Weather!

[Ann]

As I look out my windows today, I can see no snow at all. It really appears to be absolutely all gone.

Ann

[Beyond]

As i look out my windows today, there is snow all over the place and it's not going anywhere soon!!

[geckzilla]

We still have entire parking spots occupied by snow. In New York City, this is like having your arteries clogged with cholesterol. The streets close in and become unnavigable. Ok, it's not that bad, but if the snow kept coming eventually no one would be able to access street parking and their cars buried under the snow. Interestingly, I've noticed a lot of people don't even bother to retrieve their cars from under the stuff. I think there must be a lot of households with spare cars that are only used when they are convenient.

[rstevenson]

Here we have overnight parking bans when there is enough snow. So you need to find somewhere to put your car from midnight to 6am so that the plows can clear the streets, or you risk a rather large fine. If you decide you don't care about the fine, the city will tow your car and then you'll have to pay for the towing, the storage, and the fine. I have a driveway so I have no idea what people do if they are stuck with on-street parking -- drive around all night?

Rob

[Beyond]

Here we have overnight parking bans when there is enough snow. So you need to find somewhere to put your car from midnight to 6am so that the plows can clear the streets, or you risk a rather large fine. If you decide you don't care about the fine, the city will tow your car and then you'll have to pay for the towing, the storage, and the fine. I have a driveway so I have no idea what people do if they are stuck with on-street parking -- drive around all night?

Rob

That's one of the great mysteries of the ages.

[geckzilla]

Maybe pay a parking garage? I dunno. Sometimes, when the neighbors have their garages open, I see that there is so much stuff inside them that a car can't possibly fit. In fact, more stuff can't possibly fit, either. I guess that's what happens when you have kids and live in these small houses.

Sometimes Pat's brother visits and we have to take a street spot because of the extra car. I've learned that one of the steps required to orchestrate the trading of cars in the street spot is to hide in the front seat and do not turn on the car. If you do, someone will see your lights on and camp behind until you leave. This happens in the minute interval it takes for the intended car to show up...

[orin stepanek]

we have a drive; but in the winter I hibernate my truck in the back yard as I don't have need it until Spring! We park the car in the drive and use it when it is time to go out! This keeps my Street parking open as the snow plows get right up to the curb! When I was still working I had to park the truck out front; when it snowed the graders made a swoop around the truck and I would have to dig out! That was a lot of extra snow removal for me!

[BMAONE23]

Maybe pay a parking garage? I dunno. Sometimes, when the neighbors have their garages open, I see that there is so much stuff inside them that a car can't possibly fit. In fact, more stuff can't possibly fit, either. I guess that's what happens when you have kids and live in these small houses.

Sometimes Pat's brother visits and we have to take a street spot because of the extra car. I've learned that one of the steps required to orchestrate the trading of cars in the street spot is to hide in the front seat and do not turn on the car. If you do, someone will see your lights on and camp behind until you leave. This happens in the minute interval it takes for the intended car to show up...

I would suggest in this situation, turn off your lights and get out. then they will be upset you aren't leaving and drive off. Then get back in

[geckzilla]

Yup, I did that, but by that time the other car had arrived and the neighbor had caught on. I got a sarcastic yelling at for that. "OOOH. I see how it is. Thanks a lot, neighbor!"

[Ann]

I found this picture on the Swedish Meteorological Institute site. It shows the global temperature distribution of January 2014. The picture says that from a global perspective January 2014 was warmer than normal, which means that it was warmer than the mean global January temperature during the reference period of 1961-1990.

In the picture, yellow means "normal", whereas red means "warmer than normal" and blue means "colder than normal". As you can see from the picture, eastern North America was one of four regions in the world that was colder than normal during January 2014. The two other regions were a tiny patch of Mexico, a long contiguous belt through northern Russia and China (Siberia?) and the northernmost part of Scandinavia. Yes, the northernmost part of Sweden had temperatures down to -40C, which was the coldest temperature in Sweden for thirty years.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I recorded an interesting weather phenomenon this week. I have a recording weather station, with data going back more than ten years. I often record warmer winter temperatures than other people around here who also keep records. Last Wednesday (February 5) was very cold, all day, hovering around 10°F. The ground was covered with several inches of snow. At sunset, around 17:30, the temperature plummeted to -8°F. That's not unusual, although the rate was certainly faster then usual. A few hours later I noticed the temperature was back up to 10°F, which was definitely not in the forecast. I also had an email from somebody a few miles away telling me my thermometer was wrong (my station is on the Internet, and quite a few locals follow it). He was still reading deeply negative temperatures. But when I checked with another thermometer, I still read 10°F.

