Crazy, kind of scary weather.

[jbmaine]

Hi all, 

 I've been around long enough to remember when the weather was predictable and usually followed normal patterns. Not so much any more.

  Here in southern Maine, two days before Christmas, we had a mix of everything. It started out with temps of 53 degrees, high wind and rain. As the day progressed the temp. had dropped in to the forties. By supper time, as the temps went into the thirties, and we had wind gusts up to 50 MPH, we came under a severe thunder storm warning. By 8 PM the rain had turned to snow. Woke up this morning to a dusting of snow and temps at eleven degrees. By the end of the week the day time temps are supposed to be pushing fifty again.

  I miss the days when it just snowed in the winter and rained during the warmer months. 

[TnRiver46]

They have never been able to predict it, just ask a wooly mammoth or T. rex 

[Darth-Baiter]

A wooly mammoth didn’t have Doppler radar.   My local weather is fairly accurate.  
 

we have in our construction contracts that our rain season starts Oct 15. Been that way for decades.  Every year it was like clockwork.  I remember it would astonish me annually.  Now?   It’s never Oct 15.   Weather is changing.  
 

sucks the polar bears don’t have Doppler radar either.  

[TnRiver46]

3 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

A wooly mammoth didn’t have Doppler radar.   My local weather is fairly accurate.  
 

we have in our construction contracts that our rain season starts Oct 15. Been that way for decades.  Every year it was like clockwork.  I remember it would astonish me annually.  Now?   It’s never Oct 15.   Weather is changing.  
 

sucks the polar bears don’t have Doppler radar either.  

The mammoth checked the extended forecast and it said more ice……….

 

wrong again!!

 

weather has never done anything but change 

 

the one part of it that is really messed up is human perception 

 

for instance, our news stations are saying this is the coldest it’s been in 20 years. It was colder at least 3 times in the last 7 years since I bought my house. That won’t sell many commercials tho 

[gim]

10 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

My local weather is fairly accurate.  

That's because "weather" in California consists of mostly sunny and dry.

 

The meteorologists here are like weather terrorists.  They really love to hype up storms, and about half the time their predictions come true.  It's really the only job I can think of where you get handsomely paid to lie on a daily basis, other than a politician.

 

I caddied once for one of the pioneers of Doppler Radar many years ago.  His name is Paul Douglas and he has an enormous house at Bearpath Golf and Country Club on the 17th hole.  You could see his "weather station" on the roof.  He made a crap load of money for his hand in developing Doppler Radar, which is used on almost every weather platform out there nowadays.

 

That being said, the climate is no doubt getting more extreme.  Drought has become a serious problem in many parts of the country, especially in the western half.  Access to fresh water is going to continue to be a serious problem in the future.  We've over allocated supplies of freshwater, all for the sake of playing golf in a desert.

[Koz]

It's been so cold here in GA the past 24 hours the ponds are starting to ice up.

 

I was running a hotel in the Portland / Scarborough Maine area back in the late 90's or early 2000's when we had a huge ice storm. I lost power at my place for a week, but some of my employees were without power for 6 weeks.

 

Needless to say, I let my team stay at our hotel until their power was restored. That was a brutal winter.

[Jigfishn10]

@jbmaine, I was lucky yesterday, my house made it through but goose rocks beach was under water yesterday from the storm surge. 

 

There’s at least 50 yards from the sign to the high tide mark 

 

This photo was taken well after the storm surge 

 

My house is about 20 yds behind  me taking this photo  

[Jar11591]

This storm is something. Somehow in upstate NY we escaped with only an inch of rain and a high of 16° today. Very manageable. I’m thankful I don’t have to go clear driveways on Christmas. 

[GRiver]

While here in Florida we don’t have the extreme cold and snow everyone else is having. We are cold for here 29*, light wind. 
Weather here has been crazy this year, hurricanes flooded St John’s river. It’s still high, water is still on the yard, for months now..

California drought to flooding rains, Lakes drying up, crazy weather around the Great Lakes area.

It has been crazy weather this year for sure.

