once the current wild weather pattern settles down, but today's weather news frightened me more than almost anything I've seen in my more than five decades on this Earth.

Tropical Vermont In February Continues For (Part Of) Today

Here's something I thought I'd never see. A forecast
map issued by the National Weather Service office in
South Burlington, Vermont forecasting high
temperatures today - in mid- February - in the
low 70s across western Vermont. 

Just a quick update this morning as I've got an early meeting.  

That strange February heat wave has arrived and records are already falling. It was more than a little bizarre this morning to take the dogs outside this morning in far northern Vermont comfortably wearing shorts and a t-shirt. In Vermont! In February!

Before midnight, Burlington, Vermont had a record high for the date of 59 degrees.

Before dawn this morning, it was already 61 degrees in Burlington, a record high for today, and the temperature will keep rising before a cold front comes in this afternoon.

It's actually too bad the front is coming when it is. Had it held off until evening, the temperatures would really climb. Still, this heat wave is unprecedented, in an era when we're having unprecedented heat waves now once every few months or more. (Examples: Remember the four days of 90 degree heat in late September, during the autumn? and the 70 degree heat at the end of February last year?)

By the way 61 degrees at 5 a.m. in Burlington is exactly normal for that time of day in mid-July, the peak of summer. Today's forecast highs, in the 60s, with a few low 70s possible in southwestern Vermont, are normal for late May.

If it reaches 70 degrees in Vermont today, this will be the third winter in a row that the Green Mountain State has seen 70 degree readings during both the winter.  That's never happened before.

The flood watch is still in effect for today for most of Vermont and northern New York as the snow is rapidly melting, rivers are rising and ice jams are holding in place. As of dawn, I haven't seen many flood warnings in the region yet, but I have a feeling that will change soon. There was an ice jam on the Ausable River in New York that prompted flood warnings for awhile overnight.

The only good news regarding the flood watch is that although there will be showers around with the cold front this afternoon, those rains won't be particularly heavy and they won't last all that long in any particular spot.

After today, it's back to winter reality in Vermont with temperatures tonight bottoming out near 20 degrees by dawn and rising to only the low 30s Thursday afternoon. Which is normal for this time of year.

Beyond that, we're still in a weather pattern in which there's a strong ridge of warm high pressure to out southeast and cold air over the continent. That will drive a few  modest storm systems by us through the weekend.

It'll be warm enough so that most of the precipitation will be rain, but snow will mix in at times. There will be some light accumulations in the mountains, but not remotely enough to replace what was lost in this heat wave.

While we Vermonters are basking in summer warmth for at least part of today, freezing rain in the middle of the country extends as far south as central Texas.  

A conveyor belt of deep moisture and heavy rain that started a couple days ago continues to run from northeast Texas to the Great Lakes.

Flood warnings and watches continue to extend from Texas to Michigan. Some areas have had up to five inches of rain already. Another six or seven inches of rain or locally more is forecast over the next several days in and near Arkansas, so flooding will continue to spread and get worse.

This Could Be Vermont's Four Really Off The Rails Weather February In A Row

Day lillies bizarrely begin to sprout during all time
record February warmth last year. 

Forecasts for midweek in Vermont tell us  we'll be seeing temperatures in the 60s to around 70 by Wednesday in most of the state, which is really incredible for February. In fact, it would be unprecedented if not for last year.

If the forecast comes true, it'll make if the fourth February in a row that has rewritten, or at least altered, record books. One of those Februarys, 2015, was very cold. The other three are seeing record heat.

Let's get 2015 out of the way. It was a brutal February, the third coldest on record with a mean temperature of 7.6 degrees. That's nearly 14 degrees below normal. There were no extremely cold nights that month, nothing in the 20s to near 30 below zero.

But the cold was grindingly consistent. In Burlington, 17 of the 28 days that month had temperatures below zero.

Subsequent Februarys turn hot. The first week of February, 2016 saw record highs in the 50s. That week is normally the depth of winter, but I recall working in my garden, digging completely unfrozen ground as I prepared new perennial beds.  I'm so far north that I can literally see Canada from my house.  So that was a new experience.

