Source: Japan Meteorological Agency Tokyo Climate Center via the World Meteorological Organization
New Jersey and the Northeast aren't the only areas enduring extreme weather this winter.
Much of the USA, the United Kingdom, European coastal areas, eastern Mongolia to eastern China, Australia, Argentina and Brazil have experienced extreme weather conditions this winter, according to a World Meteorological Organization statement issued Friday.
An extratropical cyclone approaching the UK on Feb. 12, 2014 (Source: NASA)
The extremes include cold waves, major winter storms, drought, severe flooding, heavy snowfall and heat waves, depending on the location, according to the statement.
In the USA, the eastern U.S. experienced cold, Arctic weather for much of January, while the western U.S. had warmer-than-average temperatures. The first half of February featured major East Coast winter storms that caused significant disruption to transportation and energy networks, the statement says.
On Jan. 7, every lower-48 state had a sub-freezing location. The cold was linked to the polar vortex - a deep winter reservoir of cold air over the Arctic, according to the statement.
The vortex is usually kept over high latitudes by the jet stream, a fast-moving band of air 6 miles up in the atmosphere that drives the weather. This year, a “kink” in the jet stream allowed the cold air to move south across the USA, and a blocking pattern locked it in place, keeping severe weather systems over much of the eastern states, according to the statement.
Yesterday's nor'easter off New England (Source: Weather Prediction Center)
That pattern also led to the third warmest January on record in Alaska, with Anchorage slightly warmer than New York City and Philadelphia, the statement says. It also resulted in the California drought intensifying.
Is the extreme weather linked to climate change?
I wrote a recent story that focused on this winter's weather extremes in New Jersey and the potential link to climate change.
The WMO statement included two quotes. The first one is from John Holdren, President Barack Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, regarding the Jan. 8-9 cold snap and climate change:
"If you’ve been hearing that extreme cold spells disprove global warming, don’t believe it. No single weather episode can prove or disprove global climate change. Climate is the pattern of weather geographically and over seasons. A growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of extreme cold experienced by the United States is a pattern we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.... I believe the odds are that we can expect as a result of global warming to see more of this pattern of extreme cold in the mid latitudes and some extreme warm in the far north."
The second quote is from the UK’s Met Office:
"As yet, there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding. This is in part due to the highly variable nature of UK weather and climate. Nevertheless, recent studies have suggested an increase in the intensity of Atlantic storms that take a more southerly track, typical of this winter's extreme weather. There is also an increasing body of evidence that shows that extreme daily rainfall rates are becoming more intense, and that the rate of increase is consistent with what is expected from the fundamental physics of a warming world. More research is urgently needed to deliver robust detection of changes in storminess and daily/hourly rain rates and this is an area of active research in the Met Office. The attribution of these changes to anthropogenic global warming requires climate models of sufficient resolution to capture storms and their associated rainfall. Such models are now becoming available and should be deployed as soon as possible to provide a solid evidence base for future investments in flood and coastal defences.”
Meanwhile, we can expect some more snow in the New Jersey area Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
And we may get damaging winds late Friday, according to a tweet by Gary Szatkowski, meteorologist in charge of the weather service Mount Holly Office.
Some images:
Source: National Weather Service Mount Holly Office
Source: National Weather Service Upton N.Y. Office
Probability of at least 4 inches of snow through Tues. Feb. 18 (Source: Weather Prediction Center)
Snowpack (Source: Gary Szatkowski of the National Weather Service
The threat of damaging winds late Friday (Source: Gary Szatkowski of the National Weather Service)