Here's what happened.The air was absolutely still after 16:00 (which isn't common). When the Sun went down, the snow immediately experienced a radiative loss to the sky. In fact, I measured the snow temperature that night using an IR thermometer, and it was below the -30°F minimum the instrument can record. We had extremely cold snow and no wind, so the air close to the ground (my sensor is about 8 feet high) became very cold. But the airmass over the region stayed where it had been all day, about 10°F. Then, at 20:00, a very slight breeze came up, which brought that airmass back down to ground level, raising the temperature.

My weather station is on a slight rise. It consistently records higher nighttime winter temperatures than other nearby stations that are in depressions or valleys. When there's snow on the ground (which radiates more efficiently than dirt, rock, or grass), the difference can be extreme. On the morning of February 5 I drove to the school in the town of Guffey (three miles away, 300 feet lower). The temperature at my house was -4°F. The temperature at the school was -17°F. Guffey is in a small valley. Once I measured -11° at my house, and a friend just a few miles away, in a valley, measured -35°F.

The moral of all this is: if you live in a place that gets cold winters, don't build your house in a valley! A slight breeze won't bring the air in a deep depression back to true ambient. Only a stiff wind will do that, which means you trade very cold still air for serious wind chill.

[Nitpicker]

That is interesting. Similarly, in hot, humid Summers, you are better off on a hill than in a valley, so that you can always catch the cooling breezes.

[Beyond]

-10°F

[neufer]

---

Latest Week of TRMM Global Rainfall Accumulation (NASA)

<<Pineapple Express is a non-technical term for a meteorological phenomenon characterized by a strong and persistent flow of atmospheric moisture and associated with heavy precipitation from the waters adjacent to the Hawaiian Islands and extending to any location along the Pacific coast of North America. A Pineapple Express is an example of an atmospheric river, which is a more general term for such narrow corridors of enhanced water vapor transport at mid-latitudes around the world.

A Pineapple Express is driven by a strong, southern branch of the Polar jetstream and is marked by the presence of a surface frontal boundary which is typically either slow or stationary, with waves of low pressure traveling along its axis. Each of these low pressure systems brings enhanced rainfall.

The conditions are often created by the Madden-Julian oscillation, an equatorial rainfall pattern which feeds its moisture into this pattern. They are also present during an El Niño episode.

The composition of moisture-laden air, atmospheric dynamics, and orographic enhancement resulting from the passage of this air over the mountain ranges of the western coast of North America causes some of the most torrential rains to occur in the region. Pineapple Express systems typically generate heavy snowfall in the mountains and Interior Plateau, which often melts rapidly because of the warming effect of the system. After being drained of their moisture, the tropical air masses reach the inland prairies as a Chinook wind or simply "a Chinook", a term which is also synonymous in the Pacific Northwest with the Pineapple Express.>>

[geckzilla]

Fat, fluffy snowflakes! I've got the camera set at 30 second intervals out front to try to get some people-snow interaction with this deep layer of snow we are now covered in.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[geckzilla]

The swamp tries to reclaim its former territory!

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

My wife likes checking temperature from her smart phone in all the places around the country we have visited. The other day while walking she looked at the local weather and the temperature indicated 34 F but feels like 35 F. Wind chill often brings the “feels like” temperature down but what would bring it up?

[geckzilla]

Humidity and stillness of the air seems to do a great job bringing it up.

[Chris Peterson]

My wife likes checking temperature from her smart phone in all the places around the country we have visited. The other day while walking she looked at the local weather and the temperature indicated 34 F but feels like 35 F. Wind chill often brings the “feels like” temperature down but what would bring it up?

Heat index is a metric that increases what the temperature "feels like", based on humidity. But heat index applies to high temperatures. If the actual temperature is 34°F, and you have a reported "feels like" of 35°F, I think you're just seeing a rounding error on the wind chill calculation. A minor bug in the reporting software.

[geckzilla]

Heh, I completely misread that post. I blame snow shoveling fatigue.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Thanks Geck - Guess there's no being anonymous when you're too lazy to sign in

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

And Chris!!

[geckzilla]

Please sign in. You may be lazy but I still have to click a button to put your name on the post. You've got your browser memorizing the challenge question so why not just have it memorize your username and password too?

[rstevenson]

Fat, fluffy snowflakes! I've got the camera set at 30 second intervals out front to try to get some people-snow interaction with this deep layer of snow we are now covered in.

Looking forward to the vid.

Lucky for us those fat, fluffy snowflakes will become big droplets of rain before they get here, at least along the Atlantic coast. The prediction is for 35 to 65 mm of rain, the equivalent of 1 to 2 feet of snow if it were colder here. I [heart] rain! Further inland they're hunkering down for a very messy couple of days, with snow, ice pellets and high winds. I'm hoping this will be the last storm of winter, but the odds are not in my favour. Several years ago the worst winter storm of the year occurred in March!

Rob