82 degrees in Lansing, Michigan on wednesday. Uber Weather-caster Jeff Masters calls it unprecedented back to 1872.
The picture above is from video I shot during a visit to Jeff’s Southeast Michigan home last week. I’ll be releasing more from that interview soon.
Jeff Masters – Weather Underground:
A highly unusual week-long heat wave is building over much of the U.S., and promises to bring the warmest temperatures ever seen so early in year to a large portion of the Midwest. The exceptional heat will also be exceptionally long-lasting: record-breaking temperatures 20 – 30 degrees F above normal are expected today through next Wednesday for much of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. The weather system responsible is a large upper-level ridge of high pressure that is “stuck” in place–a phenomenon known as a “blocking pattern.”
The jet stream is bending far to the south over the Western U.S., then bending far to the north over the Rockies and into Canada, and lies far to the north of the eastern U.S. Since the jet stream acts as the boundary between cold air to the north and warm air to the south, the current looping pattern is bringing colder than normal temperatures and snow to the mountains of the West, and summer-like warmth to the Eastern U.S. It is common for the jet stream to get stuck in a blocking pattern for a period of a week or more, but not in to this extremity. If the current model forecasts prove correct, a high pressure ridge over the U.S. bringing heat this intense and long-lasting in March will be unprecedented in the historical record, going back to 1872.
When will MSNBC & the rest of the MSM stop parading out a discredited climate change deniers like Pat Michaels? The man is employed by Fossil fuel companies and is involved with the ultra conservative Heartland institute.
Right now- the climate is in the early stages of rapid change- and what does MSNBC do- they give false balance on an issue in which the consensus becomes all the more concrete every passing year. We are nearly at a point where our knowledge of climate change is nearly complete.
What will it take for the Main Stream Media to get off the revenue addiction from oil & coal companies and begin to report the truth to the public of they very significant dangers they face?
If at any time the US would have led the world in reducing CO2 while at the same time selling technology to facilitate this reduction, these high temps would be lower? By how much? It depends upon how early the US would have taken the lead.
But now we are all “far down the road” and to put this in a context that Evangelical Americans will understand “You will now reap what you have sown”. Another relevant evangelical quote involves “seven fat years followed by seven lean”. You enjoyed many years of living the good life (oil-wise) but you will now pay the price of a similar number of years of hardship (maybe more because human population seems to add on another billion every 12 years).
Special note to Rick Santorum: “This problem cannot be prayed away”
“Jeff Masters calls it unprecedented back to 1872.” I wish everyone would be a little more careful when they talk about unprecedented. This reads like back in 1872, it was this hot, so it’s not outside of normal. When in fact, what he said is:
” unprecedented IN THE HISTORICAL RECORD, going back to 1872.”
That seems to be saying it has NEVER been this hot, as long as records have been kept, which creates a very different impression.
you’re right, the wording is awkward
Re: Neil Reick’s note to Santorum that this problem “Cannot be prayed away.” This year marks the hundreth anniversary of the birth of an American hero who suffered first hand another man-made catastrophe, the Dust Bowl. He, too, remarked, in an indirect way, on the futility of attempting to pray away what man has wrought:
Now, the telephone rang, an’ it jumped off the wall,
That was the preacher, a-makin’ his call.
He said, “Kind friend, this may the end;
An’ you got your last chance of salvation of sin!”
The churches was jammed, and the churches was packed,
An’ that dusty old dust storm blowed so black.
Preacher could not read a word of his text,
An’ he folded his specs, took up collection and said,
So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh;
So long, it’s been good to know yuh.
This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home,
And I got to be driftin’ along.
I live in central Canada, which I suppose is just north of the Midwest, and nobody can believe the winter (or lack thereof) we have had. I keep an eye on historical averages and it has consistently been about 10 C above normal nearly every day since December. This week, though, it’s been more like 20 C above normal. For the first time in my life, all the snow is gone before the official end of winter.