Yaris, the Blizzard and Me
Yaris, the Blizzard and Me
As those of you who read Jeff’s blog, and everyone does, you know that Jeff declared me snowbound in the Great Blizzard of 2009. (I met a woman whose admiration for Jeff’s blog had him at the celebratory level of Robert de Niro.) This is my story of the blizzard.
Before I got to Maryland, I had looked at the forecast. Of course, I dismissed the threat of being “snowbound” based on my Washington-DC-press index of blizzard forecast exaggeration.
Figure 1: As I recall, the total accumulation of a 2005 Major Winter Storm in Washington, DC.
On the other hand, when I worked in Washington, I saw the forecast of snow cause panic, leading to fleeing from the office to the grocery store to buy 24 rolls of toilet paper and tubes of 8 D-cell batteries. It is easy to bring Washington to a halt with a “dusting,” and bring out the news reporters talking about DC as a “Southern City.” (Is there an archetypical Southern City these days? Could it be Tallahassee? Mobile? Memphis? Charlotte is pretty new South. Richmond? ) Anyway, having looked at the forecast I thought about it a little.
On Friday night the snow started out 3 hours earlier than predicted, and I was motivated enough to go public on a Washington Post web page with “starts early, ends early and less than six inches of snow.” I mean, for the storm to deliver it required the development of a secondary low pressure system to the south and west of the original low, which I will call a Hatteras low because I am old and partial to North Carolina. Historically, models have had a little problem with this situation, and despite the fragile credibility of my entire life having to rest on numerical models of the atmosphere, I really wanted to have a nice little storm with six inches of snow on the hilly side of DC.
I was staying in Rose Haven, Maryland, in the Herrington Harbor Inn. The Inn sits on the south shore of Herring Bay, with a view straight up the core of the Chesapeake Bay to the north and west.
Figure 2: Rose Haven and Herring Bay, Maryland. On the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
At dawn, I looked out the window and the grass showed through the little bit of icy snow on the ground. This was very encouraging to my desire for a lot of wind and a little snow. I turned on the TV and excited reporters in fur-lined hoods where standing in ankle deep snow on empty Saturday-morning streets in Baltimore. On the ubiquitous WU web site, there were still in BIG RED LETTERS, a blizzard warning for Anne Arundel County.
I had been sleeping with the window slightly open (and, yes, the heat was off, I have some carbon scruples), so I closed it and went back to sleep. About an hour later I got up, opened the door, and noted it was, perhaps, windy. The tall grasses in the new eco-scaping were blown to about a 45 degree angle. The stems were wrapped in ice and held stiff. The tufts of seeds moved back and forth like small brooms. Deciding, “coat,” I went out towards the back of the Inn, away from the Bay to see if the road had been plowed, and if the car could be had. It was and it could. When I came back from behind the building into the wind the ice and snow stung my face so much I had to retreat. Down closer to the water a bundled man struggled with a snow blower. The wind was blowing not only the snow back, but the man and blower.
The decision of “coat,” had fortunately brought the provision of “hat,” and it was, without hyperbole, stinging ice and blow-you-backwards wind. It was then that I noticed, that the grassy ice laid in striations where the high-speed currents of air that were stripping the snow from the ground. The already cleared side walk had 6 inches of snow, in the lee of the clumps of grass were two feet of snow. (A more poetic version, perhaps.) The television in the breakfast room said the wind gusts in Annapolis were 34 miles per hour. The wind coming from down the core of the Bay, I doubt, was ever less than 34 miles per hour. (I was once a reasonably proficient sailor, and have a propensity for standing in driving rain, perhaps with a bit of surf spray. This was unpleasant, and though perhaps a bit softened by age and the mild winters of the Southeast Michigan and the Colorado Plains, well, this weather was actually scary.)
Figure 3: Snow in the wind, on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Yaris is visible in the background.
