Once again, it’s Groundhog Day, when the marmots emerge from their holes and decide whether spring is near or not. This year, Lilburn’s own Beauregard Lee emerged on a rainy morning and didn’t see his shadow, foretelling an early spring. However, up in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil arose and saw his shadow, calling for six more weeks of winter. Other woodchucks in Long Island and Canada also split on their forecasts.

Of course, the idea of an animal being able to predict the weather might be more valid if we looked at the timing of its emergence, rather than forcing a decision on February 2nd. For example, I saw the first robin of the season over the weekend. The daffodils seem to be running late this year, another sign of a late spring. The weather service also is calling for a late spring, at least in the south (see my previous post), and the outlook for the next two weeks calls for colder than normal weather.

By the way, how do they decide if the groundhog has made an accurate prediction? At least in Pennsylvania, they look at the number of days in the six weeks after groundhog day when the temperature rises above 40 degrees. If it’s more than half, spring arrived early. 40 degrees wouldn’t work here in Atlanta, where the normal high temperature on February 2nd is 54 degrees. By the first of March, it will be up to 60.

January wasn’t very warm. The mean temperature at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta for the month was 38.5 degrees, which was 4.2 degrees below normal. It was a little cooler here in Lawrenceville, with 37.3 degrees. Athens was slightly warmer with an average 39.7 degrees, 2.5 degrees below normal. January rainfall was 5.38 inches in Atlanta, .35 inches above normal. Athens had more precipitation, with 6.2 inches, or 1.51 inches above normal. Here in Lawrenceville, I recorded 5.06 inches of rain, however that might be a little short of reality, since my rain gauge doesn’t really handle snow very well.

There’s plenty more rain coming later in the week — up to three inches more. I’m getting tired of it, as I’m sure you are as well.

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We’re now about three fourths of the way through January, and just about two thirds of the way through Winter. December was 2.7 degrees colder then normal (15th coldest on record) and the second wettest on record, with 9.1 inches of rain. So far in January, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport is 5.4 degrees colder than normal, but with 2.19 inches of precipitation, only 54% of normal. With more rain predicted for Sunday, and again at the end of the week, we could easily get back to normal January precipitation of 5.03 inches. The verdict for the first part of Winter would have to be colder and wetter than normal.

Looking forward to February, and anticipating the groundhogs next month, the early part of spring, it looks like we can expect more of the same. The Climate Prediction Center released its February outlook earlier this week, which is reproduced below:

As is typical for El Nino winters, it’s likely to be colder than normal for much of the Southeast, and warmer than normal for the Northwest. The remainder of the country could be above or below normal. On the precipitation side, most of the southern half of the country will be wetter than normal, with equal chances of dry or wet weather in the north. The greatest chance of excessively wet weather is in southern California and Arizona, not welcome news for an area which has seen extensive flooding this week.
Read the rest of this entry »

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It seems like the cold weather just doesn’t want to go away. With the turn of the new year, the weather pattern changed as well, with high pressure systems over the Plains states and off of New England forming an opening between to allow unusually cold air to sweep southward. Mix that with a non-existent southern jet stream, and the cold moves across the eastern seaboard.

The map to the right shows the low temperatures across the country on January 9th. For the first ten days of the month, the mean temperature I’ve recorded here is 27.5 degrees–below the normal low for this time of year, which should be 33. The mean temperature for the same period in 2009 was 49.9.

We haven’t seen record cold, though. The lowest temperature I recorded here through the period was 13.5, last seen on January 16, 2009. The 13.9 chiller ties the record for the coldest temperature my thermometer has measured over the last eight years. Official records from Atlanta Hartsfield put the low records for the first ten days of the month in the single digits.

The good news (if there is any) is that with the extremely cold temperatures, we didn’t get a lot of precipitation. The snow on Thursday amounted to less than half an inch in my yard. Panic, school closings and shortages of bread and milk all occurred, but that’s par for Atlanta. I don’t know how much liquid precipitation fell on Thursday–snow and my rain gauge don’t play well together–but it was the longest stretch without rain since the latter part of November.

Elsewhere, heavy snow and cold led to snowplows being thwarted in the Midwest, and even snow flurries reported in Miami yesterday by the National Weather Service:

BY THE WAY…COUPLE TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A FEW SNOW FLURRIES IN THE WEST BOYTON BEACH… AND A FEW SMALL ICE PELLETS IN PALM BEACH THIS EVENING WITH THE RAIN SHOWERS. ANOTHER TRAINED STORM SPOTTER IN BROWARD COUNTY REPORTED A FEW FLURRIES IN OAKLAND PARK WITH THE LIGHT RAIN SHOWERS EARLY THIS EVENING…ALONG WITH A TRAINED SPOTTER IN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY REPORTING A FEW FLURRIES WITH SOME SLEET JUST SOUTHEAST OF TOWN AND COUNTY MALL.

It has been interesting to watch the forecasts over the past few days. Earlier last week, forecasts were predicting 50 degree temperatures today. It got up to 34. By Thursday, it’s supposed to be in the upper 50s. Want to bet it gets there? The models used to forecast upcoming weather assume that cold spells in the southeast are somewhat short-lived, so they try to get back to normal temperatures fairly quickly. This bias is what causes predictions of an earlier than actual warmup.

It will warm up. The North American Oscillation, which is a good indicator of temperatures on the east coast is trending positive, and the 6-10 and 8-14 day forecasts call for warmer than normal temperatures in the southeast. But, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another one or two rounds of colder than normal temperatures before winter ends in March.

And of course, when it finally does warm up by next weekend, what are we going to get? Significant rainfall and a chance of flooding. But that’s a topic for another post. And for those that asked I will try to post more. Blame the holidays and a busy schedule.

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It looks like there’s a small chance of snow tonight, although the weather service is indicating the best chances of accumulation are going to be in northwest Georgia — so probably not affecting the metro Atlanta area. There may be a few flakes here and there towards morning, but it shouldn’t amount to much. On the other hand, I wouldn’t miind having to eat my words.

They are getting snow in Houston — a bunch of it., at least for them. About an inch of snow fell in Houston today, marking the earliest ever recorded snowfall in that southern Texas city. The previous earliest snowfall was set last year on December 10th. This is also the first time it has snowed in Houston two years in a row.

Whether snow falls overnight or not, Saturday night promises to be the coldest night of the season so far. Temperatures are expected to drop into the mid 20s, as high pressure and radiational cooling take over. Temperatures have hovered around the freezing mark several evenings this fall, but this should mark the first hard freeze of what is expected to be a colder than normal winter.

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Last week, someone managed to access emails and other information from the Climate Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia. The CRU is charged by the British Met Office to investigate global warming, and is responsible for much of the research into the field. These emails and files were posted to a public site, and the evidence they provide does not reflect well on the scientific method of the researchers.

Among other things, the files show that CRU scientists and their partners across the world tried to silence those who didn’t agree with the CO2/Global warming theory, tried to prevent others from accessing the data they used to make their predictions and used methods to falsify data that was later presented to the United Nations IPCC. Officials with the university confirm that information was taken from their servers, and the emails, etc. appear to be genuine.

If all this is true, it poses a real problem for the scientific community and for the theory that climate change/global warming is a big problem.

Here are some links to more information:

Excerpts from the emails exchanged
Evidence that the “Hockey Stick” chart showing future increases in temperature used deceptive data
Comments in program code used to create temperature series are further evidence of data manipulation
Wall Street Journal says climate scientists are trying to hide the truth
Three things you must know about Climategate
This research is the foundation for new, expensive regulations on the US economy

There’s a lot more out there, if you search for it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the Copenhagen talks coming up next month.

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