Follow-up Report: Heavy UK Snow, February 2009

As the Climate Capitalist noted at the time, record snowfalls in the UK in early February were being highly touted in the climate deniosphere. Here's a follow-up you're not likely to see any time soon on those blogs. The April issue of the Royal Meteorological Society's Weather magazine has just arrived on this side of the pond with an article, "February 2009 Cold and wintry first half; mild, cloudy, but dry second half" (subscription required). Regarding the snow:

The first ten days of February were mostly cold and unsettled with frequent and widespread snow. Overnight on the 1st/2nd snow fell across most eastern, central and southern districts, and was particularly heavy in London, west Kent, Surrey and northeast Hampshire; Wisley (Surrey) reported 41cm level snow, and Epsom Downs (also Surrey) 39cm, and 12–15cm lay in central London. Further heavy snow affected southwest England, Wales, the Midlands and eastern England on both the 4th/5th and the 6th, and also northern and eastern Scotland on the 6th/7th; aggregate depths of 20–30cm were widely reported in these regions.

However,

The mild second half offset the cold first half, and mean monthly temperature was within 1degC of the long-term average throughout the country. The heavy snow and rain in the opening days of the month over southern England made it a wet month here – even though less than 2mm fell in places between the 10th and the 28th; it was an exceptionally dry month in western Britain and Northern Ireland.

Wassup with that, IceCrappers and other A.S.S. blogs? When will we see you publish the full story? Do we have to wait until Hell freezes over?

Image (click to enlarge): UK winter 2008-09 temperature departure from average from UK Met Office via Royal Meteorological Society

Source of Slick Willy's A.-Gore-aphobia Revealed: It's Jeanetic!

April 24 Update: Added Stephen Colbert video from April 21

Original post:
How can you tell when George "F" Will is spouting trash about climate science? His quill pen is in his writing hand. Apparently that isn't the only part of Will's anatomy still residing in another century: His pants are too tight.

Oh, and he didn't even get the correct name of the organization he misquoted on Arctic ice extent.

Image (click to enlarge): L.L. Bean Natural Fit jeans. Try 'em out G-Dub; they're very comfortable, even if the only exercise you get is sharpening your quill pen. They are made by illegal immigrants in Mexico, however.


Colbert Concurs, Condemns Demon Denim:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
George Will's Demon Denim
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

Mid Atlantic Drought Update: Week Ending April 14

Today's weekly drought monitor update, which doesn't include the rainfall of the last 2 days, shows virtually no change from the previous week in the Mid Atlantic area. Maryland remains at 79% Moderate Drought (tan shading), and northern Virginia's dryness puts that statewide percentage at 17%.

The preliminary analysis from the National Climatic Data Center shows that this was the driest January to March period in Maryland since records began in 1895. This is the 4th year in a row that the state has been below the long-term average for the first quarter of the year. The trend has been downward since the late 1990's. The states of Delaware and New Jersey also set records for the driest first quarter, and for Pennsylvania it was the 2nd driest. Overall, the Northeast region had its driest January-March ever, although the U.S. on average was slightly above the long-term normal for the month of March.

Persistent showers on Tuesday and Wednesday have helped to reduce the deficits in the region. Through this morning, the year-to-date precipitation relative to average is:

Washington National     -3.29"/-30%
Washington Dulles       -3.40"/-31%
Baltimore (BWI Airport) -2.75"/-23% 

March Was 10th Warmest on Record Globally First Quarter 2009 8th Warmest

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) today released their preliminary analysis for March 2009. It shows that the global average temperature for the month was the 10th warmest on record. The first quarter of 2009, January-March, was the 8th warmest.

The warmest regions during March were Mexico, Europe, most of Asia, South America, and large portions of the contiguous United States. On the other hand, the north central and northwestern U.S., southern Canada, southern Alaska, and central Russia were cooler than average.

The equatorial Pacific was in a cold (La Niña) phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), although some warming took place in a portion of the region. Sea surface temperatures were warmer than average in the northern Indian and western Pacific oceans, and most of the southern and northern Atlantic Ocean.

Average Northern Hemisphere snow cover for March was the 12th lowest in the 43 years since satellite observation began in 1967. The contiguous U.S. observed several severe winter storms during the month, with 20 new all-time snowfall records, 84 new monthly records, and 1,053 new daily records being set. For North America overall, however, the snow extent was near average.

Images (click to enlarge): March 2009 global surface temperature departures from average, Jan-Mar global temperature history, and Northern Hemisphere snow cover departure from average from NOAA/NCDC

Happy No Snow Day!

April 10 is the earliest date in the year on which no measurable snow has ever been observed in Washington, DC. A trace fell on this date in 1975. An inch or more has occurred as late as the 12th, when 2" fell in 1918. The latest measurable amount was 0.5" on the 28th in 1898.

The most snow on a single day in April was 5.5" on April 1, 1924. That also made April 1924 the snowiest April.

A trace of snow has been observed 4 times in May:
May 1, 1963
May 5. 1993
May 9, 1923
May 10, 1906

Official snowfall records in Washington began in 1888.

Mid Atlantic Drought Update: Week Ending April 7

Following the near-record dry February-March, showers in the first week of April have kept the month to date above average for the Washington, DC region. Including 0.77" falling in 24 hours on the 2nd-3rd, Washington National now has a total of 1.1" for the month. In the longer run, however, the region remains in Moderate Drought conditions. The state of Virginia has improved from 27% Moderate to 17% in the current week, but Maryland has worsened from 52% to 79%.

The year-to-date precipitation deficits for major reporting locations in the region have all decreased compared to 2 weeks ago:

Washington National 4.09"
Washington Dulles 4.03"
BWI 4.41"

The dry conditions extend westward into West Virginia, where Martinsburg is 5.12" low for the year to date.

Images (click to enlarge): 30-day precipitation history for Washington DC from Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NOAA; Maryland and Virginia drought conditions from U.S. Drought Monitor, USDA and NOAA

"It Hasn't Warmed Since 1998"

Although it's been shown to be unsupported by the data, the claim that global temperatures have declined since 1998 continues to be high on the climate skeptics' hit parade. This canard reared its disreputable head again last week in George Will's latest bag of climate lies.

Even if this discredited claim were true, it still wouldn't mean anything by itself, since it's a classic case of cherry-picking. Andrew Revkin's April 3 post at the NYT's DotEarth blog picks up on that theme with a discussion of a paper to be published in the American Geophysical Union's peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters. Despite the clear evidence that out-of-context short-term trends are meaningless at best in the presence of random natural variations, the comments to the post contain many of the typical knee-jerk reactions from the Usual Suspects.

John Mashey, however, suggests a little experiment with the Swiss Army Knife of Data Analysis, Microsoft Excel. The graph at the top of this post shows an example result using Mashey's recipe. The blue line shows a series of 30 points with an overall upward trend (black line). The red line, however, shows the trend of the first 10 points alone. Notice that this trend is downward, and in fact, the value of point 10 is actually less than the value of point 1. For an animated display of a series of such randomly fluctuating trends, click here. In the example, the short-term trend may be much above, much below, or nearly equal to the longer trend, but the overall trend is always upward.

Image: Trend with random fluctuations based on DotEarth comment by John Mashey; graph created using Microsoft Excel and animation from Picasion.com.