The walk downwind, back to my room, was more difficult than the upwind walk. I have never been the fan of the unplanned jibe, and liked to avoid the run, even the broad reach. I could not hold the cup of calming lemon chamomile tea still in the wind. More than half of it shook out.
Let me introduce Yaris. Yaris was new to me. This follows, I am sure, from my consuming commitment to all things climate and the construction of a very fine chicken coop. But Yaris, I had to look it up to make sure it was not Varis (note to marketing department, new font), was provided to me at the airport in a line of compact cars I could choose from. It said Toyota on it, and it was odd and small and very red, and I decided to see if such a creature could be in my future.
Yaris was sitting in the parking lot “across from Mango’s.” Thanks to the wind, and not, now I understood, a lack of snow, it was pretty clean. It being that I was in a “Southern City,” there was no ice scrapper, no broom. Yaris, while not buried in snow, was like the grass stems, encrusted. Yaris, sounds male and from the early 1900s Chicago slaughterhouses – he warmed quickly. Now you have to understand that the tires on Yaris are about the size of the tires on a modest size boat trailer, perhaps a large wheelbarrow. My impression of Yaris on the drive down had been, “souped up version of my 1980 Chevette.” Perhaps it is the Mini’s mini. I put Yaris in drive, it would be a pretty cool car with a manual transmission, and started crunching through the parking lot.
Forward momentum was possible. Yaris reliably crunched forward. Given Yaris’s size and my size, much of Yaris’s momentum relied on my mass. The immediate challenge was the modest ridge of crunchy plow tailings at the mouth of the parking lot. With the tools at hand, Yaris’s bumper and a bit of momentum, I flung Yaris into the tailings, only to be thwarted. But Yaris was able to back up, and back up he did, and again he rammed forward.
Now being trained in the basics of physics, though I am sure many of my scientist friends would claim there is no evidence of this, I became concerned about the presence of “the ditch.” Yaris was deflecting more and more to the left. Having recently been assured that gravity still works independent of Mr. Newton’s personality, there was the potential situation that always motivated my college roommate and me to say, “that’s a funny place to park.” I decided to stop the Hagar the Horrible strategy and get out and look around. Opening the door in the snow helped me appreciate just how low to the ground Yaris stood. The door pushed back the snow. He was doing pretty good, not Subaru good, but pretty good. (Subaru is, at least, some sort of appreciated standard. Not Humvee level, which apparently DC Police get in snow storms.) I stomped a couple of wheel tracks through the pile of road plow, got back in Yaris, took aim, and like an FSU running back bursting through a paper Seminole, Yaris made it onto the road. (In this whole time, not a single car had passed.)
A couple hundred yards from the water the wind died down, and the snow was piling up quickly. But given a half plowed road, Yaris moved reliably forward, and backwards when called upon.
Those of you who have read far more of my writing than is normal might remember Christmas at the 7-11. This part of Maryland is a place of big pickup trucks, and eventually Yaris was amongst the trucks and the Jeeps. (One of my favorite snow driving experiences is the happy Jeep driver coming up behind me, casually pulling out to pass, pulling back in, and proceeding quite directly into a yard full of dogwoods and redbuds and safely (I checked in my rearview mirror.) stopping at someone’s front porch.) I will spare you many of the exciting moments of the 45 mile drive at the height of blizzard to BWI Airport, where because I had given the weather forecast some credibility, I had arranged a room at the airport hotel. I did befriend a big pickup truck with a blade on the front to make a path around a less able Ford Fiesta. I think by the official definition, there were whiteout conditions. I was fearful of the plow tailings at the exit ramp from I-97, but I followed the tracks of a MUCH wider vehicle and the nearly round Yaris did not even threaten to fishtail. We arrived with a wind shield that looked like Charles Lindbergh in an ice cloud. Many greater vehicles did not make it.
Figure 4: Taken by my brother Bob in Esmont, VA, which was not even officially blizzard, and it snowed "a few more inches." Used without permission.