February, 2016 ended up being the 9th warmest on record. It would have averaged even higher if not for a brief Valentine's weekend cold snap that brought temperatures into the teens below zero before readings quickly recovered.

February, 2016 brought heavy rains, too. Places like Hardwick and Springfield Vermont saw several buildings and businesses damaged by flooding. Rainfall in one storm that month amounted to as much as 2.8 inches in just over 24 hours. That's nearly double the amount of precipitation that usually falls in an entire February.

Garden work in far northern Vermont in umfrozen ground
early February 2016. At that time of year, the earth should
have been frozen rock hard with snow covering it, but
record heat changed that scenario. 

Then there was the piece de resistance, February, 2017, which really, really went off the rails. By the 23rd of the month, Burlington reached 63 degrees, breaking the old all-time record high for February of 62.

But we were just warming up. Literally. On the 25th, Burlington reached 72 degrees, shattering the monthly record. It was also 72 in Bennington during that hot spell, so both figures now stand as the warmest readings on record for anywhere in Vermont.

The warmth was so extreme that severe weather came all the way north into New England. It was so weird the first February tornado on record in Massachusetts damaged homes in the western part of the state.

Now we're waiting to see how weird this week gets. We'll keep an eye on it for sure!

Extreme Weather Pattern Is About To Create Lots Of Extreme Weather

As of Sunday afternoon, the map on the home
page of the National Weather Service was lit up
with lots of colors. That signifies lots of weather
watches, warnings and alerts, meaning there will
be a lot to talk about in the weather over the coming days.
The dark green you see in Vermont is a flood watch.

The jet stream and the weather is going haywire again, which means we here in Vermont, and a lot of people throughout Earth's Northern Hemisphere are going to have plenty of extreme and bizarre weather over the next week or so.

THE PATTERN:

The polar vortex, that whirlpool of very cold air that pretty much always wanders around the Arctic, or at least near it, all the time has split into two pieces. That's rare, but it does happen occasionally.

One piece is ending up roughly over central and northwestern Canada, while the other piece is somewhere around Siberia. That means western North America and parts of Europe and interior Asia are turning quite cold.

The split in the polar vortex means another big squirt of warm air will enter the far northern Arctic, including around the North Pole. (This has been going on a lot lately.)

That's bad, because it's been very warm (for them) across much of the Arctic most of this winter. Sea ice extent is running at record lows.

That burst of above freezing air coming in for the high Arctic will just make things worse.

UNITED STATES SCREWED, TOO

Meanwhile, down here in the United States, a big, strong ridge of high pressure - basically an out of season Bermuda High, is about to pump record warm temperatures into the eastern third of the nation.

Out west, the position of one piece of the polar vortex means it's going to be quite cold over the next several days in the western third of the United States. Again, that's bad. It's been incredibly warm in California all winter. Plants and crops are blooming much earlier than normal as a result.

This cold air is going to nip lots of agricultural crops, especially in California's Central Valley. Hard freeze warnings are up, and it looks like the too-early blooming plants are going to get nailed. I expect millions of dollars in agricultural losses because of this. There also might be some shortages of produce in your supermarket.

More inland, winter storm warnings, watches and advisories are up for wide areas of the Rockies and northwestern Plains state.

Big chunks of The eastern half of the country is in trouble with this weather pattern, too. The orientation of this Bermuda high will help draw massive amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to repeated rounds of torrential rains in a broad band from Texas to Michigan.

Many - but not all -  of these areas have had quite a lot of rain this month already. Some areas from northeastern Texas through Arkansas and into southern Ilinois could get seven or more inches of rain over the next week. There is a high chance of flooding, as you'd imagine.

VERMONT EFFECTS:

We barely got clipped by that storm that zipped by to our south last night. Most of us got one to three inches of snow, with a little less around Burlington and up to six inches and southern and eastern parts of the state.

It's kind of mild today, and some of the snow is starting to melt. But you haven't seen anything yet!

After the 30s today, it'll get into the 40s Monday and 50s to low 60s Tuesday and Wednesday. That's definitely record territory.  This will be an unusually humid warm spell for this time of year. When the air is moist, snow tends to melt much faster than when the air is dry.

