A brutal Arctic air mass is about to take over the United States

[jpak]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/03/01/brutal-arctic-air-mass-is-about-take-over-united-states/?utm_term=.1378b886205e

Temperatures as much as 30 to 50 degrees below normal are entering the Northern Plains as we close out the workweek. Through the weekend, brutal conditions you might expect in a frigid January overtake the central portion of the country, from the Mexican to the Canadian borders.

Heading into the first full week of March, Arctic air takes up residence in the East as well. When it’s all done, most of the contiguous United States will endure a punishing blow of frigid air from this Arctic blast. Records for cold are likely to be most numerous in the north-central United States but will extend from coast to coast.

By March, many folks are searching for spring. For the time being, it will be hard to find. Some of the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere is headed into the Lower 48.

“It’s a straight shot from the Arctic!” tweeted Steve Glazier of Weather Nation.

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[Dennis Donovan]

1. "Departure from Normal"

So fucking much is a "Departure from Normal" nowadays...

[DemocracyMouse]

17. Climate f'n change. Everyone ready for a Green New Deal? I am.

[Achilleaze]

2. The hot air currently invading the Arctic is...

what is pushing all the bitter, hard-cold Arctic air south into the USA and toward colossally-compromised KGOP Comrade Dirty Donny* and the allied cabal of republican climate-change liars, Inc. -- and also, of course, toward and over all of the innocent, honest people who will suffer in this extreme event.

* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[not_the_one]

38. as you said, hotter air from the Pacific pushes north

displacing the polar vortex south over the US, and it slowly moves east. The question is why is the Pacific hotter?

This is the simplest example of global warming/climate change. But no one bothers to explain it.

Americans, on the whole, aren't stupid. Many would grok it.

But it is more sensational to bring a snowball to the floor of Congress and mock the truth, than just explain what is going on.

That is much better teevee.

Bottom line, it is all about ratings. As turdface has proven, lies get GREAT coverage.

[malaise]

3. Stay safe folks

[Timewas]

4. Funny I guess

I am in Oregon and this thing says I am supposed to be at 4F but I am actually at 32F.I think those numbers maybe should be Celsius???

[elias7]

7. It's tricky, 4 deg F below normal, so your normal is 36 deg at this time

[Timewas]

8. Thank you

After thinking on it a bit I sort of thought that might be the case, but "normal" is really hard pressed to apply anymore...

[jpak]

9. It's departure from normal average temps

n/t

[hatrack]

5. Here's why (check the Bering Strait side of the animated map)

Link to tweet

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Excellent video. Thanks. . . . nt

[theophilus]

23. This is what the dodgy meadia should be reporting constantly. Even the weather

channel never "goes there" when I am watching. What's happening up there is more important that what is happening down here as far as climate change goes, imo. Talk about it talking heads. Get them up out of the sand.

[Achilleaze]

6. Wow - The Doomsday Seed Bank got "flooded"

"Even when we train our eyes on climate change, we are unable to comprehend its scope. This past winter, a string of days 60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal baked the North Pole, melting the permafrost that encased Norway’s Svalbard seed vault — a global food bank nicknamed “Doomsday,” designed to ensure that our agriculture survives any catastrophe, and which appeared to have been flooded by climate change less than ten years after being built..."

Link: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html?fbclid=IwAR2AY45Ovx1ID1Ayc6vEbEAa_VAlaSdTcLAar-TagOPJpyV10P1wZzs0ch4

republicans have got to stop lying about this stuff. They are in the same pot of stew. Get a clue!

[anarch]

10. I kind of feel like this is symbolic of how humanty's half-assed efforts to protect their own future

are likely to turn out in general. Our current way of life is not sustainable; even the most drastic steps at this point are not likely to fully mitigate negative impacts to our societal infrastructure due to climate change--there are ongoing and exponentially worsening effects that might have been slowed down or even stopped if we had made sweeping changes 40 or 50 years ago, but now...well, I don't see how it doesn't go pretty badly for humans over the next couple hundred years. And unfortunately I think we humans living right now are going to see a lot of the worst of it as it begins to really start impacting large numbers of us in ways we are in no way prepared to deal with.

Anyway, I've been re-reviewing this lately...it's sobering; I think it brings up a lot of good points: https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

[happybird]

11. +1

[2naSalit]

19. +1

[jeffreyi]

28. Thanks for that article.

I think some of my priorities just changed. Will share with friends.

[Hortensis]

44. Oh, I think there are other lessons from, for instance,

driving on freeways for years without accidents. Almost no one dies at high speeds, no matter the dysfunctional physical or mental conditions of millions of drivers, because their lives depend on self protection.

In earlier decades during the Cold War, every social gathering we attended ended with people finishing up their chat about what they're doing next weekend by agreeing we may well all be dead by then, certainly dead before we retire or anything like that. Then briefly back to goodbyes and see ya's. Hasn't happened. Again, that self protection thing, albeit playing out at higher levels.

Btw, I never did assume we were all going to die in nuclear war and still don't. I do think it's foolish not to assume many could die if energy grids here or there were taken down and stayed down. Just imagine that during this polar vortex. No immediate tracking the attack back and retaliating and no fallout or nuclear winter for attackers to worry about makes it far more possible.

In any case, many nations have already made a lot of changes being brushed off and will make a lot more. It's not nothing that 195 nations agreed to the Paris Accord and 185 or so have signed. And that's only the largest climate, energy, water control accord; there are many other climate agreements among various geographic groups. Because our lives depend on it and enough people are finally quickly coming to realize it. For the past 50 years, talking about it was about as useful as spitting into the wind. Ask me how I know that.

