Continental Polar incursions in May?

[Joshua T. Clark]

Gents and Ladies,

I have been giving this a lot of thought. With the seemingly lack of typical springlike conditions in the Central Plains this year, would it be possible to speculate that the atmosphere and the climate is undergoing a major correction?

 

[Jeff Duda]

Speculate? Yes, but that is a HUUUUUUUUGE speculation unless you have some data to back it up. The statement you are making is astronomically significant in the atmospheric sciences. Lots of people have been awarded millions in grant money to research stuff like that right now. I hope you can focus your question a bit if you're looking for a serious answer.

 

[rdale]

Can you explain what "major correction" means to you?

 

[Stan Rose]

Go ahead and speculate all you'd like, but from my perspective the last couple months have been pretty 'typical'--take the last few days, high of 88 here a couple days ago (one shy of record high), then some snow yesterday. Pretty typical springlike stuff for us. A nice change from the heat of recent years for sure, but a "correction"? A couple months of typical below-average variability is pretty insignificant, doesn't really excite me--if we get a foot of snow in June you can resubmit your query and we can talk.

 

[Clarence Bennett]

Original poster...Butterfly effect - it would be impossible to determine "course correction" here because we don't have specific historical records of the weather going back to the beginning of time, which is what we would need to even come close to making an attempt to say with any confidence that some sort of correction is happening here.

 

[Robert S. Thompson]

Weather varies incredibly on daily, monthly, and annual time scales. The magnitude of temperature change associated with climate change observations and future forecasts is barely above the noise level. Below normal temperatures, even for a period of several months, should not be considered anything unusual.

 

[Joshua Nall]

No correction, maybe fluctuation. Probably the beginning of a new ice age, lol.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

Didn't you get the memo? A few years back Spring was discontinued and was replaced by alternating extended summers and winters. Guess who's turn it is this year?

 

[Joshua T. Clark]

I was not trying to be funny, it is just I do not remember it being so cold this late into the spring. Just trying to make some sense of it all. Mainly, my concerns have been the conclusion of the predominate pattern that has brought about and excerbated the multi-year drought. I have not been around as long as some of you so I do not recall drought conditions that have been as severe as the drought that we are currently in.

 

[Michael Riedl]

Not to derail the thread that was originally about cP airmass intrusiont. We currently have a Warm Phase AMO, weak La-Nina Conditions oscillating between weak/neutral El-Nino conditions, it's analogous to the drought of the 1950's.

 

[John Wetter]

Neither the current drought nor the recent cold snap are unprecedented, and there are some good causal discussions elsewhere on the forum so I won't belabor the point. This current situation is a WEATHER situation, not a climate one, which is I think the main part of your post many are finding objectionable.

To the main topic, the cP intrusions are definitely not normal, however, with the huge snowpack in the Canadian provinces it shouldn't be a surprise that they are able to keep going longer as there is not a lot of radiational warmth to modify the airmass as it moves south.

 

[Joshua T. Clark]

Okay, I understand the concept of airmass modification and all. I am encouraged that the drought outlook indicates improvement.