[Cambium]

2pm map.. Rain on doorstep


69° in Hartford but 60° in Windsor Locks.

67° Danbury and Meriden

Bridgeport new record for todays date

[Cambium]

A look at February in Hartford.. Avg temp went from 29° to 31° since 1950


OMG So scary!! We have to do something about it! You guys should appreciate this and enjoy it!! Keep revving those gas engines





All those humans in Connecticut helped cause the warming during the Medieval warm period.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Yeah, there are many of us who look at the data and acknowledge it's real...yet reject wild notions that Manhattan will be under water by 2030.

Manhattan won't be under water in 7 years

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by Cambium

People dont have the capability of remembering or doing the homework

February 1954. Tulips were coming up. Save us!!

Feb 15: 60°
Feb 16: 53°
Feb 17: 40°
Feb 18: 55°
Feb 19: 54°
Feb 20: 50°
Feb 21: 52°
Feb 22: 60°
Feb 23: 51°
Feb 24: 42°
Feb 25: 55°

Ah here we go again.....


The issue isn't "did it happen before".....there's January 1932 and February 1949 and (as you quote) 1954. But it has to do with how often it's happening compared to the past and how often we're getting a similar level of record cold in comparison. Let's look at Februaries since 2000. No February in NYC averaged over 40 degrees until 1954. It didn't happen again until 1984. It's happened EIGHT times since then (and this month despite that 2 day super cold spell will probably be the ninth one), including (again assuming the last week of Feb 2023 doesn't turn super cold and bring the average for the month below 40), FOUR of the past SIX years.

Meanwhile, the only significant colder than normal Februaries since 2000 were 2003, 2007, 2014 and 2015, and really only 2007 and 2015 can truly be considered "the reverse" of most of the last 6 years.



That goes very well with the science, and before you say "but the west coast is colder than normal this month", the world as a whole is not. Far more of the world at any given moment has above vs below normal temperatures, in fact the last time more than 50% of the world was experiencing below normal temps compared to the past at a given moment was in 1985! If there were "nothing to it at all" then most of the time close to half the world would be above normal, and half the world below.

People don't have the capability of looking beyond a single year and "doing the homework" to see long term trends, which is how this question gets really answered. With the atmospheric composition of 1932 or even 1954, yes this would still be a "top 10 warmest winter", January would've likely even been still a top 5 warmest January, but it would be maybe 10-30 years before we saw it again, not 2-5 years and it would still be not as warm as it is now. The real answer is "the trend's the friend".

Originally Posted by ProudFairfielder

Thank you.

We need some nuance here... yes, it's warming. Yes, humans are the cause, and this is bad, and we should do something about it... but also, we're not going to die either. People who overhype it are those who make the legitimate concerns seem less credible.

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Yeah, there are many of us who look at the data and acknowledge it's real...yet reject wild notions that Manhattan will be under water by 2030.

And I completely agree with this as well. But I think what I said above addresses it. I never said the world will end in 2030 (I don't honestly think this would end it in 2130 either....I think we will figure something out, even if it's mitigation), but again that doesn't mean there's nothing to it and we shouldn't at least start to work on a solution (without reverting us to the Stone Age).

Originally Posted by RoundTableKnight

Plus, considering how old our planet is...they've only been keeping these records for what, 100 years maybe? I'm sure back in the 1820s the planet had some warmer winters too. We just don't know about it.

The Albany, NY NWS website does go back to the 1820s, there are some years and months that had our levels of record warmth, but there would be decades between them and months and years colder than anything in the later "official" record is more common.

This website claims to have unofficial NYC monthly temperature data going back to the late 1700s (despite the title saying 1821-1868.....official Central Park records started on Jan 1, 1869). July, 1825 was as warm as the "official" record in July, 1999, but far more months are well below current norms than above.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/D..._1821-1868.tab

[Cambium]

5pm map.. I see a cold snowy area and they don't want to share with us.

[Cambium]

Before 1990...In Hartford

February 1954 record warm
February 1953 5th warmest
February 1960 9th warmest
February 1949 11th warmest

4 of the Top 11 happened within 11 yrs.


Be careful of those saying warming didn't happen as often as now

[Cambium]

Rain is done for CT looks like.. Wish I was in Iowa.

[Cambium]

Congrats CT!!! LOL Enjoy.


https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/16...732954129?s=20

[simonusa3]

Originally Posted by 7 Wishes

Ah here we go again.....


No February in NYC averaged over 40 degrees until 1954. It didn't happen again until 1984. It's happened EIGHT times since then

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/D..._1821-1868.tab

It is interesting when you look at it.

I read some years back, that many (but not all) of the the temp data the weather service used over the years moved a few times, from cities to outlaying airports, from countryside to more urban areas, or even cross city moves. I would bet that some of the weather data even in the same city would change if the location were moved even across town.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by simonusa3

It is interesting when you look at it.

I read some years back, that many (but not all) of the the temp data the weather service used over the years moved a few times, from cities to outlaying airports, from countryside to more urban areas, or even cross city moves. I would bet that some of the weather data even in the same city would change if the location were moved even across town.

That is correct, in fact Albany and Hartford (hint, hint Cambium) did show cooler averages when they moved from the city itself to the airport, and again when Hartford focused on the more exurban BDL over Brainerd Airport for their averages. Some warming is heat island effects, but even rural areas have almost all warmed over the decades. If you go on the Albany NWS website, you'll see that their record lows are not as biased towards the past and have more "ancient" record highs than most other locations, but that mostly reflects moving from downtown to the airport along the way. Buffalo, NY is somewhat similar in this regard.

But again, there is more complexity than how it's explained to the public. The average low temperature in Phoenix and Las Vegas has gone up almost a staggering 10 degrees in 50 years. They have experienced massive growth and sprawl in that time. Since everyone is not going up as rapid as that, it's clear that more of their rise is UHI growth than it is an atmosphere that holds in heat better than it used to.

Originally Posted by Cambium

Before 1990...In Hartford

February 1954 record warm
February 1953 5th warmest
February 1960 9th warmest
February 1949 11th warmest

4 of the Top 11 happened within 11 yrs.


Be careful of those saying warming didn't happen as often as now

Sigh.....


For some reason NOWdata is down and giving errors at the moment so I can't quantify (like is this where they ranked now or in 1990? Where does 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2020 fit into all this? Etc.) but the difference is there was always a near equal part of the globe that was as much cooler than normal as there were parts that were warmer than normal. That's nowhere near the case now. And since I can't see NOWdata at the moment I bet 2015 is the only February since 1980 on the top 10 coldest for Hartford (I know 1979 will be).

And the 1930s countered some of the warmest months nationally with some of the coldest as well. Not impossible to get a very below normal month now but a lot rarer and has been for at least 20-30 years. Ditto particularly low temperatures. Boston's -10 earlier this month was a first since 1957 and only one other time was even close in that span Feb 14, 2016 (-9). NYC has had 1 subzero low in almost 30 years (again Feb 2016 and only at Central Park, not at the airports which still haven't had one since 1994, by far their longest stretch), before 1944 it never went more than 9 years without one and many years had it happen more than once. Finally Albany, NY has last been -20 or below in 1994, but before 1984 (the previous time), it happened multiple times most decades, even when they recorded weather downtown instead of at their airport.

And 4 in 11 years is a lot different than 3 of 4 (2017-20) and again just 3 years later.....especially if most of those years fit in your list between 1953 and 1954 rather than the bottom of the "top 10". There's patterns vs. consistency....I'll agree that 5 years is not enough to say it 100% definitively but the only way to prove or disprove is to see what happens going forward and some long term consequences are too risky to simply ignore this completely and write off.