How's your weather?/General weather discussion thread [Intended potentially for running discussion!]

[kakhome1]

Basically what the title says, I have a huge interest in weather so figured it was worth taking a shot at a potential discussion about it (and at your discretion, and if you don't mind, please mention where you live).

I'm in Northern Ohio, my normal is +1C right now. This current weather is crazy. It was -6C or colder for 2 weeks straight starting the end of December. Then yesterday, just a scant few days later, it was +17C and never even fell below +13C all night! Now colder air is coming back in, approaching -10C again by tomorrow morning, windy and snow possible as well.

[CDN_Merlin]

Ottawa, Canada, right now it's raining with a 10c temp. Turning to freezing rain this afternoon and then 10cm of snow and a low of -10c overnight.
Last week we had -40c/f weather for 2 weeks

[kakhome1]

Yeah that Eastern North America cold snap was a big one. 2014 and early 2015 had them even more frequently. It was hard for me to believe at the time that the whole globe was burning up heat records! But most of the timbre since mid 2015 it's been really warm.

Here the coldest in the last two weeks was a mere -19C, but I'm by a lake that is still relatively warm early on. In early 2015 (February, I think it became the coldest month ever in Ottawa) was as cold as -27C here.

It was one of the coldest months here, too. But I love cold and would love another one!

2015 sure did not remain a chilly year though. December was the warmest ever, by far.

ps And yeah -40C = -40F, interesting thing to know though I'd known it for a while.

[vision]

Southern California here. It's too hot. Much warmer than any January I remember.

[kakhome1]

Southern California has been ridiculously hot lately with destructive fires (like Thomas). Last winter though you had beneficial rain for the long term drought. That same pattern meant no winter here in the Eastern USA though. It was 17-20C for a week straight in February (against normal around 4C) and one day even shot to a staggering 25C with severe thunderstorms.

[Tunnelcat]

I moved your thread here kakhome1 since it's more of a general weather discussion without all the politics involved.

I live north of you in Oregon and we've had a warmer and drier winter than usual. The mountain heres are low on snow too, so our summer may come in next June with a low mountain snowpack and the requisite shortage of summer water. Things can always change however since winter has a month or so yet to go, although the trend is for more of the same.

[kakhome1]

Sorry, I had just saw the global warming thread in the other section so assumed it was the section all non-Descent stuff goes in, wasn't aware it was split into multiple sections. Should've looked closer. No problem with moving.

How was 2017 for you (and anyone else who wants to comment) weather-wise? You (in Oregon) had a hot summer (record hot August), but a cold winter (of 2016/17). It was a warm year as a whole (just like the rest of the USA) but not as warm as the record warmest year for Oregon (2015). And there was a tornado in Oregon (rare!) in both October 2016 and October 2017.

[Tunnelcat]

Sorry, I had just saw the global warming thread in the other section so assumed it was the section all non-Descent stuff goes in, wasn't aware it was split into multiple sections. Should've looked closer. No problem with moving.

Not a problem.

How was 2017 for you (and anyone else who wants to comment) weather-wise? You (in Oregon) had a hot summer (record hot August), but a cold winter (of 2016/17). It was a warm year as a whole (just like the rest of the USA) but not as warm as the record warmest year for Oregon (2015). And there was a tornado in Oregon (rare!) in both October 2016 and October 2017.

Now if you'd asked me about warm and dry winters 2 years ago, we had just come off the warmest and driest 3 winters in a long time for the PNW. California was worse and suffering extreme drought conditions those years too, so the whole West Coast kind of goes hand in hand weather wise. In fact, most of our warmest winters have been in the last couple of decades. This year, I got my yard fencing replaced, but they couldn't get to it until December, the perennial worst month for outside projects in Oregon. I worried that everything it would become a mucky mess. So the day they started digging holes for posts, lo and behold, it rained cats and dogs. If this kept up, things were going to be a muddy royal mess. But the very next day and for the next 2 weeks, it dried up like a desert and went cold. They were able to finish the fence without having to deal with the damn rain. A couple of days after they finished, the rain came back came with a vengeance. Go figure. The only saving grace was that it didn't start raining WHILE is was that cold. I definitely didn't need snow!

http://koin.com/2015/01/22/2nd-warmest- ... -portland/

[kakhome1]

As for warm and dry winters, it looks like some cold did come into the PNW in 2013/14. But 2014/15 was record warm. Both were quite cold winters in the Eastern USA, however. 2015/16 was very warm by February 2016 in the PNW though February 2015 was warmer still.

I definitely saw the drought stretching into Oregon in 2014 and especially in 2015. It started to rain more by the end of 2015 though, north of where rains from a strong El Nino typically go. The 'ridiculously resilient ridge' was no more.

2014 fell just short of being a record hot year in Oregon (which makes me wonder why you linked to 2014's news article rather than 2015's), but 2015 smashed Oregon's annual heat record (as it did for the entire globe as well, obliterated 2014's record by the largest margin ever). In Oregon, it did cool off some in September, November, and December 2015, however, but the year as a whole remained record hot.

The Eastern USA where I live was quite chilly in 2014 and early 2015 at the same time your area had persistent record heat. So chilly I was having a very hard time believing 2014 had actually broken the global heat record at the time! (As your article also mentions.) But all of the US has been warm each of the last three years, and I also know better now that even what seems to be a balanced pattern of warm and cold in the USA during a particular year (like in 2014, warm West and cold East) could highly misrepresent temperature distributions on the global scale. Back then I was paying more attention to USA temperatures than global. Now it is the opposite.

[Krom]

Our weather has been pretty volatile going from one extreme to the other. Its been bitterly cold, followed by unseasonably warm, followed by bitter cold again, and then its going to warm up again.

[kakhome1]

This thread is intended for potentially a running discussion BTW, whenever you're interested in posting about your current weather or anything else weather-related.

It snowed again this afternoon! Not a huge snowpack, but got a little back at least. And sitting at -6C again. Should keep the snow on the ground next 5-6 days before a long warm up is forecast.

This month to date has began just like a crazy roller-coaster ride usually does, in the most literal way - start down, go up, crash down again. Never warmer than -6C the first week (usually not above -10C), a few days around +2C, then way up to +17C, only to come back to where it is now. Period ahead doesn't look as cold as the first week of the month, but still definitely look and feel like winter a little longer before the real 'January thaw' is forecast.

[kakhome1]

Some of the absolutely craziest weather whiplash I've seen even for the standards of where I live: A week ago, it was no higher than -11C all day, -20C at night. With several inches of snow on the ground. Between late Wednesday (10th) and early Friday (12th) it was +13C or warmer (as high as +17C) for 30 hours consecutively (even at night), wet, and relatively humid as well. Snow - all gone - every last flake of it. Looked and felt like a wet late April day. Now 24 hours later, a few inches of snow on the ground again and -8C and feels like -15C or colder factoring the wind in.

Too bad I can't just take a timelapse of all this in fast motion (maybe go forward an hour each second). You'd have a stunning 3-minute video if I could.

[Alter-Fox]

It's been waffling between -20 and -30 C here (southern Manitoba) for most of this week. Last weekend it was up to -10 and even zero one time, which is rare this time of year -- what we've got now is much closer to the normal.
I'm going up to the tundra for two and a half weeks in February and I'll keep you guys updated then.

[kakhome1]

I looked at a North America temperature map and the last week has been warmer than normal in southern Manitoba, but the last two weeks combined and the month-to-date have been colder than normal.

[Descer]

Normal snow amount, but temperature's 10+ C warmer than should (-6)

Last year was rainy.

[LightWolf]

Hello from Wyoming, the land of cold and wind. Except for hot summers.