The start of a thaw. Snow sliding off my St. Albans, Vermont
roof today clings to the eaves in foot-long sheets. With
forecasts for highs near 60 by Tuesday and Wednesday,
this snow will be gone soon. 

Also, partly because of the humidity, temperatures will remain extremely warm Tuesday might.

Lows early Wednesday will probably stay above 50 degrees in the Champlain Valley. That's normal for late May, not February! That'll keep the snow melt going at a fast clip.

Also, there will be a fair bit of rain during this, especially over northern areas, which will be closer to a stalled front.

The combination of melting snow and the rain could lead to flooding. Most of Vermont and northern New York is now under a flood watch Monday through Wednesday.

The biggest problem here is the ice jams left behind from that other mega-thaw in January. They're still there, and this thaw and rain will either dam up water behind the ice jams, make the ice jams even bigger, or move them into more populated areas.

As we found out in towns like Swanton and Johnson back in January, this can quickly lead to destructive flooding.

So yeah, we'll probably have quite a bit to talk about in the weather department over the next several days.

Western Europe's Weather Is Off The Rails, Too. Especially Paris Flooding

A statue engulfed in Seine River flood water this
week in Paris. 

Many people, including myself,  have always wanted to go the Louve in Paris. If you're in Paris now, you're out of luck. The Louve - at least part of it -  is closed. 

Some of the worst flooding along the Seine River in decades has flooded neighborhoods and streets, and forced evacuations of some neighborhoods. As a precaution, the Louve moved some priceless artworks in lower parts of the complex to upper floors.  

Parts of the Paris Metro are shut down, expressways near the river are also closed, and tourists can't take riverfront cruises.

The flood along the Seine in Paris is peaking today, and the water should slowly recede after that.  The river is peaking at 5.95 meters, just shy of the 6.1 meters in 2016. This would make the Seine flood among the worst in modern records. On the bright side, it's not THE worst.

Initially there were fears the Seine could reach the record level of 8.62 meters, which would have shut down basically the entire city of Paris and would have forced the evacuation of at least a few hundred thousand people, if not more.

This has been Paris' third wettest December-January period on record.

The Seine flood is a symptom of how stormy it's been in western Europe this month. There were two whopping wind storms that caused extensive damage from England to Germany.

Guards on a rooftop for the Davos World Economic Forum
in Switzerland had a tough time of it with deep snow.

You might have also seen the footage out of Davos, Switzerland, where all those worldwide mucky mucks just had their big soiree. It snowed like hell there, making transportation difficult, and - horrors! making the helicopter landing pad temporarily unusable.

Some people in Switzerland were evacuated due to an avalanche danger. A few places in the Alps got ten feet of snow in a week.

In the lower elevations of western Europe, they've been enjoying a very warm winter, if you discount the storms, flooding and wind damage, I guess.  Denmark looks like it's going to have its warmest January on record. On Wednesday, one town in Denmark reached 55 degrees, a national record for warmth in Denmark for January. Other nearby nations will come close to having a record warm January.

As we Americans in the eastern United States shivered in one of the coldest New Year's Eves on record, it was almost t-shirt and shorts weather in Europe. Most of Germany had its warmest New Year's Eve on record, with temperatures as high as 56 degrees.

The Northern Hemisphere's wild winter weather ride has been caused by a unusually wave jet stream pattern, with a big bulges to the north in western North America and western Europe. This  has caused mostly dry, warm conditions in California and the very warm, stormy weather in western Europe.

Big corresponding dips in the jet stream froze out eastern North America earlier this winter, and is persistently freezing eastern Asia. At least the Winter Olympics in South Korea are safe, as it's been unusually cold and snowy there. Seoul, South Korea got down to 0 degrees last week, at least 20 degrees colder than normal.

In Moscow, caught in a persistent storm track, they had what can easily be described as the ultimate gloomy December. That far north, a clear December day in Moscow can still yield seven hours of sunshine. For the entire month of December, the sun was out a total whopping amount of six minutes.

Not hours. Minutes. No wonder Russians have a reputation as being grumpy.

The weather pattern temporarily relaxed in North America in the past couple of weeks, as I've already noted in yesterday's post, but it still looks like it's going to get cold and active again for a good chunk of February.

