Skins24

You received approximately 3/4ths of a chuckle for that one mcsluggo

Hope everyone gets out and enjoys tomorrow's record or near record warmth. While no cold air invasions for the near term, this weekend will be only a notch or two above 'cold' in the 'chilly' realm. We moderate a bit next week but by this time next week we may be experiencing our last 60 degree day, at least for a while. GFS has also been very consistent with a mid month storm/cold front after which reaching 50 will be a struggle, even a no go at times. We'll see.

Think we may have to start the winter thread next week. No current winter precip threats on the horizon, but there's every indication that by the second week of November winterish temps (highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s-low 30s) will be visiting and spending some quality time with us.

Woah! Joaquin took some steroids!

Cat 4 again

Only a threat to Bermuda currently

Looking at the water vapor is by far the best way to see all the players in motion

Stricter gun laws? Sure. All for it. Why not?

But I hope no one is under the illusion that would do anything to stop incidents like we've seen today...

Now I'm hearing it may hit SC. Nobody knows what this thing is gonna do!

ALL models, or at least all the ones with any credibility, have sided with the out to sea solution today. It's taking it's time turning but as of RIGHT NOW a U.S. landfall appears unlikely.

We'll see what tomorrow's runs bring!

Latest NHC track has it coming up the bay, going over DC as a tropical storm

So do most models have this thing arriving sat or sun?

They were spread evenly I would say between Sat. and Sun. Now most leaning towards Sunday. A little too early to pin down timing.

NHC has it coming on shore Monday...

National Center for Atmospheric Research compiled the 19 tracks of the storm, 14 go over DC. 17 have it being a Cat2 when it gets in range. I think we are getting hit.

Yeah models are starting to come in agreement as far as track. It looks very Isabelish right now in terms of impacts on this area. Definitely needs to be monitored closely.

So, it looks like Saturday will be the big day. Latest GFS joins other models in bringing tropical storm force winds even in the DC area. But winds will be a secondary issue...rain will be the big story.

Very complicated forecast as several storms are in play and how they all interact with each other bears very close watching. Some models are more perfect stormish than others but nevertheless, all give us at least about 10" of rain between now and Sunday.

It usually picks up later in the summer after the oceans have heated up all summer. But yeah, right now:

El Nino will ensure this season stays quiet. We are a month away from peak and the Atlantic is absolutely dead right now. Which is great!

The hurricane drought continues! I think the 2005 season broke the Atlantic...

I love May!

This will be the best stretch of weather since early September!

Enjoy!!

From your first link:

"Peer-reviewed studies are divided on whether the drought can be blamed on climate change."

I've already posted a study that actually predicted that this would happen several years ago due to decreasing Arctic sea ice.

I predict rain will fall in a rainforest...

Could you please repost that study? Or do you know what they cited would be different in a "climate change drought" over a regular drought in a drought prone area? How do we know the difference?

So your argument is that extreme weather and climate change are not interlinked?

That's a trick question. The climate is ALWAYS changing. The Earth has and will always have extreme weather events. So....

The standard working definition is actually a few decades (like about 30 years).

If you want to claim that climate is a few centuries, then you might be right.

But there are a whole lot of people out there when they talk about climate, they talk about the conditions for a few decades.

HAS to be >30 years as we have natural short-term cycles that last that long...

There is no evidence that this is true. There is no reason that the planet can't and shouldn't maintain a relatively constant temperature currently (obviously there is going to be variation), especially in the context of decades.

The cycles that cause glaciation are very slow and you need centuries to observer their affects, and we aren't really in the middle of a change in a cycle anyway.

But even if you were, on the level of decades, climate could at least appear as a random walk.

Earth's climate has never remained constant nor is there evidence it can. Sure she can maintain a certain temperature for a few decades, but that is not "climate"...

Can't wait for another hundred years or so. I hope I'm still around. More data, and hopefully better technology to peer into the past. What may seem anomalous to us, may not be...at all. Data X is 20% higher now than it was in year Y!

Yeah, but it's 25% lower than it was in year Z, and year Z was 10% cooler than the average for the rest of century B.

Hopefully in the future, we'll have a better understanding of what we think the avg. temp (et al) of planet earth should be THEN we can say whether we're above average or not

I find accepting climate change but doing nothin

Man, you brought up a good hypothetical point . Say we do everything and completely end our part in helping the earth warm. The earth will continue to warm, a very good thing. So, what rate of warming are we humans willing to accept? If the earth warms slower or faster than we like, what do we do?

Florida....Enough said.

Peter:

Go back and read what you said and read what I said. This tangent has nothing to do with what was originally being talked about. You said El Ninos can't bring drought. While true with most El Ninos -

I'm arguing just for the sake of arguing but this really depends on what type of El Nino it is. Wet Cali comes from El Ninos that produce significantly warm the waters of the eastern Pacific. Other El Ninos can certainly encourage dry conditions in Cali.

When El Ninos are concentrated center Pac or western Pac, we see different patterns. I simply gave several examples of drought conditions during an El Nino.

The 2009-2010 El Nino started in June and was a healthy 1.6 ONI. They saw months without precip.