 

[VolFan]

I’m still waiting for the stories about iguanas falling out of trees in FL. Weather has always been about predicting which way the wind is going to blow. It’s easy in the short term, more challenging the further in the future you get.

[Chowderhead]

17 hours ago, gimruis said:

 

That being said, the climate is no doubt getting more extreme. Drought has become a serious problem in many parts of the country, especially in the western half.  Access to fresh water is going to continue to be a serious problem in the future.  We've over allocated supplies of freshwater, all for the sake of playing golf in a desert.

Drought, floods, intensity of storms, changing weather patterns, rising global temperatures are real and now affecting many of us (and will undoubtedly globally impact future generations) indiscriminately; irrespective of race, faith, political alignment, wealth, education, gender…

[T-Billy]

They told us in elementary school in the 70's we were headed for another ice age. Then it was global warming, but the weather patterns didn't support that theory for a few years, so they started calling it climate change instead. As @TnRiver46 mentioned, the climate has always changed, and it always will. The "experts" are clueless. I don't care what they say. I know how this story ends.  ? 

 

 

[NavyToad]

Yep, we had a cold front. Could just as easily been a warm front. Weather happens and I’m not losin’ sleep over it.

[TnRiver46]

29 minutes ago, NavyToad said:

Yep, we had a cold front. Could just as easily been a warm front. Weather happens and I’m not losin’ sleep over it.

Mother Nature has been known to steal people’s lunch and then poop in the bag it came in (the saying is slightly different but not PC haha)

[islandbass]

Cold front was an understatement this week in Seattle. I have never in my 30 plus years seen what they called a deep freeze. My cars were bone dry one night and by morning they and the streets were completely engulfed in a thick layer of ice on which deicer didn’t work. It was so cold, 20f that you couldn’t scrape the ice off. I’m blaming global warming, lol. (It’s a joke)

[flyfisher]

23 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

 

for instance, our news stations are saying this is the coldest it’s been in 20 years. It was colder at least 3 times in the last 7 years since I bought my house. That won’t sell many commercials tho 

 

DId you measure at the same place they measure their weather information?  Anecdotal personal experience isn't that ground breaking.  Or maybe they are talking in general terms and not specific but either way it must suck to think even the weather forecast is out to get you....

I know here in VA the last few days have been pretty cold but we will be near 70 next weekend.  Highs below freezing doesnt' happen all that often around here but they are today and were yesterday too.

 

[TnRiver46]

8 minutes ago, flyfisher said:

DId you measure at the same place they measure their weather information?  Anecdotal personal experience isn't that ground breaking.  Or maybe they are talking in general terms and not specific but either way it must suck to think even the weather forecast is out to get you....

I know here in VA the last few days have been pretty cold but we will be near 70 next weekend.  Highs below freezing doesnt' happen all that often around here but they are today and were yesterday too.

 

Pretty darn close I would imagine, I live right next to downtown Knoxville and that is always warmer than all surrounding areas (urban heat/concrete). It would be one thing if it was a single event, but I can specifically remember 3 times when there were lower temps, and that’s just the ones I remember. 
 

they aren’t out to get me. What they are doing is trying to make as much money as possible via eyeballs. Everyone turns on the weather if their friend says it’s the coldest or hottest it’s ever been, doesn’t have to be accurate. Nobody checks their work, just believe it like gospel. 
 

you can take statistics and make them say anything you want, they could have meant it was the lowest “high” temp we’ve had in x amount of years. I know it was zero degrees fairly recently but that was the low not the bugh

[flyfisher]

32 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Pretty darn close I would imagine, I live right next to downtown Knoxville and that is always warmer than all surrounding areas (urban heat/concrete). It would be one thing if it was a single event, but I can specifically remember 3 times when there were lower temps, and that’s just the ones I remember. 
 

they aren’t out to get me. What they are doing is trying to make as much money as possible via eyeballs. Everyone turns on the weather if their friend says it’s the coldest or hottest it’s ever been, doesn’t have to be accurate. Nobody checks their work, just believe it like gospel. 
 

you can take statistics and make them say anything you want, they could have meant it was the lowest “high” temp we’ve had in x amount of years. I know it was zero degrees fairly recently but that was the low not the bugh

3 times in 7 years based on your memory and you even explained why the number would be higher than your memory.  