Update On New Round Of Severe Storms, Record Warmth

Areas in yellow and orange are most at risk for severe
thunderstorms and tornadoes today and tonight.
A few strong tornadoes are possible. 

It looks like it's going to be a dangerous afternoon and evening across the middle of the United States.

Another burst of warm air has engulfed the eastern half of the nation, and a storm in the middle of the country is about to spawn another round of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

This outbreak looks like it will be more widespread than the one that hit last weekend, and it could also be worse, with more and stronger tornadoes than the ones that struck Saturday in the Northeast.

It all depends upon how the atmospherics come together.

At this point, the areas that seem to be at greatest risk of severe storms and tornadoes is northern Arkansas, the eastern half of Missouri and most of Illinois and Indiana.

It's possible some of the tornadoes will become quite strong - EF3 or higher- and those are the ones that cause the most damage, and created the highest risk of casualties.

It looks like each individual storm that forms today and tonight will move along quite quickly, so if any of these contains a tornado, there won't be a lot of time for people in the path of the storms to take shelter.

Also, this is hitting on a weekday, when more people are out and about going to work, school and errands. Generally speaking, more people are at home on weekends like during Saturday's rough weather, so there's a better chance they will be in a place where they'd hear a weather radio or a TV station will sqawk out a warning.

Areas in yellow and orange are most at risk for severe
thunderstorms Wednesday. A few tornadoes are possible
in the yellow and orange zones. 

On Wednesday, the severe weather moves east, probably covering a large area from Alabama and Mississippi to near New York City.  

Strong straight line winds and big hail are the biggest threat tomorrow, but I would not at all be surprised to hear of a few tornadoes in this zone during the day Wednesday.

As the storm rides on by, more record heat is expected in the East, from Florida all the way to northern New England.

VERMONT EFFECTS 

Here in Vermont, record highs are endangered again tomorrow. It won't get up to 72 degrees like it did Saturday, but Wednesday's record high of 59 degrees in Burlington is definitely under threat.

There will be a fairly decent slug of rain coming through Wednesday and Wednesday evening, possibly accompanied by some rumbles of thunder again.

I would not be at all surprised if we get more low land flooding out of this, just as we did Saturday and Sunday.

The good news is most of the ice has been flushed out of the rivers, so the risk of ice jams is lower. And there's not as much snow to melt and add to the rivers as there was over the weekend.

It'll turn sharply colder Thursday night and it's back to winter Friday and Saturday with temperatures actually a little below normal.

After that, I don't see any real signs of any more record heat for the forseeable future.

Unprecedented Extreme Weather In Recent Days Has Climate Change Fingerprints

Day lily shoots beginning to sprout in my garden in
northwestern Vermont today after unprecedented
February heat. Very weird. 

On Thursday, when Burlington, Vermont reached 63 degrees to establish a new all time record high temperature for February, I said that was one of the weirdest weather days I'd ever seen.  

Then Saturday came along. The temperature in Burlington soared to an unbelieveable 72 degrees, smashing the monthly record set just two days earlier.

And it broke the record by nine degrees, a margin I'd previous thought to be impossible for any monthly record any time of year.

I have to say Saturday really blew my Vermont weather mind.

The 69 degrees in Bennington Thursday broke the record for the hottest recorded temperature in the entire state of Vermont for February. That was broken Friday by a 71 degree reading in Bennington, followed by Burlington's 72 degrees Saturday.

Whew!

Add to that the dozens of all time February record highs in cities across the nation in the past month. And the very odd severe weather outbreak that prompted tornado warnings Saturday as far north as Pennsylvania and New York, which is much further north than I've ever seen in February.

They're even investigating whether a tornado touched down in western Massachusetts.  In February, when everybody is supposed to worry about snowstorms, not twisters.

Then there's the incredible California storms this winter, and the deep northern New England snows that preceded the record warmth before it all melted away.

The weather is really off the rails, that's for sure.

What's going on?

CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE

I'll start with caveat that you've heard before, but it's important for context. A single weather event, even one that is extreme as we saw Saturday is not proof that global warming exists, and is not solely caused by global warming.

