[Vision2020] Dr. Jeff Master's US Weather Analysis: "Colder in Florida than Alaska and Greenland"

[Paul Rumelhart]

How well did the global climate computer models do at predicting this 
sort of event?

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:
> The "Arctic Blast" hitting large areas of the US is big news right 
> now, as the jet stream is heading south from Canada bringing freezing 
> Arctic air deep into the southern US.  But why?  In part, a high 
> pressure area over Greenland turning the jet stream, where 
> temperatures were or are in some places warmer than Florida. Even the 
> cheesy Weather Channel broadcast this analysis!  I immediately 
> wondered if temperatures warmer in Greenland than Florida could be 
> linked to the polar amplification effect from warming global climate 
> change, but this may not be largely involved. 
>  
> Dr. Jeff Master's offers his analysis at the website below (strong 
> negative North Atlantic Oscillation, third lowest since 1950 for a 
> winter month), with a revealing color coded to temperature map of 
> recent northern hemisphere temperatures that shows the "hot spot" over 
> Greenland, followed (if you click on the link) by some beautiful 
> winter photos:
>  
> http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1409
>  
> The Deep South shivered through another frigid morning today, with low 
> temperature records crumbling again over much of Florida. Lakeland hit 
> 27°F, smashing the old record of 34°F; Melbourne hit 28°F, eclipsing 
> the old record of 32°F; and West Palm Beach bottomed out at 37°F, 
> besting the old record of 38°F. The cold wave is being driven by an 
> unusual sharp and persistent kink in the jet stream that is being 
> blocked from moving by a strong ridge of high pressure over Greenland. 
> As a result, an exceptionally strong surface high pressure of 1055 mb 
> over the North Central U.S. is pushing large amounts of cold, Arctic 
> air southwards from Canada. No coldest January temperature records 
> have been set yet from the cold blast, but the 500 largest U.S. cities 
> have been averaging about 11 new daily low temperature records per day 
> the first five days of January, according to the National Climatic 
> Data Center <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records.php>. The cold 
> will ease Friday in the Deep South, but return with a vengeance 
> Saturday night though Monday morning, as another push of cold air 
> descending from Canada promises to bring a cold wave that will 
> approach the December 1989 and January 1977 cold waves in intensity, 
> and may being some new all-time January low temperature records to the 
> South.
>
> *Colder in Florida than Alaska and Greenland*
> The sharp kink in the jet stream has brought record warm temperatures 
> to a few stations in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest this week, 
> making much of coastal Alaska warmer than Florida. Cold Bay, Alaska, 
> set a record high yesterday of 47°F, after recording a low temperature 
> of 30°F. This made Cold Bay warmer than Pensacola, Florida, which had 
> a high of 47°F and a low of 24°F. In fact, most of Florida--including 
> Jacksonville, Tampa, Melbourne, and Tallahassee--recorded lows at or 
> below the 27°F low recorded in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday. The jet 
> stream kink has also brought temperatures more than 30°F above average 
> to Greenland. The temperature in Narsarsuaq, Greenland 
> <http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/BGBW/2010/1/7/DailyHistory.html> 
> at 10am EST today was 46°F, far warmer than most of Florida.
>
> *Figure 1.* Departure of the surface temperature from average for the 
> first three day of 2010 shows much colder than average conditions were 
> present over the Southeast U.S., much of Europe, and Central Asia. 
> Much warmer than average temperatures were present over the Northwest 
> U.S., Greenland, the Arctic, and Southern Asia. A sharp kink in the 
> jet stream was responsible for the temperature anomaly pattern. Image 
> credit: NOAA/ESRL <http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/>.
>
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>  
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