I really did have to get a few things, so I thought this might be a good morning to go downtown and use my Trader Joe’s gift certificate. Hah! The line waiting out on the street to get into the parking lot was blocking a major intersection. So I decided to go back to my neighborhood ShopRite instead. I drove down Spring Garden Street to get home, and was greeted by GIANT CLOUDS of salt mixed with sand. The salt got into my car vents and made my eyes burn.
At the ShopRite? There was nowhere to park, nowhere at all.
I ended up going to the Target down the street, where you could at least park and it wasn’t packed. More people than usual, but it wasn’t bad.
One of my friends (who lives in D.C.) said, “Look, I lived in Buffalo. This is no big deal.”
“And how many people live in Buffalo?” I said. “There are a lot of people to move around in a city.” Hmmph.
I was thinking we’re just not used to real winters anymore. (This is the fourth snowstorm in two weeks. I can’t remember the last time that happened.) For the past 15 years or so, we’ve mostly had warm, rainy winters with the occasional three-to-four day stretch of temperatures in the 20s. The real problem these days is rain, which floods the roads, backs up the sewers and wears away the underground infrastructure.
Many people don’t have much winter gear anymore. It hasn’t been enough of an onging problem to invest in snow boots, insulated gloves, or down coats. (Hell, I don’t even own many long-sleeved t-shirts.) So this is a bit of a mindfuck. It’s something we’re all going to have to get used to.
Relax. If your previous article is accurate, and I think it is, you’ll be wishing for snow storms in just a few more years.
The jet stream is shifting due to loss of the Arctic ice pack.
This article gives a pretty good explanation. Last year was Europe’s turn; this year it looks like it’s ours – possibly for an extended period.
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/tag/jet-stream/
As a very excellent blogger might say, “go read the whole thing”, but I will pull out a few excerpts.
“…A persistent erosion of Arctic sea ice set off changes to the polar jet stream that locked in place a severe winter weather pattern that pummeled the central and western European countries for much of the winter. Storm after storm piled snow high in locations that typically saw only modest winter precipitation while other areas were simply buried. The US also took a glancing blow from this extreme storm configuration. But now, with a large trough in the polar Jet remaining locked in place for almost a year, the US from the Rockies eastward appears to be in the line of fire for some very severe winter weather…”
“… Over the extreme northern Pacific, adjacent to Alaska and the Bering Sea, seasonal temperature range from 4-12 degrees Celsius above average. And it is this extreme northward invasion of warm air that is displacing polar and Arctic air masses toward the east and south, putting much of the US in the firing line for strange and severe winter weather…”
“…An extreme difference between the temperatures at high northern latitudes and at more temperate latitudes has driven a very rapid flow of upper level air called the Jet Stream for almost all of human meteorological reckoning. This high temperature difference drove powerful upper level winds from west to east. These winds tended to modulate only slightly and when they did, powerful weather events tended to occur.
Locking a greater portion of this cold air in place was the northern hemisphere ice cap, most of which was composed of a large swath of sea ice covering much of the northern oceans. This high volume of cold, reflective ice kept temperatures up north very, very low and provided the massive temperature differences which kept the Jet Stream predominantly flat with only occasional and more moderate severe weather causing ripples and bulges.
But since 1979, massive volumes of sea ice have been lost due to an immense and ongoing human caused warming trend taking hold in the Arctic. As human greenhouse gas emissions sky-rocketed, Arctic temperatures rapidly increased far faster than the global average. By this year, human greenhouse gas emissions had driven CO2 levels to the highest seen in more than 3 million years while Arctic temperatures are now warmer than at any time in the past 150,000 years. Sea ice retreat has been equally unprecedented with average winter values now 15-20% below extent measures seen during 1979 and with end summer sea ice extent values now a stunning 35-50% below that of 1979. Sea ice volume, the measure of total ice including its thickness, has shown even more stunning losses since 1979 with seasonal winter values 30-35% lower than in 1979 and end summer values between 65 and 80% lower during recent years…”
“…The loss of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of sea ice radically reduces the Arctic Ocean’s ability to keep the Arctic cold. To the contrary, we see larger areas of open water that, in turn, radiate ocean heat into the atmosphere throughout winter. As a result the temperature difference between the Arctic and temperate regions is less and this, in turn, slows down the Jet Stream.
When the Jet Stream slows, it tends to meander. And when it meanders it creates very deep troughs and very large ridges. In the ridges, we get unseasonably hot temperatures along with increased risk of drought. And in the troughs, Arctic air swoops down to collide with warmer, moist air in a series of powerful storms. During the summer time, the hot, dry zones can bring deadly heat waves, record droughts, and major wildfires while the cooler stormier zones can bring epic rainfall events or even link up with tropical cyclones to result in highly severe hybrid storms. During the winter time, the hot zones can almost completely obliterate the winter season, while the stormy cooler zones can result in snow storm after snow storm…”