A lot of influences that had little or nothing to do with global warning were all factors that caused the wacky weather.

Still, what has happened with the weather in recent weeks is consistent with what climate scientists have said would happen in a warming climate.

Damage from a possible tornado in western Massachusetts
Saturday. If confirmed, it would be the first recorded New
England tornado in February. Photo by Alex Kant.

The scientists keep saying the extremes keep getting more extreme with global warming, and the extremes happen more frequently.

Of course, you get more frequent and stronger heat waves with global warming (duh!), but the phenomenon can also cause bigger floods, bigger droughts, possibly bigger storms, even occasionally bigger cold waves.

It can also relocate where storms hit. Maybe tornadoes will hit further north earlier in the season than usual. That idea is not proven by climate change scientists, but it makes sense.

If it's warmer and more humid in the winter further north than it used to be, severe storms and tornadoes could move more north, too. After all, warmth and humidity is one ingredient necessary for severe thunderstorms.

The bottom line is , like it or not, global warming is here, and ou should expect more extremes.

What's happened with weather in Vermont over recent weeks and decades shouldn't be taken as the definitive proof of global warming.

But it illustrates the way things change.

INCREASING EXTREMES

Weather records for Burlington, Vermont go back to the 1880. There's always been weather extremes, and you can pick them out:

Two enormous blizzards in 1888. 64 degrees in January, 1906. 100 degrees in July, 1911. A devastating flood in November, 1927. A terrible hurricane in 1938. Huge summer heat waves in the 1940s.

When it comes to weather, things happen.  

Will climate change give us a stormier future?

It's just that now, the pace of the extremes has picked up, and gotten more extreme.

Picking apart the Burlington climate data further, he's one example of what I mean.

The previous record for the hottest February temperature on record was 62 degrees on February 19. 1981. That was broken by that 63 degree reading Thursday, then the 72 degrees Saturday.

Meanwhile, until 1990, the earliest 70 degree reading in the spring was on March 20, I think 1903. That record was broken relatively recently, in 1990, when it got up to 72 degrees on March 15. Then that record was broken just last year, when the temperature reached 70 on March 9. And that earliest 70 degree record was broken Saturday.

Plus,  remember that previous record earliest 70 on March 20? That was replaced just five years ago, in 2012, with Burlington's earliest 80 degree record on March 20 that year.

I suppose all these records aren't incredibly consequential for most of you who live in the real world.

But then add on the increasing pace of extremes during all times of the year in Vermont. And add all those extremes practically everywhere else in the nation and the world and things get really screwed up fast.

Unlike temperatures, which you can measure precisely, the definition of "extreme" is more subjective.    That's especially true if you're trying to determine whether the frequency of extreme weather is increasing. How do you measure that?

There's no precise way.

However, there's obvious real world consequences to this rising tide of extremes. (Which includes literal rising tides in vulnerable coastal locations.)

CHANGING OUR LIVES:

This new regime of extremes is changing our lives. I said that the winter heat waves of recent years in Vermont aren't radically alterning your life, but they are affecting you.  

Flooding along Lake Champlain in Colchester, Vermont
in 2011. Will we need to get used to more extremes
like this record flood?

Vermont depends upon winter tourism. All that snow in mid-February was great, but resorts across the state watched helplessly in the past few days as all that snow dissolved.

Maple sugarers have had to adjust their season and start earlier than they used to. No sugaring was ever done in February when I was a kid. Now it's routine.

Plus, you have to wonder how the warmth on recent days will affect the length and quality of this sugaring season.

Here and further south, trees and plants are budding, and they will inevitably get nipped with a return of more normal weather in March.

Did the Vermont apple crop get damaged? Will the peach crop further south in the United States get wiped out because it's been warm for weeks and a big cold wave will come down from Canada in March, as almost always happens?

Then you start thinking about the apparent overall increase in storms, droughts, floods and whatnot in Vermont, the United States and the world, and pretty soon you're talking about lots of real lives and real money.

Sounds bad, and I don't have the policies or the plans on how to deal with it.

We're all pretty much not totally capable of completely adapting to the changes and extremes in the weather and climate. But we're going to have to do our best.

