What's going on with the weather?

[Perspicuo]

A Melting Arctic And Weird Weather: The Plot Thickens
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/melting-arctic-and-weird-weather-plot-thickens

Yes, droughts, cold and snowstorms have happened before, but the persistence of this pattern over North America is starting to raise eyebrows. Is climate change at work here?

One thing we do know is that the polar jet stream – a fast river of wind up where jets fly that circumnavigates the northern hemisphere – has been doing some odd things in recent years.

Rather than circling in a relatively straight path, the jet stream has meandered more in north-south waves. In the west, it’s been bulging northward, arguably since December 2013 – a pattern dubbed the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” by meteorologists. In the east, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the “Terribly Tenacious Trough.”

 

[repoman]

So despite the Northeast of the US being hammered, the Arctic on whole is warmer now?



I wonder if this is about the lack of ice in the Arctic or ice that is not very thick or not had the time to cool down.

 

[bleubird]

The North Pacific is warming.Alaska has had a very mild winter.
Could the warm water up here move the jet stream?I don't know.

 

[Underseer]

What bothers me is that if all this cold is coming down here, there must be heat going up there.

 

[bleubird]

What bothers me is that if all this cold is coming down here, there must be heat going up there.

Dude,I been thinking of planting agave here.

 

[bleubird]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/whats-killing-the-baby-sea-lions/Content?oid=4222720
Bait fish are moving north to COLDER water.
Is this just weather or climate change?

 

[repoman]

I think that the earth system as a whole will only take on more heat energy until it equilibrates with the forcing agents.

Weather variations are bound to be weird along this path.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

The weather is changing. The weather is always changing. Climate change is real. If you don't want climate change move to Luna. There is no climate change there. Of course, there is no climate.

Eldarion Lathria

 

[Underseer]

The weather is changing. The weather is always changing. Climate change is real. If you don't want climate change move to Luna. There is no climate change there. Of course, there is no climate.

Eldarion Lathria

You're ignoring the "anthropogenic" part of "anthropogenic climate change."

Yes, the weather would constantly change even if man did not exist, but that does not change the fact that man is having an effect on the climate.

 

[bleubird]

https://www.rt.com/usa/313306-alaska-whale-deaths-toxic-bloom/
The north Pacific has been very warm this year,thus the toxic bloom.

 

[skepticalbip]

In the 1960s and 1970s that “Terribly Tenacious Trough.” was called the "Arctic Express". I don't know what it was called before that since I wasn't old enough to understand such things.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

February was the coldest in NE Ohio recorded history. May was the warmest in NE Ohio recorded history. I believe June was one the top three wettest in NE Ohio recorded history. And we are well below 90+ degree days this summer. Been in the mid 50's overnight for a last few days. The weather is all over the place in NE Ohio. We've oddly had the coldest weather in the last two to three winters. Most of the US is seeing warmer winters, we had a snow pack for a couple months this year. Didn't set many record cold temps in '14/'15 but we were consistently well below normal.

 

[skepticalbip]

.........................
... we were consistently well below normal.

It is an extremely rare weather condition anywhere when the temperature isn't either below or above the normal or wetter or dryer than normal.

 

[bleubird]

http://juneauempire.com/state/2015-08-30/obama-walk-fine-line-climate-energy
First tour of Alaska!
'bout time.
It's Denali,get over it Ohio!
There was fresh snow on the Towers today!

 

[scombrid]

It is an extremely rare weather condition anywhere when the temperature isn't either below or above the normal or wetter or dryer than normal.

That's a point I always try to make regarding "normal" weather in the middle latitudes. "Normal" weather does not equal mean weather. Normal is somewhere between the 20th and 80th percentile or maybe even 10th and 90th. Yeah, the average high in Smithfield Virginia is 48F on January 10th but I would consider anything between 25F and 65F to be normal.

Here in central FL we are dominated by maritime subtropical air in summer so our temperature varies little then. But in winter the actual temperature varies a lot and is rarely at or even near the "normal" on any given day.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

.........................
... we were consistently well below normal.

It is an extremely rare weather condition anywhere when the temperature isn't either below or above the normal or wetter or dryer than normal.

I don't think you caught my point. NE Ohio has a record cold February in 2015. A record warm May in 2015. June 2015 was the third wettest on record. We are talking sustained monthly numbers, not merely daily numbers. We had two 100-yr rain events in the last three years. Three since 2003. Sure, it was no 1913, but it was pretty impressive.

Yes, things ebb and flow, "hotter than normal" when people complain about a 95 degree day in the Summer, when it is usually in the 80s is silly because you always have spikes. What I was referring to in February was that we didn't have the same number of record low spikes like we did 2 or 3 years ago to drive the average temperature down. Instead about 2/3s of the month was much colder than normal, rarely getting above 20 or the like, it averages above freezing for a high in February. And while the above or below normal stuff is usual, having record MONTHLY highs, lows, and precips so close to each other isn't very normal.