1y ago

It’s spring in the Midwest. The only problem? It’s midwinter

www.cnn.com

It’s spring in the Midwest. The only problem? It’s midwinter | CNN

Winter has gone missing across the Midwest and Great Lakes, and time is running out to find it. Dozens of cities are on track for one of the warmest winters on record, making snow and ice rare commodities.

Several cities are missing feet of snow compared to a typical winter, ice on the Great Lakes is near record-low levels and the springlike temperatures have even spawned rare wintertime severe thunderstorms.

A classic El Niño pattern coupled with the effects of a warming climate are to blame for this “non-winter” winter, said Pete Boulay, a climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Winter has become the fastest-warming season for nearly 75% of the US and snowfall is declining around the globe as temperatures rise because of human-caused climate change.

51 comments

This warming winter trend just looks like a curiosity now because it is warm when it should be freezing cold right now.
Wait until July comes around ... it will mean drought and extreme heat. Everyone will pump up air conditioning use and push the electric system to the brink. And water, having enough water, will start becoming something that is harder to find.
It does not look good.
- In other parts of the world water is definitely a concern, but less so in the Midwest and the great lakes region in particular.
  It's the power grid I'm most worried about, since that's probably not going to be too happy about the unusually high continued load.
  
  You'd think but I'm up in Canada near Sudbury Ontario where we are surrounded by lakes and rivers. In many North American cities and towns, they rely on winter snow to replenish drinking water reservoirs in the winter time. That accumulated snow and ice is what drives many of the major rivers and streams and groundwater that fill fresh water reservoirs.
  Northern Alberta is starting to feel the effects of drought because of the lack of snow over the years. Canadian prairie cities and towns are also starting to feel the effects of less snow every year.
  The great lakes are also not a perpetual supply of fresh water. The majority of the water in those lakes are remnants of run off from the last ice age. The water that's used from the lakes by us is mostly run off from the previous winter snow and ice accumulations that drain into the lakes every year. As soon as our usage takes more water than the amount of winter run off, we are starting to drain the lakes. Sure it might take decades or a century to have a huge effect but immediate effects will be having to move facilities further into the lakes as their water levels drop. Also more algae blooms, contaminated water and more water evaporating faster as the weather warms. On a large open surface, thousands of gallons of water evaporate depending on how warm or hot the weather becomes.
  It's a very delicate system of dominos and we've started to tip the scales.
  
  additionally power substations have become a favorite target of far-right terrorists. With the election looming, there will probably ramp up attacks around that time as well.
  
  Definitely a problem in the arid US states. One of the very few things that worries me about living in Colorado in the coming years.
  
  Drinking water, maybe. But a large amount of crops are grown in the Midwest and when we have droughts our crop season suffers greatly.
  
  water is definitely a concern, but less so in the Midwest and the great lakes region in particular.
  For now, at least.
Funny observations now will turn into food and water scarcity later. The 1% will be high and dry (at least while they can grow food without an ecosystem), while the rest of us enjoy unimaginable human suffering on a massive scale.
Yep. Got almost no snow for the last few years running, and that sucks. Way more bad bugs in the summer, less maple syrup, etc.
Not good.
I'm in QC and it's quite incredible this winter, instead of 0F we have 48F, we had 2 snowstorm in a few days early January, nothing since. I've never saw a winter like this, people were wearing shorts this week-end
- It's not as stark of a difference, but in western Washington we've also had a noticeably warm winter. Really just feels like a continuation of fall. Almost the entire winter we've been around 40-50 °F, only had one cold snap that even got down to freezing, into the 20s for 4 days or so.
- Last friday it was 60F here in the Detroit area. I took my daughter skiing at one of the local places and you could see the snow melt running down the hill. I saw at least two kids skiing in shorts.
As someone who hates winter, I have been guiltily enjoying the warmth. We only had about a two-week cold snap (aka real winter) a month or so ago. I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a good thing.
- You'll miss the climate change transition period when the sea rises, the food and fresh water is almost non existent, and the mass migrations begin 😀
I'm sure by March we'll have another vicious cold snap that kills anything that was tricked into thinking it's spring.
- Except for the ticks... they were bad last year and I expect them to be worse this year... ugh
It's been spring in the PNW for weeks. Unless our spring is crazy wet while being cold enough for mountain snow then Oregon, Washington, and BC are just going to be one giant forest fire this summer.
- Yup. I've got spring flowers blooming in Seattle.
- SoCal checking in, can we have our spring back San Gregornio has enough snowpack.
I live in Taiwan and it hit 90F the other day. I went to the beach today at 24 degrees(75F). We are supposed to get 15C-20C winters. This is not normal.
we had a whole week of winter. last week it was 60F. what snow we had is long gone. it should be more like 0F with at least a couple feet of snow on the ground.
they said 'warm and dry' winter for the upper midwest. they weren't kidding. those extended forecasts don't look promising the rest of the way, either.
Where I live, our winters are typically like this. It's never been particularly stable, often oscillating between spring-like warm weather, standard cold winter weather, and stretches of extreme arctic blasts.
What has been unusual is that we haven't had any snow at all so far, not even an ephemeral flurry. We haven't had any wintry weather (i.e. sleet, snow, freezing rain) this winter. And for that to be the case in mid February is definitely unusual. If we go this entire winter with no wintry weather, it will be the first time in my lifetime that I can recall.
Coincidentally, back in the fall the long term forecasts for this winter were suggesting we would have more wintry weather than normal in this area, since there would be more moisture and more frequently extreme cold events (as well as cooler than normal temps).
Warmer weather during winter has been an obvious trend for decades now. But this year is different. The last few years, we'd have weeks where the snow would thaw in my area but then it would get cold again because that was happening was a storm was pulling warm air up from the south.
This year, we've had the opposite where the default is warm weather and occasionally a storm brings cold air down from the north.
Now this is the second year of an el Nino, so this hopefully isn't the new average case yet. But this year is really exemplifying how much things have changed since the last second year of El Nino we've had. Not even sure when that was (2012?), but I am sure that I've never seen a winter like this before.
Oh yeah, bringing up 2012 reminds me that we're also at the solar maximum part of the sun's cycle.
What I want to know is is this the new normal? I'll go ahead and assume it is, but I don't see anyone saying that.
- From what I understand, this is a continually escalating situation taking the planet well past habitability. We've tumbled over tipping point.
- Yes, climate change models predict the Midwest becoming more comfortable. Don't get me wrong it's still bad overall but the Midwest will likely benefit from its climate change in terms of being a relatively comfortable place to ride the storm.
- Imagine you have traveled on a high plateau with a beautiful view of the land. Now you are on a downhill trail to the woodland base of said plateau and some lone trees are now growing next to the trail. "Every now and then a big tree blocks my view of the beautiful landscape" you complain. "Should I assume this is the new normal" you wonder. Unbeknownst to you just a bit further the trail will enter the forest.
- This makes zero sense lol
Just to offer this thought: the Roman calendar was very messed up around the time of Julius Caesar. Because of its inaccuracies the seasons would slide around calendar.
So perhaps along with us destroying the environment and the climate's response it could be our calendar is missing some variable that pushes things around seemingly randomly.
- This is a flat-earth style take but for the climate.
  our calendar ...] pushes things around
  Is your proposal to find the missing snow by looking at another month then?
- Indeed, the Julian calendar would shift. That's why we are on the Gregorian calendar now. The fix some few hundred years ago did involve skipping 11 days though!

51 comments