The weird weather in Vermont over the past few days was a novelty.  Future extremes might be more dangerous than shorts and t-shirt weather in February.

It's going to be a wild ride.

The February Heat Remains Ridiculous. I Have No Words....

A chance of severe thunderstorms today as far north
as Vermont, says the SPC. In February!!

The amazing February heat wave continued to mindbogglingly smash records across much of the eastern United States Friday, and some areas have one more day to go with this absolute ridiculousness.

Monthly all time record high temperatures always fall from time to time in various cities, but the sheer number of places that have had their hottest February day on record is just huge.

And some of those records were smashed by wide margins, and/or broken repeatedly over the course of a few days.

I counted at least 30 cities in the Northeast from Ohio to Massachusetts that tied or broke their all time February highs on Friday. That's a big number. That's on top of the dozens of cities, including Burlington and Montpelier, Vermont that set monthly record highs Thursday, or other cities in the Midwest Wednesday.

Some examples of temperatures Friday way far north would not have been the least bit unusual for July, but February. Just wow.

Among them: 74 in Albany, New York, 73 in Boston, and 71 in Buffalo (no lake effect snowstorms there yesterday, that's for sure!)

Other February record highs included 80 in Charleston, West Virginia, 77 in Erie, Pennsylvania and 78 in Cincinnati.

It got up to 107 degrees in southern Texas this week, which I think is a national record for United States's hottest February reading.

Here in Vermont, it cooled slightly in all but extreme southern parts of the state. It got up to 72 degrees in Bennington Friday, but most of the rest of Vermont was in the 40s and 50s.

However, more records will happen today. The warm front passed through Burlington, Vermont on its way north between 5 and 6 a.m this morning. At 5 a.m., it was 37 degrees in Burlington. The temperature jumped, incredibly, a full 18 degrees to 55 by 6 a.m.

That 55 ties the record high for the date in Burlington. We reached it by 6 a.m. Just wild.  r

There's also still an excellent shot at having the all time February high temperatures that were set Thursday in Vermont to be broken today.

For instance, in Burlington, the high reached 63 Thursday and the forecast high today is 65. Montpelier's forecast high of 64 degrees today would beat the February record of 62 set on Thursday.

The February heat isnt the only interesting bit of weather here in New England today. That flood watch is still in effect for good reason, given the fast-melting snow.

A long list of record highs in the East Friday.
Click on the image to make it bigger and easier ro read. 

And that cold front that's coming. You sure will notice when the cold front comes in from the west later today.

The temperature will abruptly tumble, perhaps 20 degrees within an hour. There will also likely be a brief burst of very heavy rain and possibly damaging wind gusts with the arrival of the front.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center actually has all of Vermont in a marginal risk for severe thunderstorms later today.

The SPC actually has southwestern Vermont, and a stripe from eastern New York to Virginia in a slight risk zone for severe storms, which is a step up from marginal, meaning there's a bit of a higher risk of severe storms there than in the marginal risk area.

The Storm Prediction Center even has a very tiny risk of a brief tornado as far north as southwestern Vermont. In February! Don't hold your breath for a tornado because the risk is extremely low, but it could conceivably happen anywhere from  southwestern Vermont all the way south to Virginia.

Still, it' extremely rare to have the Storm Prediction Center hold out the possibility of severe thunderstorms in Vermont in February. This is just amazing.

The timing of the cold front would take it into northern New York mid to late afternoon and Vermont's Champlain Valley late in the afternoon or very early evening, then through the evening in the rest of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Tonight will bring the biggest risk of flooding since the snow will have been melting all day and we'll get that burst of rain this evening. Mainstem rivers like the Mississquoi and Winooski would still be high and/or flooding Sunday morning.

Be careful on those low spots! And don't drive on flooded roads.

Following the front, temperatures will end up at just a little warmer than normal Sunday, then it's back to well above normal temperatures most of next week.

It won't be record warm next week but it will still be awfully mild for the end of February and the beginning of March.

In a subsequent post in the coming couple of days I'll explore whether this heat wave has anything to do with climate change, because I know a lot of people are asking.

