CBS’s Jeff Berardelli on the East Coast Blizzard and Climate Change
February 2, 2021
“If there’s global warming, how can we be having a blizzard?”
Fortunate that Jeff Berardelli is also my colleague as a contributor to Yale Climate Connections.
Connection between winter storms and climate change explored here.
Below, some of the best respected arctic experts on the planet helped me understand and explain the issue a few years ago.
UPDATE:
Oh and by the way, heads up-
Computer models suggest there may be two opportunities for snow on the horizon, one on Sunday and another toward the middle of next week.
The jet stream will be dipping southward from Alaska into the central part of the country later this week. Some of the coldest air of the season will be steered south, setting the table for additional snowfall or perhaps mixed precipitation depending on the storm track.
Our region will warm a bit on Thursday and Friday ahead of a cold front that will be harbinger of another shot of cold air Saturday that sets the stage for a possible winter storm on Sunday.
Sunday’s forecast is a low-confidence one as myriad possible scenarios are still in play and models conflict as to whether a storm will materialize. The scenarios range from a storm cutting to our west giving us a snow to mix to rain scenario or the storm getting suppressed well to the south and missing us. In between those two scenarios, would be a storm track right along the coast more conducive to snow.
February 2, 2021 at 10:51 pm
Of interest a recent study was published by experts from the universities of Exeter, Bristol and Bath, involving the analysis of 40 observed SSW events which occurred over the last 60 years. Researchers developed a novel method for tracking the signal of an SSW downward from its onset in the stratosphere to the surface.
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_832441_en.html
Forecast: Wild Weather in a Warming World
The polar vortex is experiencing an unusually long disturbance this year because of a “sudden stratospheric warming.” Bundle up.
“While the scientific evidence supporting climate change is indisputable, the connection between climate change and the disruptions in the stratosphere is not so settled. ”