Just like in 2007, it’s an El Nino pattern. We’ve had a light skiff of snow this winter in MSP, and nothing in the forecast. They even had a tornado watch in the southern part of the state yesterday. In February!
I wondered, with no snow (and I live where there has been some snow up to Mother’s Day) if we would have a drought here in the green central NYS. The meteorologist assured us there had been sufficient rainfall (lots and lots of rain since November) to make up for it. There is still rest of February, March, and half of April ahead, maybe the snow will fall then.
Winters used to be a lot more steady coldness. Lately the winters have been milder. I consider this a good thing. Good heavens, it changes day to day, esPecially in Ohio!
I like my winters wintery! I want snow; I want cold! We at least did get a nice cold spell in the negatives this year, and one reasonable snow. At this rate, I’m gonna have to move to like Winnipeg in 20 years for the winters I want!
I got home from work yesterday and realized I was running out of time to get groceries for the weekend before the Super Bowl craziness so I turned right around to run to the store. After I bought some stuff, I paused in the parking lot to watch the gigantic storm system rolling in to the south with lightning every few seconds. Getting into the car, I noted the 52 degree air temp. Early Feb, 7:30 pm, tstorms and mid 50s. Just nutty.
Warm winters where there ought to be cold ones mean:
Southern insects, including major pests for plants and humans, moving north.
Northern insects, including major pests for plants and humans, in larger numbers because they can produce more generations each year.
Perennial plants, including orchards and vineyards, budding out too early in the season, so that the late frosts which still happen kill the crop; and sometimes the entire plant, because it wasn’t able to harden off properly for winter.
Migrating species out of synch with each other and with the flowering/fruiting of plants, so that plants (wild and domestic) flower when the pollinators aren’t there and can’t set fruit, and the pollinators and other species show up when their food isn’t there and can’t find anythiing to eat.
Rain falling instead of snow, causing floods instead of the gradual melting of a good snowpack, which is less likely to do so.
Longer tornado seasons. Longer severe thunderstorm seasons. Longer fire seasons.
It was 61º here in upstate New York yesterday, and 59º today; in the middle of February. Which, if it were only a fluke couple of days, wouldn’t be a problem – because the ground would be hard frozen, which would slow everything down until the cold came back. But, for the first time in my rather long life, we still haven’t had a proper soil freeze up – we had a few days of cold in January, but that wasn’t long enough to freeze more than the top few inches, which thawed again the next week and haven’t frozen again since. Soil freeze up used to be in November or early December in this area, and the soil would stay frozen till March.
Yes, it’s pleasant to be outside in. But it’s also terrifying. And it’s probably going to get worse.
Whereas I was thinking “Yeah, the past few days have been warm, but we had three snow days in the first two weeks after Christmas break”. Well, technically, one snow day, one cold day, and one ice day, but still, three days off for winter weather in two weeks is a lot.
I’ve seen it pointed out that a more apt name would be “global weirding”, rather than “global warming”. The overall temperature planet-wide is higher, yes, but on a local scale, it’s leading to a lot less predictability and more extremes.
Yeah, that brief, intense, heavy snow here in Chicago (back on January 12th) was the one and only time I’ve had to use my snowblower since March of 2022; I didn’t use it at all in the winter of '22/'23.
Last week, they had several tornadoes up in southern Wisconsin – the first time ever that tornadoes had been confirmed in the state in the month of February. And it wasn’t even just a small tornado which touched down briefly; one of them was an EF2 tornado, that was on the ground for a half-hour, and did some significant damage.
I’m so happy for you that you, personally, are more comfy, but for most folks who are gonna be alive over the next several decades, the future is predicted to bring some serious unpleasantness.
As a direct result of the same phenomenon you consider to be a good thing.