2011-2012 Winter Thread

[1992casey]

If I close this thread it will almost guarantee that you will get snow in May and June.

 

Just to add some trivia, I read somewhere that every county in Wisconsin has gotten measurable snow in the months between September and May. No Wisconsin county has gotten measurable snow during June, July, or August.

[Vgmastr]

I can remember back in '98 (I think) we had a big snowstorm in April. I would rather not jinx things and go through something like that again.

 

Heck, we had a big snowstorm at the end of April last year. I remember it because the storm knocked my power out and I sat in a dark house with a blizzard outside listening to the Brewer game on a weather radio, it was the game in Philly where the Brewers knocked Halladay around.

[TooLiveBrew]

Thank you, owbc.

 

In an area like WI which is favored for warming it is a little more.

 

What does "favored for warming" mean, in a layman's or idiot's sense?

 

 

So you can't even conclusively say that this warm winter is because of global warming.

 

That's pretty incredible. Scientific agreement on global warming & its main cause... even my own experience that this winter 'seems' like the warmest & strangest I've seen in my lifetime, & we can't be certain the two are related.

[owbc]

Wisconsin is supposed to warm faster than the global mean, so that's why I say it is a favored area for warming. It's not Wisconsin in particular, but the mid-to-high latitudes as a whole. Also areas away from the oceans warm faster because the ocean moderates the warming effect.

 

I think most experts would say that global warming and this warm winter are related. But it wouldn't have been impossible to get a winter like this in the late 1800s and if you trust the temperature records, there were occasionally some very warm winters back then. For instance, the 1878 winter was warmer in Madison than 2012. But the sea ice doesn't vary as much as temperature, the historical record is more reliable, and sea ice is the lowest that it has been over the past several thousand years.

 

I guess the most important message is that the feedback between warmer temperatures and weather patterns is very complicated and there is much that is still not well understood. We can't say how much of this warm winter is attributable to natural cycles and how much is attributable to global warming. They interact in complicated ways and even extreme and cold can relate to global warming. But the idea is that global warming would turn a certain extreme event (like a flood or a warm winter) that only occurs once in 100 years into an event that occurs more often, maybe once every 10 or 20 years. The way you could get a more exact number is by running a climate model for a warm climate and counting how many times you have warm winters. You could still get a warm winter in the normal climate, but you would get more of them in the warm climate.

[TooLiveBrew]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions so thoroughly, owbc

[pitchleague]

I just want to say that we are expected to get snow down at the 3500 foot level tonight, so kind of excited.

 

It helps that it'll be gone by noon tomorrow, but still.

[NeedMoreFans]

Don't get me wrong, I love the warm weather this winter, but it is really throwing things out of whack. Things are blooming now that normally bloom a month from now. Most trees have buds, much of my grass is turning green and growing, and we have flowers already. I worry what a prolonged freezing streak will do to the vegetation.

[craigharmann]

I'm loving the winter weather we've been having in San Antonio. Very different than the last couple of years! Rain!!!!! Tonight we're predicted to get between 2-5 inches. I've had to mow my lawn more in the last 6 weeks than pretty much in all of last year!

[sdcheezhd]

Cold rain and some hail all weekend in San Diego. Two more hours til spring and then maybe our long nightmare will be over . . .

[pitchleague]

we ended up with about and inch of snow on the ground here but plenty dumped up in the mountains.

 

Of course, the delayed the start of school today by 3 hours.

[hawing]

pitchleague, I'm just glad you're safe.