Weather is not climate but gosh it was warm

I noticed the crocus had bloomed a couple of days ago and flowering trees.

Source: East Coast Shatters Temperature Records, Offering Preview to a Warming World | InsideClimate News

There are records—like Wednesday being the earliest 80-degree day in Washington, D.C., history—and then there are the eye-popping effects of those records, like seeing people wearing T-shirts on the streets of Portland, Maine, in February.

However you measure it, Feb. 20-21, 2018, were days for the books—days when the records fell as quickly as the thermometer rose, days that gave a glimpse into the wacky weather that the new era of climate change brings.

"What we have is a large-scale pattern that wouldn't be too uncommon in the spring," said meteorologist Patrick Burke of the National Weather Service. "But it's a little bit unusual to see it set up this way in February—and set up with such persistence."​

Next will come a late season freeze.

Bob Wilson

 

to the a/c car?

Bob Wilson

 

Source: Another Arctic Surge to Deliver Record Mid-November Cold Next Week to the Plains, Midwest, South and East | The Weather Channel

A powerful arctic cold front early next week will deliver the coldest air of the season to the central, southern and eastern U.S., shattering dozens of mid-November records in the process.

Of course it has already turned sharply colder over much of the Midwest, South and East from what has been a parade of arctic cold plunges, pushed south from Canada by a southward plunging jet stream.
. . . ​

Now is the time to look for the Alaska heat wave:


Every time we get a slug of Arctic air in the lower 48, another slug of warm air invades Alaska and Western Canada:



Of course that doesn't make the news but it leaves the Arctic Sea ice pack a little thinner for the next melt season ... and some humorous (black humor) permafrost effects.

Bob Wilson

 

A little chilly in Dixie but I remember worse:

Notice how in the Northern Pacific, the winds are pushing warm air towards Alaska and the Arctic circle. The air circulates counter-clockwise around a Low and clock-wise around a High pressure system. The Highs off the California coast combine with the Lows further west to push warm, moist tropical air towards Alaska, Western Canada, and towards the Arctic circle.

When the cold air heads to the lower 48, the replacement 'warm' air doesn't freeze as much sea ice:

In effect, polar sea ice is a fine scale, thermometer of what is happening globally especially in the Northern hemisphere. The same dynamics exist with Antarctica and the Southern hemisphere.

Bob Wilson

 

Rain Monday night; freezing sleet after midnight, and; door handles frozen shut. The Tesla charging flap won’t open.

Bob Wilson