I can now officially say that I made it out of B’more on Sunday. This is thanks to a major Chicago based airline and no thanks to an airline commonly associated with Detroit, Minneapolis, and now Atlanta, which seemed in total collapse. (Have seen total collapse in that Chicago-based airline as well, but Sunday they behaved real smart.) I am where I want to be.
There were many, many soldiers heading home on Sunday. A bunch got upgraded to First Class on this plane. I am, without exaggeration, stunned at their youth. Many of them are young women. Over the last 5 years, I have come to notice, far more, youth and its strengths and fragilities. The students I teach are older than many of these soldiers, and even 4 years older they are still at the beginning. There are middle-aged men in the National Guard who are living a different life than they once imagined. These people are doing, hard, hard things, and I hope they made it to peaceful homes.
Let Jeff know, I was not snowbound.
Happy Holidays,
r
OK, climate change question? What may a record December snow storm in the East say about climate change? Anything? In many places this storm exceeded the average snow totals for the entire winter. It was forecast magnificently, and that is more often the rule than the exception. What is the value of this forecast?
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And JFlorida, in case you didn't know, the Earth has been warming for about 18,000 years. It iritates the man-made global warming/climate change fraudsters to have that little tidbit of info reported, but it's the framework all other observations ride on. It's pretty funny that the fraudsters use 50 years of data, that is part of 18,000 years of data, to project (model) what will happen in 50 years or more, when they can't reliably predict local weather three days away!
For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year. But these natural sources are nearly balanced by physical and biological processes, called natural sinks, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, some carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, and some is removed by plants during the photosynthesis.
A: so it's not balanced (it is almost). How about 3% out of balance due to natural causes
Do you know anythng about the missing sink?
But then like taking what we don't know about CO2 fluxes right now, and for the recent past, and making prognostications about what is going to happen in the future qualifies as science?
Considering all possible answers to the unknowns and uncertainties meets my understanding of good science. "Don't know, but we will assume" when the assumptions have such wildly variable effects on the prognostications is not acceptable, IMO.
Collapse? You are talking about miles of mountainous terrain...don't hold yer breath.
Are you expecting it to collapse anytime soon? It would have been nice to know about the upcoming collapse 110 years ago. We could have saved a lot of time and bother and not built that canal. ; )
Extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation yields a warm Arctic
Arctic sea ice extent at end of December 2009 remained below normal, primarily in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic. Average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were much higher than normal for the month, reflecting unusual atmospheric conditions. Finally, we provide a review of 2009 Arctic sea ice conditions.
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for December 2009 was 12.48 million square kilometers (4.82 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
High-resolution image Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent averaged over December 2009 was 12.48 million square kilometers (4.82 million square miles). This was 920,000 square kilometers (350,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for December, but 210,000 square kilometers (81,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in December 2006. Ice extent was less than normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea, and in Davis Strait.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily sea ice extent as of January 4, 2010. The solid light blue line indicates 2009/2010; dashed green indicates 2007/2008; dark blue shows 2006/2007 (the record low for the month of December); and solid gray indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
High-resolution image
Conditions in context
During December 2009, ice extent grew at an average of 68,000 square kilometers (26,000 square miles) per day. Sea ice extent increased at a fairly steady rate throughout the month, staying slightly above the levels observed in December 2007.
Figure 3. Monthly December ice extent for 1979 to 2009 shows a decline of 3.3% per decade.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
High-resolution image December 2009 compared to past years
December 2009 had the fourth-lowest average ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records, falling just above the extent for 2007. The linear rate of decline for December is now 3.3% per decade.
