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yeah right now it's extremely cold now in Atlanta. The wind is ripping through the city, sustained 25-30kmph all night with gusts 60+ and wind chills are in the -20s
Barring windchill, Atlanta's present weather is actually great recreational weather for winter activities!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
By next weekend we are having LOWS in the double digits and highs in the upper teens
Can't say this enough, as long as there's no nasty surprise backload that is such fabulous compensation. I wouldn't be able to say it enough if my every comment on this thread said it.
my winter recreation activity was getting to wear my once-a-year heavy-duty jacket for errands today. The type I can throw on unzipped over a tee-shirt on a night like this, walk around and still feel pretty cozy.
the only question now is , once I get back home after Christmas, will there be any more days this season where it's reasonable to break that one out? Or will it be light jacket at most from then until Spring?
my winter recreation activity was getting to wear my once-a-year heavy-duty jacket for errands today. The type I can throw on unzipped over a tee-shirt on a night like this, walk around and still feel pretty cozy.
the only question now is , once I get back home after Christmas, will there be any more days this season where it's reasonable to break that one out? Or will it be light jacket at most from then until Spring?
That's a good question. I'm hoping this cold is going to do the latter and produce widespread February last frosts due to using up cold air that would have come during March (see 2011 and 2015 for example), but at this point it's impossible to say, I mean look at what will be happening so shortly!
Another possibility is a warm February but backloaded March, ala 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022. Granted 2017 and 2018 did not give any March problems to places I am after in Texas and Louisiana, and 2018 was easy enough on the East Coast to not give a frost to the Charleston airport cold hole, but for at least quite a few places I was given February false hope only to have it shattered and I do NOT want that.
Looking at the likes of Florida there is no way these last few days I would consider it subtropical however next week it is getting warmer than Sydney in summer. I'm confused lol. Pretty extreme. Nice to see places with such interesting weather
Looking at the likes of Florida there is no way these last few days I would consider it subtropical however next week it is getting warmer than Sydney in summer. I'm confused lol. Pretty extreme. Nice to see places with such interesting weather
Ummm...-4C in Jacksonville like you were talking about is extremely reasonable as the coldest temperature of the year in a SUBtropical climate. It's not a tropical climate, there has to be something non-tropical like cold weather and it's very minimally cold anyway.
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but in fact the normal coldest temperature of the year in Jacksonville is -4.7C which is colder than now, you do realize you'd be excluding Jacksonville from subtropical on the basis of its averages with that argument right?
Ummm...-4C in Jacksonville like you were talking about is extremely reasonable as the coldest temperature of the year in a SUBtropical climate. It's not a tropical climate, there has to be something non-tropical like cold weather and it's very minimally cold anyway.
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but in fact the normal coldest temperature of the year in Jacksonville is -4.7C which is colder than now, you do realize you'd be excluding Jacksonville from subtropical on the basis of its averages with that argument right?
I think your missing the irony of my point. I'm pointing out that right now Jacsonville getting a low of -4°C and a high of 4°C is anything but subtropical in my view yet next week is going to be warmer than Sydney in it's summer. I just find this this mind-blowing. It's that extreme change I find most interesting to go from a winter Northern European climate to an Australian summer climate in a single week. Surely you have got to find that interesting as it really highlights how boring our climate really is.
Do I think Jacksonville is subtropical in general. Based on it's average high and low temperatures very much so, i don't think there is anywhere in Florida i wouldn't regard as subtropical. It is obviously just prone to more extreme differences which i didn't expect given it is an Oceanic climate aswell
I think your missing the irony of my point. I'm pointing out that right now Jacsonville getting a low of -4°C and a high of 4°C is anything but subtropical in my view yet next week is going to be warmer than Sydney in it's summer. I just find this this mind-blowing. It's that extreme change I find most interesting to go from a winter Northern European climate to an Australian summer climate in a single week. Surely you have got to find that interesting as it really highlights how boring our climate really is.
Do I think Jacksonville is subtropical in general. Based on it's average high and low temperatures very much so, i don't think there is anywhere in Florida i wouldn't regard as subtropical. It is obviously just prone to more extreme differences which i didn't expect given it is an Oceanic climate aswell
Oh I see lol! Yes, a 4/-4C average is on the subtropical/continental border, it certainly is not a quintessential subtropical.
I find it mind blowing too, and it was even more mind blowing when I first started serious Southeast climatology in 2017-18. That type of weather is what you'd expect in an East Coast climate, even a more oceanic one, but still amazing, and why I love the Southeast US weather and climate so much.
You may be fascinated to know how much more extreme this is in inland subtropical Southeast climates compared to oceanic ones like Jacksonville. San Antonio which has the same annual average temperature as Jacksonville went from -7C to 38C in February 1996 in 2 1/2 weeks, and Austin dropped from 31C to 0C just this past February in 24 hours.
Such fun to watch!
Now that we're well underway with the Southeast cold spell that's on everyone's lips, I'd like to point out that it's just more proof of the Southeast being a perfectly reasonable SUBtropical climate. Lowest temperatures we're looking at range from just above 0C in almost tropical South Central Florida, to the mid-low teens negative C in the coolest 1/3 of subtropical climates.
And this is an exceptionally bad cold spell, coldest since all-time-record-low-territory 1989! Yet despite this, the below freezing temperatures the subtropical climates are seeing are only as cold as or warmer than the average winter temperatures their appropriate analogue of humid continental climates would see, for many days at a time - which is one of the 2 the key analogies needed to understand why cold weather in the subtropical Southeast is perfectly appropriate.