Record February Heat Now Invading New England

Here's what my driveway in St. Albans, Vermont looked
like exactly a week ago today. Scroll down to see how much
has changed within a week. 

The record warmth that has bathed much of the nation this week is making its way into New England as we speak.

As the warmth melts the snow and expected rains move in over the weekend, there is a risk of flooding in parts of northern New York, Vermot and perhaps other sections of New England.

Wednesday was just a foretaste of the balmy weather. It got up to 54 degrees in Burlington, Vermont Wednesday. That wasn't a record high, but it was normal weather for April, not February.

Today, we should get even hotter than that in Vermont and other sections of the Northeast. Burlington stands a great chance of breaking its record high for the date of 56 degrees today, given that the temperature was already up to 52 degrees as of 10 a.m.

Same view of my driveway today as the snowy scene above
A lot has changed in a week, hasn't it. 

With breaks in the clouds, I wouldn't be surprised if parts of Vermont and surrounding areas flirt with the 60 degree mark today.

The all time high for any day in February in Burlington is 62 degrees, and we could conceivably reach that record today or Saturday. Iffy, but possible.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont has issued a flood watch for northern New York and the northern two-thirds of Vermont from Friday evening through Sunday evening.

Snow cover in the valleys has already taken a beating. There was 15 inches of snow on the ground in Burlington Saturday and only four inches Wednesday.

Still, there's plenty of snow left to melt, especially in the high elevations, so there's going to be quite a bit of runoff. Additionally, the ground is largely frozen, so very little water will soak in.

There won't be all that much rain until Saturday afternoon across Vermont, but today's near record warmth, light rain on Friday and more record warmth Saturday will break up ice on rivers, leading to the risk of ice jams.

It will be slightly cooler Friday behind a weak cold front, but still much warmer than normal. Then that cold front will come back as a warm front Friday night, leading to more record warmth Saturday.

If Burlington ties or breaks its all time monthly February high this week, we'll join a growing club.

Hey, why not? Other cities in the path of this warm burst have already set February monthly records, including several cities in Wisconsin Wednesday.

Milwaukee got up to 71 degrees and Madison reached 68 degrees for new February records on Wednesday. Green Bay, Oshkosh and Appleton, Wisconsin also reached all time February records. So did Ottumwa, Iowa, where it got up to a summery 79 degrees.

Many dozens of daily record highs were set Wednesday in a broad stretch from Brownsville, Texas to Watertown, New York.  

Later Saturday and Saturday night, we'll get a burst of rain as a cold front approaches. The rapid snowmelt, combined with more than a half inch of rain will cause at least minor flooding on area rivers. Some rivers like the Winooski and Mad rivers could experience moderate flooding.

Plus, there could be some pretty serious flooding immediately upstream from any ice jams that form.

It'll turn sharply colder late Saturday night and Sunday amid some gusty northwest winds. But even then, it won't be all that cold for late February. Probably close to normal for Sunday, then back aboe normal next week.

It won't be record warm next week, but it will be pretty mild.

Sugaring season sure has gotten off to an extremely early start in Vermont. Let's hope sugar makers have already started collecting sap. If this keeps up, the season could end awfully early.

We'll have to wait and see on that one.

Arctic Sea Ice Remains Totally Lame

This chart shows the departure from normal of
"freezing degree days" in the Arctic. It reflects how
much the accumulated amount of freezing in the winter
in the Arctic compares normal. The black line on the
left is this year, the other lines are previous years. 

This story has been cropping up repeatedly for more than a year now, and the fact this still has legs is frightening.

You've probably seen several posts in this here blog thingy in which we fret about a dearth of Arctic sea ice.

The problem is persisting just as strongly as a more than year long spell of incredible warmth in the Arctic.

Of course, we all know the warmer it is, the slower the pace of ice formation up there.

Weather patterns this winter have favored occasional intrusions of relatively warm air into the Arctic at a time of year the region is normally in a pitch dark deep freeze.

Temperatures during these spells have flirted with 32 degrees near the North Pole, which isn't great if you want to manufacture ice.

This week, weather forecasts indicate another big shot of super warm air to invade the area near the North Pole.