Figure 4. Map of air temperature anomalies for December 2009, at the 925 millibar level (roughly 1,000 meters [3,000 feet] above the surface) for the region north of 30 degrees N, shows warmer than usual temperatures over the Arctic Ocean and cooler than normal temperatures over central Eurasia, the United States and southwestern Canada. Areas in orange and red correspond to strong positive (warm) anomalies. Areas in blue and purple correspond to negative (cool) anomalies.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division
High-resolution image Warm air keeps ice extent low
December air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean region, eastern Siberia, and northwestern North America were warmer than normal. In contrast, temperatures in Eurasia, the United States, and southwestern Canada were below average. The strongest anomalies (more than 7 degrees Celsius/13 degrees Fahrenheit) were over the Atlantic side of the Arctic, including Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, where ice extent was below average.
Figure 5. The map of sea level pressure anomalies (in millibars) for December 2010, shows higher than average pressures over Arctic latitudes (areas in orange and red) and lower than average pressures over north Pacific and North Atlantic oceans (areas in blue and purple.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division
High-resolution imageNegative phase of the Arctic Oscillation
These regional contrasts in temperature anomalies resulted from a strongly negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). The AO is a natural pattern of climate variability. It consists of opposing patterns of atmospheric pressure between the polar regions and middle latitudes. The positive phase of the AO exists when pressures are lower than normal over the Arctic, and higher than normal in middle latitude. In the negative phase, the opposite is true; pressures are higher than normal over the Arctic and lower than normal in middle latitudes. The negative and positive phases of the AO set up opposing temperature patterns. With the AO in its negative phase this season, the Arctic is warmer than average, while parts of the middle latitudes are colder than normal. The phase of the AO also affects patterns of precipitation, especially over Europe.
The phase of the AO is described in terms of an index value. In December 2009 the AO index value was -3.41, the most negative value since at least 1950, according to data from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center.
While a negative AO leads to warmer temperatures over the Arctic, it also tends to reduce the flow of sea ice out of the Arctic by affecting the winds that can export the ice to warmer waters, where it melts. In this way, a negative AO could help retain some the second- and third-year ice through the winter, and potentially rebuild some of the older, multiyear ice that has been lost over the past few years. However, we do not yet know if the strongly negative AO will persist through the winter, or what its net effect will be.
For more information on the AO, see the NSIDC Arctic Meteorology and Climatology Primer.
Figure 6. The daily time series for 2009. The gray line shows the 1979 to 2000 climatology, thick blue-gray indicates the 1979 to 2009 climatology, dashed green shows 2007, and 2009 is shown in sky blue. Sea Ice Index data.
%u2014Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
High-resolution image2009 year in review
The minimum ice extent in September 2009 was greater than the past two Septembers, but again fell below the long-term average. The melt season began with a young, thin Arctic sea ice cover, suggesting that significant amounts of ice would be lost during the melt season. However, a cooler summer with favorable winds helped preserve the ice.
Despite the cool summer, the ice remained thin and vulnerable at the sea ice minimum, with little of the older, thicker ice that used to characterize much of the Arctic. Recently published research by Barber and colleagues shows that the ice cover was even more fragile at the end of the melt season than satellite data indicated, with regions of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas covered by small, rotten ice floes.
In the fall, the sea ice froze up in fits and starts. The Northern Sea Route opened in October, even after sea ice extent for the Arctic as a whole had begun to increase. The annual average extent for 2009 was 11.18 million square kilometers (4.32 million square miles), 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) or 8.0% below 1979 to 2000 average and 740,000 square kilometers (286,000 square miles) or 6.2% below the 1979 to 2008 average.
