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by opensores 1255 days ago
Winter has almost been a total dud in western NY and much of the US.

How much of this is due to just:

(A.) randomness and chance

(B.) the fact that we're above 400 ppm carbon dioxide for almost every square meter of the globe

(C.) at perihelion

(D.) creeping up of thermal mass over the years and decades, eg oceans https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/ov...
2 comments
greenyoda 1255 days ago
> Winter has almost been a total dud in western NY

What about the blizzard that dropped 4 feet of snow on Buffalo at the end of December?

"Buffalo is significantly outpacing its typical seasonal snowfall. It has recorded over 100 inches so far this season, nearly 70 inches more than the normal amount for this time of year and several inches more than what it averages the entire season."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalos-deadly-blizzard-numbers-m...

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opensores 1252 days ago
well, that was timed well for Christmas. While Buffalo got hammered twice by snow so far, it almost totally missed Rochester and portions in central NY.

Rochester still got a white Christmas which stuck around for a few days and definitely was a little prettier than the dreary snowless typical days in the region so far. The amount of shoveling required to date in Rochester: 0 hours. (Nothing accumulated above 2 inches.)

Texas and FL did get affected to record setting weather from that arctic blast. Hopefully most of the citrus trees survived.

Again, these short and extreme swings are often caused by a wavy jet stream that bring shifting North-South wind components to the weather while a the large scale vorticity passes by eastwards.

Wavy jet stream in turn is caused by a dying slowing jet stream. And this is also connected to global warming dynamics. While they do bring brief periods of more extreme cold, they do not help the average temperature stay low over the winter.

So look at the *averages*, not the brief extremes, and the pattern seems pretty clear.

In summary: just one cold brief arctic blast so, but no exceptional temperatures for most areas (afaik) in the NE.

As for Buffalo's luck, they may have be getting tons of Lake-effect snow from lake Erie.

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RhysU 1255 days ago
Warmth thus far is uncommon but not outside my 40 years. Often, January 1st is a great day to ride a motorcycle.

It's not yet February. February is often a b*tch no matter early winter.

Revisit this come March.

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