@Spinningcolumnofair, I just now checked Baltimore and it turns out the 32C in March is just the airport, downtown has reached 36C. Impressive!
By what metric/station is the freeze worst since 1989? For many places in Florida this was not even the coldest in the past 12 months. The late January cold front was being called 'once-per-decade' conditions last winter, but I'm skeptical of that too.
I don't think anyone can consider Florida an 'inferior' subtropical climate. It's the places like Baltimore or Trenton that get the treatment. People coming from Europe where Aberdeen is zone 9a at 57n and the same USDA zone as Jacksonville, Florida LOL
it's hard to get onboard with zone 7a 'subtropical' climates with winter average temp <5c and regular cold snaps.
Example: Houston is getting tropical weather soon lows 18+ and highs mid 20s. This climate is obviously not continental or anything except subtropical.
Baltimore is getting warm weather but the warmest forecastsI'm seeing is 16 high. That's very difference since even Boston is forecast to hit 15 high and is not any kind of subtropical climate.
By what metric/station is the freeze worst since 1989? For many places in Florida this was not even the coldest in the past 12 months. The late January cold front was being called 'once-per-decade' conditions last winter, but I'm skeptical of that too.
It's referring to the coldest freeze at the time of year, last January wasn't equaled by a January since 2010 and this December wasn't equaled by a December since 1989. Don't forget that on its own this is an especially bad freeze, we're looking at 9a-9b places like Pensacola, Destin, Jacksonville airport, Lake City, and FSU Tallahassee drop as cold as -7C, which for FSU Tallahassee is especially significant as its previous coldest low since June 2014 is -5C and most winters in that time frame didn't even drop to -3C.
Plus Destin may not have got to -7C, but is still quite colder than its usual minimum. And Orlando+Tampa got their first frosts since 2018 and first in December since 2010, together with Daytona Beach getting a hard frost.
And while you're right that many places in South Florida were colder for lows back in January, even they got hit hard for highs - all time record low maximums were approached and coldest Christmas highs on record were set. This is from the Miami weather.gov.
I don't think anyone can consider Florida an 'inferior' subtropical climate.
Unbelievably, the clown climatologists who confuse subtropical with tropical do (and it's FLORIDA of all places). They don't even consider ORLANDO (let alone quite colder Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, etc) subtropical because there is usually frost in winter. https://www.city-data.com/forum/weat...l#post31538168
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
It's the places like Baltimore or Trenton that get the treatment.
The people that do are generally lacking understanding of the reasons they are subtropical. They tend to ignore the cool instead of cold winters, lack of snowpack, warmth dominance, and the fact that these climates get their weather from the same root causes as warmer subtropical places like Dallas or Jacksonville or Orlando.
The latter in particular is the rationale to group them together and a logical one at that. I don't see how separating them could reasonably be argued for when they have the same root causes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
People coming from Europe where Aberdeen is zone 9a at 57n and the same USDA zone as Jacksonville, Florida LOL
That is just the cold hole inland airport. Jacksonville Beach is solid 9b, plus I was told some suburbs of Jacksonville that are directly south of the St Johns River are warmer than it, so these are probably low end 10a.
In general though Aberdeen is so much colder that it's just plain hilarious. As you would expect from a place in Scotland, NONE of even its ALL TIME RECORD monthly highs equal even the average highs of the cold hole 9a Jacksonville airport.
Jan 17.2 vs 18.6
Feb 17.2 vs 20.5
Mar 21.6 vs 23.5
Apr 23.5 vs 26.6
May 24.4 vs 29.9
June 26.7 vs 32.2
July 29.8 vs 33.3
Aug 29.7 vs 32.7
Sept 26 vs 30.7
Oct 22.1 vs 27.2
Nov 18.8 vs 22.9
Dec 15.1 vs 19.7
Heck even Aberdeen's average yearly HIGH of 12.2C slightly falls short of matching Jacksonville airport's January 12.3C average, the coldest month.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
it's hard to get onboard with zone 7a 'subtropical' climates with winter average temp <5c and regular cold snaps.
The cold snaps are not regular enough to make the winters cold (hence why features like lack of snowpack exist), and they share the same root causes as the warmer climates, as mentioned. Plus they fulfill the SUB part well.
Besides that, 7a subtropical climates are not as common as you might expect. When you start getting into the mid-Atlantic and southern New England, you're looking at 7b or even 8a for the borderline subtropical climates, so it's safe to say 7a-8a is where they start (Wichita is a good example of a 7a barely subtropical climate, New York Central Park is a good example of a 7b barely subtropical climate, and Cape May is a good example of an 8a barely subtropical climate).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
Example: Houston is getting tropical weather soon lows 18+ and highs mid 20s. This climate is obviously not continental or anything except subtropical.
Yep.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
Baltimore is getting warm weather but the warmest forecastsI'm seeing is 16 high. That's very difference since even Boston is forecast to hit 15 high and is not any kind of subtropical climate.
Boston is very close to subtropical though. When (when, not if) it has all months above 0C, it will be sharing root causes with Houston, as does currently subtropical Baltimore.
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. I'm hoping this cold is going to do the latter and produce widespread February last frosts due to using up cold air that would have come during March (see 2011 and 2015 for example), but at this point it's impossible to say, I mean look at what will be happening so shortly!
. Impressive!
. They don't even consider ORLANDO (let alone quite colder Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, etc) subtropical because there is usually frost in winter.
