# Why the heck is it so warm? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 31, 2004, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391 "2004-12-31T07:06:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/21 "2005-01-01T01:01:37Z")
> [@seosamh](#): > > Manhattan. The Wellington Hotel, 871 Seventh Avenue at 55th Street. > > I’m considering a train trip somewhere: Albany or Philadelphia. Which will be colder? > > Happy New Year. Albany will be colder, but it’s also boring as shit. Plus, taking the train to Philly means you get to go over my [favorite bridge](http://www.friedo.com/imgs/P-2004-001/img_0012.png.html). And there’s also cheesesteak involved. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/22 "2005-01-01T01:58:56Z")
It is now -21 C (-6 in those old-fashioned F degrees 🙂 ) in Edmonton. Highs tomorrow and Sunday are -18 C. ---
**Author:** ![WeRSauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f19dbf/32.png) [@WeRSauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WeRSauron)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/23 "2005-01-01T02:39:10Z")
Is there any reason _why_ it has become warm in what is usually a cold season? If there’s a warm front (whatever that means), where is it coming from? Why doesn’t it come in other years? Did anything happen to cause this effect? WRS/Thû ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/24 "2005-01-01T11:19:15Z")
It’s usually a shift in the jet stream that either pulls warm weather up from the south, or cold weather down from the north (reverse for southern hemisphere, of course) As for _why_ - well, if we REALLY understood the weather there’d be far less uncertainy in the forecasts. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/25 "2005-01-01T11:54:14Z")
It may make you feel better to know that here in Sydney, which frequently has 100F weather at Christmas, Boxing Day was long sleeve weather. Four hours’ drive south and there was two centimetres of snow on the ground. It happens, and it’s not new. A town _north_ of Sydney (but admittedly in the mountains) had a white Christmas in the early 70s. This, and the balmy weather you’re experiencing in the States, is not rare. Not exactly common, but it happens enough for meteorologists not to bat an eyelid. It may or may not be global warming - too early to tell. The Australian cold snaps would tend to go against this theory though. Boxing Day’s cool weather was due to southerly winds coming off Antarctica. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/26 "2005-01-01T12:20:09Z")
There’s no such thing as Global Warming, he says controversially. And even if there were, it doesn’t happen this suddenly. The signs are only meant to be a raise in _average_ temperatures of a few degrees, not just an unusual heatwave in winter. This is merely a perfectly standard ‘anomaly’, they happen every year in different parts of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Bangiadore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@Bangiadore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bangiadore)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/27 "2005-01-02T01:47:25Z")
I don’t think it’s really much to worry about. I vividly remember an oddball January 1st in 1973, when the temperature was in the high seventies and the beaches in Rhode Island were crowded with people in shorts and t-shirts. The National Weather Service records that day at sixty-four, but they’re just _wrong_. I was nineteen and in love, and _I know_. Today it was up around sixty in the morning, and it’s in the lower thirties now. Supposed to get much colder as the week goes on. Growing up in rural Connecticut, the old-timers always talked of the “January Thaw” as an expectable thing. Generally it does seem to be that – and it always seems to happen just before we get slammed with a month or two of unrelenting bitter cold. But January weather seems to be pretty much a wild card – the NWS records for Providence show highs and lows for January 23 of sixty-four in 1906 and minus 13 in 1976. Seems to me it’s always February and March when we get our asses kicked, and I’d bet that’ll hold true this year too. ---
**Author:** ![WeRSauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f19dbf/32.png) [@WeRSauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WeRSauron)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/28 "2005-01-02T02:38:39Z")
Well, my panic has subsided, partly because of comments in this thread, and partly bvecause it was wonderfully cold today. So, this wasn’t going to be a trend. This was the first time I had experienced something like this, but it is reassuring that this is neither as rare as I thought nor cause for concern. (My sister last night was predicting a _The Day After Tomorrow_ scenario.) I still wonder how this came to be. There must be some explanation, however convoluted it may be. WRS/Thû ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/29 "2005-01-02T04:34:01Z")
Well, it’s snowing in California … (I live in the Sierra foothills so it’s not all that strange) … our weather is coming at us from the Gulf of Alaska right now. I haven’t checked a weather map, but I’d bet that the jet stream is dipping pretty far south after it snows on us, then bending back north into the midwest bringing warmer air with it. Nothing terribly unusual, just the way the jet stream is circulating at the moment ---
**Author:** ![chefIL11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chefIL11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chefIL11)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/30 "2005-01-02T06:22:48Z")
To throw in my two cents… I walked around in Shorts, Tshirt and flip-flops in southern IL today and I was comfortable. that is likely for late november… but not on Jan first. I’m liking it. Maybe this global warning isn’t all that bad. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/31 "2005-01-02T08:32:43Z")
Well, it’s not so bad. Generally on the first day of January you are bitching about the wind and this year New Year’s Day was so warm I could have suntanned. Of course it means the fruit trees won’t get the required amount of dormancy caused by cold weather and therefore I won’t get any fruit next year, but I guess I can live with that. It will probably mean a rise in the black widow population. Don’t know what I’m going to do about that. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/32 "2005-01-02T15:18:06Z")
Rest assured that you will break some record low temperatures this year. Please pop in to inquire about the pending ice age. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391/33 "2005-01-02T18:43:22Z")
In Lexington we’re hitting mid 60s for several days in a row. The paper insists that it reached 71 in 1952, but this is still the warmest I can remember. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-heck-is-it-so-warm/282391.md?page=1)