Denying Physics: A Tweet

physdeny

Something Climatologist Mike Mann just had to get off his chest.

Reuters:

Massive snowfall from Boston’s fourth major snowstorm in two weeks set a record for the city’s snowiest month since weather records were kept, the NWS said.

Boston had seen about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow since late January and had already set a record for accumulations in a single week.

While still shivering from the brutal cold expected to last through Monday, the East Coast is bracing for another storm front forming near the Tennessee Valley.

nwsboston
National Weather Service satellite photo shows winter storm drawing moisture from Atlantic into NE US.

Readers of this blog will not be surprised with the following.

 The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore in the Boston Herald:

The water temperature — 3 to 5 degrees higher than normal — is a player. It’s just amazing.

Warm water means you can add more fuel to the storm. It’s a small player. But it’s part of this extraordinary run of snowstorms.

The offshore temperature, outside Georges Bank, is about 50 degrees, according to the National Weather Service average. What you have is the Arctic air over the Gulf Stream. It’s helping to add more inches to the snowfall.

The near-shore water temperatures are averaging 40-42 degrees. The Weather Service recorded water temperature at Boston buoy at 37 degrees. But the energy being fed into the storms is coming from the Gulf Stream. It’s just higher than it would normally be.

I’m not concluding this is a reason we’re seeing so many storms, but it’s a factor. Instead of 15 inches of snow, maybe it means 17 inches of snow.

The key is the jet stream has lined up and it’s giving us an extraordinary run.

These storms are coming over the ridge from California and then there’s been a cross-polar flow — even from as far away as Siberia — dumping into the East. Whatever train you’re getting on, it’s all coming to Boston.

mannbostonjettweet

 

7 thoughts on “Denying Physics: A Tweet”


  1. Article in the WashPost this AM says Boston is now up to “nearly 90 inches” or 7-1/2 feet of snow this winter. We need to start a pool. I’m going to go with two more storms adding a total of 20 more inches—-to 110 inches—9+ feet. If Boston had any mountains, they could be a minor ski resort with accumulations like that—no need to go to VT.

    PS to Omnomoron the physics denier! Are you paying attention? Or still sulking in your mother’s basement. More answers here to the questions you’re too self-deluded to ask.


  2. “…no need to go to VT..”

    We’ve only got about 14 ” on the ground here in Burlington, VT. If there has been one eye-opening winter trend the past couple of decades, it is that we have been getting less snow, and places to our south have been getting more.


        1. Fewer rainfall events but with larger larger precipitation events, note precipitation can include snow, monologos, as over here in Blighty.

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