Winter has gone missing across the Midwest and Great Lakes, and time is running out to find it. Dozens of cities are on track for one of the warmest winters on record, making snow and ice rare commodities.
Several cities are missing feet of snow compared to a typical winter, ice on the Great Lakes is near record-low levels and the springlike temperatures have even spawned rare wintertime severe thunderstorms.
A classic El Niño pattern coupled with the effects of a warming climate are to blame for this “non-winter” winter, said Pete Boulay, a climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Winter has become the fastest-warming season for nearly 75% of the US and snowfall is declining around the globe as temperatures rise because of human-caused climate change.
I live in Taiwan and it hit 90F the other day. I went to the beach today at 24 degrees(75F). We are supposed to get 15C-20C winters. This is not normal.
It’s been spring in the PNW for weeks. Unless our spring is crazy wet while being cold enough for mountain snow then Oregon, Washington, and BC are just going to be one giant forest fire this summer.
I’m in QC and it’s quite incredible this winter, instead of 0F we have 48F, we had 2 snowstorm in a few days early January, nothing since. I’ve never saw a winter like this, people were wearing shorts this week-end
It’s not as stark of a difference, but in western Washington we’ve also had a noticeably warm winter. Really just feels like a continuation of fall. Almost the entire winter we’ve been around 40-50 °F, only had one cold snap that even got down to freezing, into the 20s for 4 days or so.
Funny observations now will turn into food and water scarcity later. The 1% will be high and dry (at least while they can grow food without an ecosystem), while the rest of us enjoy unimaginable human suffering on a massive scale.
This warming winter trend just looks like a curiosity now because it is warm when it should be freezing cold right now.
Wait until July comes around … it will mean drought and extreme heat. Everyone will pump up air conditioning use and push the electric system to the brink. And water, having enough water, will start becoming something that is harder to find.
It does not look good.
In other parts of the world water is definitely a concern, but less so in the Midwest and the great lakes region in particular.
It’s the power grid I’m most worried about, since that’s probably not going to be too happy about the unusually high continued load.
Where I live, our winters are typically like this. It’s never been particularly stable, often oscillating between spring-like warm weather, standard cold winter weather, and stretches of extreme arctic blasts.
What has been unusual is that we haven’t had any snow at all so far, not even an ephemeral flurry. We haven’t had any wintry weather (i.e. sleet, snow, freezing rain) this winter. And for that to be the case in mid February is definitely unusual. If we go this entire winter with no wintry weather, it will be the first time in my lifetime that I can recall.
Coincidentally, back in the fall the long term forecasts for this winter were suggesting we would have more wintry weather than normal in this area, since there would be more moisture and more frequently extreme cold events (as well as cooler than normal temps).
As someone who hates winter, I have been guiltily enjoying the warmth. We only had about a two-week cold snap (aka real winter) a month or so ago. I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a good thing.
we had a whole week of winter. last week it was 60F. what snow we had is long gone. it should be more like 0F with at least a couple feet of snow on the ground.
they said ‘warm and dry’ winter for the upper midwest. they weren’t kidding. those extended forecasts don’t look promising the rest of the way, either.
Yep. Got almost no snow for the last few years running, and that sucks. Way more bad bugs in the summer, less maple syrup, etc.
Not good.
I’m sure by March we’ll have another vicious cold snap that kills anything that was tricked into thinking it’s spring.
Except for the ticks… they were bad last year and I expect them to be worse this year… ugh