Certainly threads like this one are new...

[workinclasszero]

12. Yup we have a snowstorm hitting tonight

Then temps plunge into the teens or lower. I’m so sick of this winter!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Check Billings: departure -48 deg F from normal. . . . nt

[paleotn]

15. I fear a repeat of last year...

A winter without end. A few months later and it's blazing hot. Well above normal summer temps.

[Hortensis]

46. Yes, we've already mostly lost the springs we grew up with

to weather extremes. I read this summer may not be as far above normal as last year for some regions, but it'll be global-warming hot anyway.

President Johnson issued a warning to congress in 1965. It wasn't new news then, just confirmed beyond doubting. I was taught it was real in college in 1970. And here we are, over 25 elections later...

[luvtheGWN]

16. BLAME ALASKA!!!!!

[Dem2]

18. Super annoying

The winter has been mild with less snow than normal in the Northeast so far, I hate these late bursts of colder than normal weather designed specifically to annoy the shit out of me. Could be worst, I could live in the midwest.

[sandensea]

20. Great. More snowball fights in the Senate.

[2naSalit]

21. Normal compared to..?

What's the time frame from which the "normal" spectrum is derived? I recall brutal winters in my area back decades and what we're seeing now doesn't seem that far off. If you're only looking at a ten year history, thta doesn't really give you a very good picture of what is and has been going on. I have to ask because the revelations in some if these predictions seem a little alarming and possibly inaccurately.

Yes, the climate is changing and I don't dispute that but I think there are some rports that don't accurately portray the reality. I just spent five days trapped by road closures due to heavy snow and wind making it impossible for road crews to keep up. And some locals were saing they've never seen it that bad. All I culd say to them was that I recall that this sort of thing was normal 30 ad 40 years ago, I remember that. I was in that location, or passing through there regularly, year 'round.

So the time historic time frame for these comparisons is key. If you're only looking back a decade or so, well, you've got a set of long term droughts during that set a base period that was not normal to begin with.

So I have to wonder at some of the data being offered.

[theophilus]

24. Back in the day I'll wager the temps up in the Arctic were not as high as now. Check

into a comment above. Cold down here would be more "normal" if the "heat" up there was not playing the dickens with everything else. Dangerous times.

[NutmegYankee]

25. Most US models use 1981-2010 grid data as their baseline for normal.

They also use 1971-2000 station data.

[2naSalit]

26. Thanks.

[defacto7]

34. For a reference the map above is misleading and ambiguous.

They should just show the expected low temps. This map has a sensational twist to it because there's nothing you can really put your finger on. The same map using expected temps would give the same exact trend plus useful data.

[2naSalit]

36. Agreed...nt

[First Speaker]

22. I know--let's build a wall along the northern border...

...that will keep out the Arctic air masses...

[2naSalit]

27. We're gonna need a LOT of weather balloons for that!

[Thomas Hurt]

29. The weather forecast is actually gving us a chance of snow in March in Brazos Cty Texas....

I have only lived here for a few years but that does not seem like a regular occurrence.

[Polybius]

30. It's crazy how NYC has been the exact opposite this year

We've gotten almost no snow this Winter, other than a couple of dustings. Our biggest snowstorm was actually in November, before Winter.

[JHB]

31. Am I reading that right? Several days of single-digits in Miami?

Several below zero in New Orleans?

[defacto7]

35. Degrees below normal not temps. It's misleading.

[JHB]

39. Thanks

[OMGWTF]

32. I come to Palm Springs, CA every winter for three months and

so far, we've had two months of rain and below-normal temps and now we're both sick as dogs with some virus that everyone has so could be the hiking and pool time we come here for will have to wait until next year. No matter how bad it gets here, it's still 20-40 degrees warmer than back home in Seattle and so far, hasn't snowed here but the mountains around us are all white with snow.

[D_Master81]

33. Great

Not only is this the winter that never ends, we had the 3rd coldest November on record, the polar vortex and now will be setting record colds again in March, but every time it dips down cold like this I have to hear from all my idiot family and friends about how clearly global warming is a hoax b/c its cold again. And it doesnt help now that the f'ing president tweets out the same BS too.

[backscatter712]

37. Of course, all the right-wing shitwits are going to say "It's snowing! Climate change is a hoax!"

Get ready for more GOP politicians to bring snowballs onto the House or Senate floors.

But really, it's time for us to say "Go home, Arctic, you're drunk!"

[akraven]

40. Sorry, fellow sufferers.....

Fairbanks officially apologizes...………. You'll have to ask Anchorage, Juneau, Nome, etc to apologize, too.

[Demovictory9]

41. Polar Vortex Could Knock Back Invasive Tree-Killers--for a While

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polar-vortex-could-knock-back-invasive-tree-killers-mdash-for-a-while/

Polar Vortex Could Knock Back Invasive Tree-Killers—for a While
Insects like the cold-hardy emerald ash borer could see mass die-offs, but survivors could have hardier offspring

[CountAllVotes]

42. It hit where I am about a week ago

Northern Calif. and wow is it ever ICE COLD.

Nothing like an Arctic blast to wake you up I guess!

Bundle up and stay warm friends!!

& recommend!!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

43. get your lava lamp out of the attic

Plug in your old lava lamp and watch for an hour or two. Note how excited it gets as it warms. That's our atmosphere.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

45. Cue up the Republican "Global Warming" snarks.

Or is it "Queue up ..."?

Either could be appropriate, I guess.