Link
Aasiaat 25 °F 76% 30.11 in Overcast NNW at 12 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Angisoq 40 °F 55% 29.86 in ESE at 26 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Aputiteeq 18 °F 79% 30.10 in SW at 4 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Cape Harald Moltke
Cape Tobin
Carey Island -5 °F 80% 30.12 in West at 15 mph 5:00 PM AST
Daneborg 0 °F 39% 30.13 in SE at 10 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Danmarkshavn -3 °F 12% 30.12 in NW at 13 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Hall Land -20 °F 69% 30.01 in Blowing Snow SW at 32 mph 10:00 AM MST
Henrik Kroeyer Holme -11 °F 43% 30.02 in North at 8 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Ikermiit 25 °F 69% 30.05 in North at 9 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Ikermiuarsuk 29 °F 68% 30.05 in South at 12 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Illoqqortoormiut 20 °F 27% 30.05 in NNE at 5 mph 8:00 PM EGT
Ilulissat 18 °F 73% 30.06 in Mostly Cloudy NNE at 4 mph 7:50 PM WGT
Kangerlussuaq 7 °F 92% 30.04 in Mostly Cloudy ENE at 7 mph 7:50 PM WGT
Kangilinnguit
Kap Morris Jesup -14 °F 59% 29.88 in West at 25 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Kitsissorsuit -4 °F 97% 30.26 in NW at 14 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Kitsissut 23 °F 86% 29.98 in N/A NNE at 2 mph 7:50 PM WGT
Kulusuk 28 °F 35% 30.10 in East at 17 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Maniitsoq 30 °F 64% 29.89 in Overcast Calm 7:50 PM WGT
Mittarfik Nuuk 28 °F 69% 29.86 in Partly Cloudy NE at 17 mph 6:50 PM WGT
Narsarsuaq 21 °F 80% 29.89 in Mostly Cloudy Variable at 4 mph 6:50 PM WGT
Navy Operated
Nerlerit Inaat
Nunarsuit 39 °F 50% 29.87 in East at 30 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Nuuk 28 °F 69% 29.86 in Partly Cloudy NE at 17 mph 6:50 PM WGT
Nuussuaataa 16 °F 83% in NW at 16 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Paamiut 31 °F 44% 29.87 in Mostly Cloudy NE at 4 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Pituffik -8 °F 65% 30.19 in Haze SE at 20 mph 7:24 PM AST
Prins Christian Sund 34 °F 100% 30.01 in Light Rain NNE at 14 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Qaanaaq
Qaarsut 16 °F 66% 30.14 in WNW at 21 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Qaqortoq 21 °F 80% 29.89 in Mostly Cloudy Variable at 4 mph 6:50 PM WGT
Sioralik 30 °F 64% 29.89 in Overcast Calm 7:50 PM WGT
Sisimiut 23 °F 86% 29.98 in N/A NNE at 2 mph 7:50 PM WGT
Sisimiut Mittarfia 23 °F 86% 29.98 in N/A NNE at 2 mph 7:50 PM WGT
Station Nord -20 °F 31% 30.00 in SW at 14 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Station Nord
Summit -15 °F 80% in Calm 6:00 PM WGT
Tasiilaq 20 °F 55% 30.10 in West at 4 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Ukiivik 30 °F 77% 29.91 in North at 5 mph 6:00 PM WGT
Upernavik 7 °F 79% 30.15 in N/A NW at 14 mph 7:50 PM WGT
I am certain the isthmus changed global ocean current patterns.
WTH is a ckicket?
There are two definitions currently used for subtropical cyclones. Across the north Atlantic and southwest Indian ocean, they require central convection fairly near the center and a warming core in the mid-levels of the troposphere. Across the eastern half of the northern Pacific, they require a mid-tropospheric cyclone to cut off from the main belt of the westerlies and only a weak surface circulation. Subtropical cyclones have broad wind patterns with maximum sustained winds located farther from the center than typical tropical cyclones, and have no weather fronts linked into their center.
Since they form from initially extratropical cyclones which have colder temperatures aloft than normally found in the tropics, the sea surface temperatures required for their formation are lower than the tropical cyclone threshold by 3°C (5°F), lying around 23 °C (73 °F). This also means that subtropical cyclones are more likely to form outside the traditional bounds of the hurricane season.
Why is everyone ignoring my Tunnel idea?
11:22 PM GMT on January 10, 2010
No everyone .... perhaps over advocacy?
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