El Nino at play behind cold weather

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El Nino at play behind cold weather
Topic Started: Jan 9 2010, 12:49 PM (94 Views)
Brandon82	Jan 9 2010, 12:49 PM Post #1
Loyal Member Posts: 444 Group: Member Member #404 Joined: December 2, 2005 Gender Male Browser Opera Blog Please insert the title of your blog	I took geography and some atmospheric courses when I was at university years ago, and one thing that surprises me with the current 'cold snap' the southern US is experiencing is what short memories people have. In 2003 we had a bitterly cold winter in the south, I was in Tennessee at the time, and while Tennessee isn't deep south and still gets relatively cold in winter, we had like a month of weather where it didn't get above 20 degrees which is atypical and snow was on the ground for over a month nonstop. I remember it well, it was snowfall after snowfall and was very cold. What do the winter of 2003 and the winter of 2010 have in common? Its coming at the end of an El-Nino Southern Oscillation year - an all but forgotten phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean is hotter than average and holds a great deal of heat, transforming world weather patterns and throwing everything off balance. Its effects tend to be hard to predict, and if it sends a jet stream off course it can plunge very cold weather further south from the arctic even though the entire Pacific Ocean's central basin is overheated. Here is a photo, courtesy of NOAA, of oceanic temps worldwide right now: And here is the difference from the average: Average temperatures in the Pacific are anywhere from 3-5C above average as its a typical El Nino season. There's your partial answer to our interesting weather. This doesn't prove nor disprove global warming, its just information so I'm not looking for another global warming discussion with half-truths and myths of why the earth is cooling - its not - its just some info about the current winter weather in the southern US that is causing them to be so whiney and babyish over semi-frozen temps. ;)



Brandon82	Jan 10 2010, 11:31 AM Post #2
Loyal Member Posts: 444 Group: Member Member #404 Joined: December 2, 2005 Gender Male Browser Opera Blog Please insert the title of your blog	Here is a fantastic link with a map that goes over the past year: http://www.statesman.com/news/interactive-tracking-el-ni-ntilde-o-165025.html



StEC	Jan 10 2010, 07:46 PM Post #3
Gender Hudini Admin Posts: 16,544 Group: Administrator Member #1 Joined: August 19, 2004 Gender Male Mood Positive Browser Firefox Blog StEC's Blog!	Interesting... all I know is my face froze off today when I walked to work and I was not impressed lol
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dfxshadow	Jan 15 2010, 01:14 AM Post #4
Silver Member Posts: 1,860 Group: Retired Staff Member #54 Joined: September 19, 2004	The program I just watched on weather channel did not chalk the colder temperatures up to El Nino, they did mention that it attributed, but went on to say it was not the root cause of the cold snap. There is apparently some other cycle that the jet stream goes through that every 50 to 60 years. I did not catch what the guy called it, but it has something to do with the northern jet stream's pressure pushing down further than normal, and the resulting snow across the majority of the continent caused somewhat of a reverse greenhouse effect allowing the ground to reflect more of the suns energy than it absorbs, thus making it get colder, thus causing it to snow more, and the jet stream to move further south. .. Now for the Global Warming joke... Whatever those eco-hippies are doing is obviously working. I'm freezing my balls off this year.
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Woodman	Jan 18 2010, 03:38 AM Post #5
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Brandon82	Jan 25 2010, 12:26 AM Post #6
Loyal Member Posts: 444 Group: Member Member #404 Joined: December 2, 2005 Gender Male Browser Opera Blog Please insert the title of your blog	dfxshadow Jan 15 2010, 01:14 AM The program I just watched on weather channel did not chalk the colder temperatures up to El Nino, they did mention that it attributed, but went on to say it was not the root cause of the cold snap. There is apparently some other cycle that the jet stream goes through that every 50 to 60 years. I did not catch what the guy called it, but it has something to do with the northern jet stream's pressure pushing down further than normal, and the resulting snow across the majority of the continent caused somewhat of a reverse greenhouse effect allowing the ground to reflect more of the suns energy than it absorbs, thus making it get colder, thus causing it to snow more, and the jet stream to move further south. .. Now for the Global Warming joke... Whatever those eco-hippies are doing is obviously working. I'm freezing my balls off this year. The irony is that el nino can also throw the jet streams to the north of their more average journey thus creating much warmer temperatures than normal, but it goes to show you how interconnected global weather can be. Obviously the cold snap is over, as the high today was nearly 50 in Buffalo.



zzzzzzzuhlast	Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Post #7
Mercora's Purple Monkey Posts: 608 Group: Investor Member #843 Joined: August 5, 2009 Gender Private	Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point.
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Brandon82	Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM Post #8
Loyal Member Posts: 444 Group: Member Member #404 Joined: December 2, 2005 Gender Male Browser Opera Blog Please insert the title of your blog	zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point. Where are you?



zzzzzzzuhlast	Jan 30 2010, 01:27 PM Post #9
Mercora's Purple Monkey Posts: 608 Group: Investor Member #843 Joined: August 5, 2009 Gender Private	Brandon82 Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point. Where are you? I thought you knew? I live in Toronto. and as I type this it is no longer raining, it is a sunny day and minus 18 this morning when I woke up!
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Ojpj	Jan 31 2010, 08:19 AM Post #10
Gold Member Posts: 3,947 Group: Member Member #129 Joined: January 6, 2005	zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 30 2010, 01:27 PM Brandon82 Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point. Where are you? I thought you knew? I live in Toronto. and as I type this it is no longer raining, it is a sunny day and minus 18 this morning when I woke up! I live on the north shore of a small lake in Ontario, and a few days ago when the daytime temp dropped to minus 26 degrees C, my testicles retracted so far up into me that I had trouble swallowing my Honey Nut Cheerios.



aphrodite	Jan 31 2010, 01:31 PM Post #11
Silver Member Posts: 1,837 Group: Co-Administrator Member #452 Joined: June 3, 2006 Gender Female Mood Happy Blog Please insert the title of your blog	Ojpj Jan 31 2010, 08:19 AM zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 30 2010, 01:27 PM Brandon82 Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point. Where are you? I thought you knew? I live in Toronto. and as I type this it is no longer raining, it is a sunny day and minus 18 this morning when I woke up! I live on the north shore of a small lake in Ontario, and a few days ago when the daytime temp dropped to minus 26 degrees C, my testicles retracted so far up into me that I had trouble swallowing my Honey Nut Cheerios. Too many nuts in this tale



Brandon82	Jan 31 2010, 04:53 PM Post #12
Loyal Member Posts: 444 Group: Member Member #404 Joined: December 2, 2005 Gender Male Browser Opera Blog Please insert the title of your blog	zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 30 2010, 01:27 PM Brandon82 Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM zzzzzzzuhlast Jan 25 2010, 06:39 PM Yes for now it sure is I woke to fog and rain, and remember last year at this time there was snow! Who knows how the rest of the winter or spring will be, but I am hoping we will get a summer this year at some point. Where are you? I thought you knew? I live in Toronto. and as I type this it is no longer raining, it is a sunny day and minus 18 this morning when I woke up! For some reason I didn't know, or forgot.



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