FROM YOUR OWN LINK re 2007! It mentions a stronger drought '77-'78, guess what? El Nino. And a longer drought '87-'92, guess what? All El Nino years. THAT was my only point with that.

That's from June of 2010.

Wow. Droughts don't last forever and as the article stated the late spring storms brought an end to it - meaning there were drought conditions to begin with. Also by June we were transitioning to La Nina!

Heading into 2010 however it was certainly El Nino and certainly drought conditions out west (remember the Olympics? Remember the 2000 inches of snow we got on the east coast? That only happens if there's a ridge out west)

https://cloudyandcool.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/west_drought_monitor_011210.png?w=500&h=371

If it isn't unusual, want to take another try?

'66, '86-'87, '02, '06-'07, etc.

That doesn't really mean that this drought would be occurring if CO2 levels were less than 320 ppm.

Actually, yes it does. To this severity? We'll never know but with ENSO neutral conditions, there isn't anything disrupting the cycle.

Now, I'm not saying that's proof that the CO2 induced climate change is causing the drought, but I do find it odd that your so quick to dismiss it.

Until this drought becomes abnormal, I have no reason to believe this one is any different.

Every single thing that I know of that the models said would change significantly in 1988 have.

Every one.

I really want to see this...

2014 was the warmest surface year on record. Warmer than any "spike" from a El Nino year.

2014 was warm in terms of avg. temp. Like 55.8 degrees instead of 55.4.

In El Nino event, we can see a spike in the order of a couple degrees.

We have 50-80 years to go until what?

Temps to rise a degree or two

When was the last time there was any kind of El Nino and CA was in a drought?

2010 was the last time. It's not unusual at all...

Precip is going up and faster than projections. Globally.

Source?

Also, good!!

If that's the case temps will start falling or at least the rate they're going up will decrease dramatically!

Which is how you ended up trying to make the ridiculous argument that CO2 induced warming is equivalent to El Nino affects.

Nah, just your misinterpretation

The fact of the matter is that we don't know if the drought in CA is part of a normal weather cycle or not.

This a joke?

Normal weather cycle means....it happens in cycles. We can look back and see how often and how long droughts last. This is not outside of any normal drought cycles. Not yet at least.

Especially if we you are going to argue that the models aren't any good

Didn't say that. I said so far they have missed the mark because they didn't take into account factors that have significant impacts.

The models are doing a much better job of predicting what the results are going to be than El Ninos. And it isn't even close.

We'll see. Temps have not yet risen to the spike we can see during El Nino years.

Not disputing that at all but we still have 50-80 years or so to go barring any more unfactored circumstances. Glad you're so certain though.

The climate models say that you can see CO2 induced warming that generates really warm years (globally) AND have a CA drought.

El Ninos don't.

I'm arguing just for the sake of arguing but this really depends on what type of El Nino it is. Wet Cali comes from El Ninos that produce significantly warm the waters of the eastern Pacific. Other El Ninos can certainly encourage dry conditions in Cali.

But as I've already pointed out that isn't the case. Yes surface temperatures are trailing projections, but precipitation

Precip increasing or decreasing? And where?

and Arctic sea ice melting are going faster than projections

Maybe. How fast was it originally projected?

Also, it seems all it take to slow that down is a couple of cool summers...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30399079

Looking at all of the data, there is a good as reason to believe that the models are under estimating the effects as over estimating them.

Well, I have been talking about the weather effects YET TO COME. So we will see.

I'm saying the positive effects of a warming climate (and there is absolutely no question anything considered alive does much better during warming periods) are underplayed and the negative effects overplayed. Have yet to see anything that disputes that...

Because it contradicts your argument.

Your argument is El Nino = rain in CA

CO2 induced warming = El Nino

so CO2 induced warming = rain in CA

My question is then, where's the rain in CA?

Exactly - to the question of where is the rain. What is going on in California is not abnormal. These types of droughts happen as part of a normal weather cycle. Meaning the warming so far has not been enough to disrupt normal weather cycles.

I did NOT equate El Nino to warming.

I said in predicting future weather events in a warmer climate, the closest hints we have are (east-based) El Nino events. No it's not going to be the same. Yes in some places there will be possibly drastic differences. Again, we'll see...

Side note:

At the surface level, 2014 was very very likely warmer than any El Nino year in history.

Technically worldwide. For the U.S. I have to check again but I believe we were in the 30s (like 34th warmest or something like that.)

Ah, arguing for the sake of simply arguing, fun

They're no good for predicting drought, but they're perfectly good for predicting El Ninos because arguments that the models are wrong about future drought require they be right about future El Ninos.

Lol

*swinging this train back on track*

My argument is that the models have been wrong to date. They have been wrong to date because as that climate scientist mentioned, there are factors they did not take into account or underestimated. In the future, like in the past, there are factors that are currently not being taken into account. These factors can and will throw the doom and gloom predictions off, by decades even. Period.

I didn't say that the CA drought was caused by climate change.

Try again.

So, why even mention it? In a climate change thread? When the topic was the effects?

You said, we've been warm lately and look at California, they're in a drought.

You can see how that can confuse people in a climate change thread right?