rigorousintuition.ca

Previous post from Friday June 13th 2008 in the Iowa Under Water thread:

brainpanhandler wrote:





I check the noaa website fairly frequently and i"ve been haphazardly collecting radar images of these massive storm systems that seem to cover damn near the entire continent for about a year.

I don't really know how unusual these storm systems might be, but I don't recall seeing storm systems with such cyclonic structure covering such huge areas.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/posti ... e&p=192690


Here where I live we are on a pace to shatter last years record snowfall.

This is a water vapor image of the west coast of north America:



And this a current IR image of the eastern United States:



I have friends and relatives in the northeast that have just been buried this year.

I'm not a meteorologist or a climate scientist or any such thing. In fact, I have no credentials whatsoever to be analysing any of these images.

Is there a meteorologist in the house?

Consider this a thread for stories about anomalous weather events. I collect these NOAA images. As I discover images that seem to me to be bizarre I'll post them.

in central mass this year the ice seems more 'gelatinous'?

that is to say, when driving the ice seems to form around my wiper blades very quickly, more quickly than i ever recall before

the wipers are rendered useless - like Dwight Schrute's stapler, encased in jello....

That water-vaopr image is awesome.

Cool, thanks for posting; I'll look forward to more neat-bizarre weather maps.

Great images.

So far this year, in my opinion, it has been much colder. But according to the local paper, we haven't broken any records regarding high and low temeperatures. We've been lucky in Philly, avoiding the snow that has blanketed most of the Northeast.

I do know that my steps were coated with a near-invisible ice this morning, and that I hyperextended an elbow and damn near broke my ass when I left the house.

beeline wrote:Great images.

So far this year, in my opinion, it has been much colder. But according to the local paper, we haven't broken any records regarding high and low temeperatures. We've been lucky in Philly, avoiding the snow that has blanketed most of the Northeast.

I do know that my steps were coated with a near-invisible ice this morning, and that I hyperextended an elbow and damn near broke my ass when I left the house.

Rules of Weather:

(1) All storms represent substantial deviations from normal.
(2) Tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's.
(3) Every day, a weather record is set somewhere.
(4) This happens all the time.

freemason9 wrote:Rules of Weather:

(1) All storms represent substantial deviations from normal.
(2) Tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's.
(3) Every day, a weather record is set somewhere.
(4) This happens all the time.

(5) Sometimes, it will kill people, sometimes it will delight them.

Perelandra wrote:

freemason9 wrote:Rules of Weather:

(1) All storms represent substantial deviations from normal.
(2) Tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's.
(3) Every day, a weather record is set somewhere.
(4) This happens all the time.

(5) Sometimes, it will kill people, sometimes it will delight them.

(6) If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute.

freemason9 wrote:

beeline wrote:Great images.

So far this year, in my opinion, it has been much colder. But according to the local paper, we haven't broken any records regarding high and low temeperatures. We've been lucky in Philly, avoiding the snow that has blanketed most of the Northeast.

I do know that my steps were coated with a near-invisible ice this morning, and that I hyperextended an elbow and damn near broke my ass when I left the house.

Rules of Weather:

(1) All storms represent substantial deviations from normal.
(2) Tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's.
(3) Every day, a weather record is set somewhere.
(4) This happens all the time.

You know, it is christmas... but I'm not a christian and I've just spent 13 hours with my family repressing every impulse to voice my true thoughts about much of anything and so I am in no mood to be charitable or tolerant. Bah humbug I say.

(1) I suppose it is true that "all storms represent substantial deviations from normal". I'll give you that because then I'll have the freedom to use indistinct terms like substantial and normal without fear of being asked to define those terms. It is of course equally true that there are normal storms and abnormal storms.

(2) Strictly speaking, whether "tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's", can't be known. Once you go enough decimal places out our instruments are no longer accurate enough to ascertain with certainty whether the high temperature for one day is the same as another. If we decouple ourselves from the handicap of the limitations of our instrumetation and instead just theorize then I would say that it is almost certainly the case that there have been successive days when the high temperature was identical out to ten decimal places. Obviously the odds go down as we extend the decimal places out. The earth is over 3 billion years old. So, slightly less strictly speaking than the statement 'whether "tomorrow's high temperature will be different from today's", can't be known', you may be right that no two successive days ever have exactly the same high temperature. It's the patterns that matter.