The Arctic and Antarctic are probably more prone than anywhere on Earth to wild, extreme shifts in weather and climate.

Most scientists are pretty sure that part of this series of super warm spells up there are natural variability. That means that weird warm spells are bound to happen from time to time, and sometimes they can last awhile. And cause a temporary decine in ice coverage at the top of the world.

But these repeated bouts of Arctic "warmth" haven't been observed this persistently and this frequently in modern records. The consensus is climate change is messing with things, making the extreme warm spells even more extreme, and the cold spells not as bad as they once were.

There probably will be temporary shifts in which the ice extent in the Arctic temporarily recovers somewhat. There's bound to be winters in which weather patterns favor more cold air - with or without climate change.

And there will be years in which the summer melt season is lackluster. (2016 was kind of like that. The spring started with record low sea ice extent, but the summer warmth in the Arctic was - meh! - so by the time September rolled around, the sea ice extent was no longer at a record low, but still damn close to it. )

Regardless, the Washington Post's Capitol Weather Gang reports scientists are stunned by the level of warmth and lack of ice this winter in the Arctic.

Capitol Weather Gang cites this:

"After studying the Arctic and its climate for three and a half decades, I have concluded that what has happened over the last year goes beyond even the extreme," wrote Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center," in an essay in Earth magazine.

As Serreze notes, part of what's going on in the Arctic is just random extreme weather events, always happened, always will. However, global warming is superimposed on these extremes, making them more out of line than ever observed before.

Unusual weather patterns that have prevented frigid high pressure systems from settling over the Arctic, combined with repeated storms that pumped in warm air from the south, are the immediate blame for this winter's excessive Arctic warmth.

Almost nobody expects this weather pattern to continue forever, so we're sure to get some winters in which Arctic sea ice recovers somewhat.

But the overall trend for the next few decades will be less and less sea ice up in the Arctic. Eventually - nobody is exactly sure when - the Arctic Ocean will be pretty much free of ice during the summer.

Which will screw up weather patterns all over the world, so we need to increasinglt expect the unexpected over the next years and decades where we live in the mid-latitudes.

The Arctic is not Vegas: What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.

Hot Times In Barrow Alaska. (At Least By Their Standards)

Barrow, on the northern tip of Alaska is not the place for you if you like basking in tropical warmth.

It's easily the coldest city in the United States, and this time of year, normal highs are near 10 degrees, with readings a little below zero at night.

Barrow, Alaska, shown here in a summertime photo a
couple years back, is having a record warm autumn
at least by their standards.  

Back in October, when we Vermonters usually bask in temperatures up in the 50s and 60s amid fall foliage, it's usually winter already in Barrow. Normal daily high temperatures are usually below freezing by mid-October in Barrow.  

But by those chilly standards, Barrow has been a tropical paradise this autumn.

October's average temperature up there was 30.1 degrees, the hottest on record and a whopping 12.9 degrees toastier than normal.  It got up to 44 degrees on October 10 up there. Chilly for us, beach weather for them.

The warmth has continued into November. Instead of the usual high/low of 10 and a little below zero, daytime temperatures have been in the mid 20s to low 30s this month.

Part of the reason Barrow has been so warm has been a serious lack of sea ice in the Arctic. When there's open ocean, relatively warm water can evaporate into the air. When it's frozen, it's frozen, no "heat" escapes from the water. It's sealed off by ice.

Barrow is not the only place that's been so warm lately in the Great White North, though in a few places up there it still isn't so white.

The western and northwestern shores of Hudson Bay have reached the upper 50s in recent days, in a zone that is normally constantly below freezing this time of year.

Hudson Bay is usually freezing up by this time of year, but it's largely ice free at the moment.

This northern warmth will have a bit of a factor in our weather here in New England late this week and into Saturday.

We're due for a shot of cold air from the source region of central Canada, where temperatures are so much warmer than average. That means the cold shot coming our way won't be as cold as you'd expet in the weather pattern that is expected to set up at the end of the week.

Instead of our own early season bout of subfreezing afternoons, it will be seasonably cold, with highs in the upper 30s, with just scattered wet snow showers. No big deal for November.



 were basking in fall foliage and temperature