And no, you can't take statistics and make them say anything you want but that is a common theme for people who may not have the understanding of statistics.  Statistics are raw numbers and that is what they are and you cannot make those numbers anything they aren't.   

[GRiver]

I agree with t-billy, the weather has always run in cycles. I remember as kid, we had big snows in wv, then they only got lite dusting of snow. My cousin tells me now they have gotten snow like we did as kids. 

[T-Billy]

21 minutes ago, GRiver said:

I agree with t-billy, the weather has always run in cycles. I remember as kid, we had big snows in wv, then they only got lite dusting of snow. My cousin tells me now they have gotten snow like we did as kids. 

We had some bitter winters in the 70's including the blizzard of 77 then some really mild winters in the early 80's with barely any snow and no ice thick enough to skate on. Round and round it goes, decade after decade. Scare tactics make big $$$ for some people, and are a useful tool for others whose motivations aren't allowed to be talked about here. I don't sweat it. I'm gonna live forever.

 

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, flyfisher said:

3 times in 7 years based on your memory and you even explained why the number would be higher than your memory.  

And no, you can't take statistics and make them say anything you want but that is a common theme for people who may not have the understanding of statistics.  Statistics are raw numbers and that is what they are and you cannot make those numbers anything they aren't.   

Ok well using their raw numbers , every single year is the hottest coldest wettest driest year on record

 

i have a much better memory than they do and I got an A in statistics. The professor always reminded us that you can make stats say whatever you want depending on presentation. It’s up to the reader to interpret, and my interpretation of the “coldest on record” is that the true median lies between total BS and a load of horse hockey (confidence interval 95% +\- 2)

 

 Not even the coldest in the last decade. Anyone that understands statistics can see right through their horrible math and record keeping 

[TnRiver46]

I mean, do they think we don’t have google? Last two days didn’t even crack the top 15 coldest days on record . 1996 it was -8. People were there (including me) and we  remember 

[gim]

I spend 8 days in my deer stand every November for the past 28 years. Outside, in a tree, exposed to the elements for days on end.

 

During the course of those 28 years, the weather during that span of 8 days has undoubtably gotten warmer on average. When I first started, I can recall it being cold, usually with measurable snow on the ground. A few years were “winter” type cold, like single digits to below zero at night. That rarely happens anymore. There’s usually not any snow until December, and several times in recent years it has been VERY warm. Too warm to be hunting effectively, and when you do shoot one, it spoils quickly.

 

I don’t have any data to support this change, only my personal first hand experience sitting outside during the same week in November every year. I also do not have any experience during this span prior to when I was 12 years old either. There easily could have been some warm years before I started hunting, but for the last 28 years in a row during that week in early November, it has without a doubt gotten warmer.

[jbmaine]

I'm pushing 70 and I've lived in this area all my life. I don't follow statistics or charts. My original comments were to say I miss winter being winter as the season it used to be. My dad started taking me deer hunting before I was 10. by mid November there was always snow on the ground. Haven't seen that in a long time. I've looked at all the pics in my family albums. By Christmas there was always snow piles on the ground from shoveling the drive way, and we were out snow shoeing and sledding. When I was a teenager Skidoos were everywhere. You would see them going in the fields and woods. there were local clubs that got together every weekend and have trail rides. I haven't heard or seen a sled in years.

 Winter around here used to mean it snowed and stayed snow all winter, and didn't melt off until Spring. This past week we've had lots of rain, and severe thunder storms IN DECEMBER! Un heard of when I was growing up. The ground at my house is bare as we speak and the next precipitation in the forecast is, you guessed it , more rain. I'm lucky to use my snowblower one or twice a winter any more, and my snow shoes, not in years.

  I really miss the way winter used to be, and really isn't now.  

[GreenPig]

It's just weather and it changes. Hunted hogs one December in shorts and the same week the following year drug a hog 2 miles out on completely frozen solid sloughs in 6 degrees. I'll adapt to the weather as long my lakes don't freeze over.