Over my life; yes. Winters are warmer, there is no real Spring or Fall as I remember it, and we seem to have some more long spells in the 90s. Over the last 25 years, not so much. The bigger change I noticed was more from say 1968-80 or so.
The heat in the summer is getting pretty bad & the joke has been that people from Florida will move to NJ to retire.
We’ve been luckier than a lot of the country in terms of rainfall over the past 10 years, but even our luck is starting to dry out some.
Most of the effects mentioned in this thread so far can probably be traced to the strong El Nino. One of the strongest on record, though note that data going back for this might be reliable for the past 100 years. Probably more like 50.
Also note that the term El Nino was originally used to describe the phenomena starting back in the 1600’s. So this is not something new or unexpected.
Last I looked, we officially flipped to La Nina. A La Nina generally means wetter and cooler in the west and pacific northwest, wetter in the north plains to the Great Lakes area and drier and milder in the south.
The switch to La Nina also probably means that there will be a respite from the ‘Hottest Year Ever (if you define ‘ever’ as 100 or so years)’ headlines.
Slee
Yep. Just saw infographics for Ljubljana 46°N for past 100 years. Pattern started to change considerably in eighties. Same amount of rain but is more sporadic. Milder winters and hotter summers. Lemons look good this year. And for god sake, farther just planted a fig tree on the garden.
If I heard the radio correctly this July will likely be the hottest on record in NSW (July is winter here). And yet snow has fallen in places like Lithgow and the blue mountains where it has not for a long time, so go figure. I’d agree that it has been a warmer winter than normal in Sydney area though.
Same here except I live in the top part of California for 12 years and it has been much cooler than normal. Eight or nine years ago we would have days and days of over 100 degrees in July (one time it was two weeks in a row).
Now we have only had maybe three days so far this year, but that is going to change soon and very soon.
Here’s the forecast for the next several days:
FridaySunny 84°46°
SaturdaySunny 89°50°
SundaySunny 95°56°
MondaySunny 97°58°
TuesdaySunny 98°59°
WednesdaySunny 98°63°
ThursdaySunny 99°62°
It certainly SEEMS warmer than it used to be.
My weather thing.
Anytime it rains I say, “we sure needed this rain”. If it’s been dry, people nod sagely. If it’s been raining non-stop all week, people will think you’re being ironic.
It seems to have been warmer up here in Birch Bay the last couple of Summers. (Haven’t seen 90s though.) We haven’t had Winter in two years. Of course there have been El Niños the past couple of years. There’s a La Niña now, so I’m curious how Winter will be.
Yes, the Pacific Northwest is considerably warmer than it has been. 100 years ago it was somewhat common to have a pair of ice skates in the back of the closet, ponds and even the rivers would freeze over during winter often enough to where skates were handy to have kicking around. However, any freezing over hasn’t happened in any living memory.
This doesn’t change our climate though, which is strictly based on the temperature difference between the air over the ocean and the air over the land. In winter, the ocean is warmer and this causes air flow from the ocean to the land, bringing moisture in and abundant rainfall. In summer, the land is warmer and this blocks the air flow moving onshore and we get a couple months relief from the constant rainfall.
The actual temperature is meaningless, it’s the temperature difference that matters. So even with a 10ºC rise in both land and ocean temperatures, the climate here remains the same.
The big difference here is the biology … seems like every summer I see a species of hummingbird I’ve never seen here before … the turkey vultures return a little earlier every spring … agricultural is just a tiny bit more productive … but that’s biology, not climatology.
Yes, statistical analysis of data is crucial to understanding climate assessments. The whole, “It’s always randomly changing so we can’t verify anything,” rationale is given lie by actual data, and especially the more comprehensive climate and ocean surface temperature data we’ve been able to collect over the last two decades using satellite-based spectroradiometric measurements. Within the last decade or so, the complexity of general circulation models (GCM) of Earth’s climate combined with leapfrogging improvements in large scale high performance computing systems have given predictions that correlate strongly to previous observations and have provided good estimates of successive years.
The anecdotal observations are just that, but that these observations show subjective views that correlate to GCM predictions (hotter and drier summers, more extreme fluctuations in winter) aptly demonstrates just how significant these trends are to even a non-professional observer.
Stranger
I grew up in the 70’s in Seattle area. We played on frozen lakes in the winter (typically Larsen lake which we were near, but also Lake Bellevue). We would only go out on it when the ice was pretty thick (8 to 12 inches).
The notorious San Francisco fog, has been noticeably less foggy the past few years.
Texas has become oddly cooler. What used to be 108 F summers are now usually 96-100.
All I know is it’s fucking hot here. And the monstrous drought continues.
(Sacramento Ca area)
Summer has been remarkably mild this year in the DC metro area. July 4, usually one of the hottest days of the summer, was in the mid-70s. Most afternoons have been just in the mid-to-high 80s. Normally it’s high 90s and oppressively humid.
It’s getting windier I think.
As a (former) waterskier and barefooter, I’ve noticed a lot more windy days all through the year. I’m a pilot, and I used to ski and foot year round in Texas, so I pay close attention to the wind. I’ve noticed a distinct drop in the number of calm days that provide flat water for water sports or calm days for flying.
Apparently National Geographic agrees with my observations.
It’s always hot every friggin’ day, but we are in the midst of the worst drought in decades, and it’s been going on for two or three years now at least. Last year’s rainy season was almost nonexistent. It feels like it’s rained more in just these past two months than it did in all of last year’s rainy season, so I hope this helps the farmers.
What I get out of this then is that the changes we are going through are just casual observations of the weather … El Nino and La Nina ae being the blame.
Stranger said it best:
SaturdaySunny 89°49°
SundaySunny 93°55°
MondaySunny 95°56°
TuesdaySunny 98°57°
WednesdaySunny 100°60°
ThursdaySunny 101°63°
FridaySunny 101°63°
Back to my iced tea and shorts … honey where’s my remote control for the fan