(3) "Every day a weather record is set somewhere." Well, we know that because people record weather data. We record weather data because we can then discern patterns over time. It's the patterns that matter.

(4) "This happens all the time" and luckily people have been keeping track of the data and we can look at it and analyze it and discern patterns in it, which, as you might have noticed is what I think matters, the patterns that is.

There is the very strong possibiity that the earth's climate is currently changing, perhaps drastically relative to the normal climatic fluctuations. We could therefore expect that the earth's climate will become less predictable and that we will set more records of greater variability than normal. To what degree are records broken? How great is the deviation from the norm? At what pace are records being broken? Is it a normal pace? These are a few of the questions I ask myself.

I'm not suggesting this thread is likely to provide any answers to those questions, but they are questions worth asking nonetheless.

I realize it is extremely unscientific to look at NOAA radar and satelite imagery and conclude much of anything from it unless you have the knowledge and expertise to do so. Even then, I don't think looking at such images can be very scientific absent an analysis of the data. Hence my disclosure that I have no climate science creds at all.

NOAA home page:
http://www.noaa.gov/

NOAA Geostationary satelite server:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/

Office of Satelite Operations:
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/goes/


National Weather Service 24 hour sat loop US:
http://www.weather.gov/sat_loop.php?image=ir&hours=24

European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) image gallery:
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Image ... x.htm?l=en

I recently heard i can't remember who backpeddling from the 'more variability' line on global warming, pointing out that warming means yes more heatwaves as killed thousands in w.europe a few years ago, but also less frosts, so sum variability doesn't necesarily change. Then there are the larger cycles like this years La Nina (opposite of El Nino) that mean this year wasn't the 'hottest ever'.. but it is apparently the hottest La Nina year ever. 'The devil', a.k.a. reality, is always in the details.
http://www.aussmc.org/WMO_2008.php

All I know is its Dec 26th and its 75 degrees in my house with the heat off, just south of Atlanta. Usually gets pretty cold here more in January/Feb, though, not looking forward to that at all. Usually lots of rain with the cold, yuck!

I wonder how northern GA's gonna do next year with the water shortage we had this past summer.

'The devil', a.k.a. reality, is always in the details.

[click me]

You know, it is christmas... but I'm not a christian and I've just spent 13 hours with my family repressing every impulse to voice my true thoughts about much of anything and so I am in no mood to be charitable or tolerant. Bah humbug I say.

How about it. I get an extra gold star this year 'cause I actually went to mass with my folks Christmas Eve. First time I've been to church in a decade at least. It wasn't too bad--I didn't spontaneously combust--but I guess I wanted to have that memory as my parents are both in their mid-80s.

Anyway, about the weather: Personally I've noticed wider temperature swings than when I was a child: winters are colder and summers are hotter. The other thing I have noticed is the lack of seasons. Spring and Autumn don't exist as they used to, we're pretty much down to Summer and Winter only here, with about a week of Spring and Autumn each. Not the definable 3-month seasons we've had.

I'm no climatologist or scientist. Just an observer. But I notice significant change.

beeline wrote:Spring and Autumn don't exist as they used to, we're pretty much down to Summer and Winter only here, with about a week of Spring and Autumn each. Not the definable 3-month seasons we've had.

I'm no climatologist or scientist. Just an observer. But I notice significant change.

Same here. Its pretty obvious the Earth is changing. We've got shit blooming outside right this minute, FFS!

Not only do the Winter/Summer seasons appear more intense, but what I've noticed the last couple years is also an extreme change in DAILY temperatures, like a huge shift in day/night, almost like desert weather.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Global ... 0C1_M_SNOW

Fascinating! You have to go to this site. I am always wanting to be able to look at these images through a chronological span. The link is to the global snow cover map.

Link to page with an assortment of global maps.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/

I wish these images went further back in time than the last three years.