http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html
When the air temperature is cold, the saturation vapour pressure of water decreases – making it easier to precipitate. That is why wet weather tends to occur when it is cold.
California gets almost no precipitation during the summer, despite the fact that there is more moisture in the air than in winter. Climatologists who claim that recent heavy precipitation is due to warming temperatures, are wrong on all counts.
It is amazing that some PhD’s can have so little understanding of the fundamentals of their degreed profession.
Ultimately though, won’t persistent cold result in lower precipitation since there will eventually be less moisture in the air due to decreased evaporation?
And if that’s the case, aren’t such conditions – cold temps and increased precipitation – actually a marker of a climate shift to colder conditions?
If the oceans freeze over, precipitation will decrease. Southeast Alaska is one of the wettest places in the US, despite being cold.
That further reinforces the idea of “global climate” does not make any sense. Here in central Florida, we get most of our rain in the summer.
Because the air is convectively unstable in Florida during the summer – meaning that temperatures are cold at higher elevations. The precipitation forms at high elevation in cold air.
But more importantly, all that warm air and convection in Florida means that Maria Sharapova doesn’t need to wrap herself in a lot of unnecessary bulky outerwear. 🙂
Here is Maria struggling to cope with the blistering Florida heat.
http://www.wimbledonflats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/maria_sharapova_175-2.jpg
It has been reported that there have been more postponed baseball games this year because of cold/rain than all of last year.
Baseball stat-rats KNOW records, and that’s the whole point. On any given day in most any place on Earth, a weather/climate record for something is probably being broken.
That’s also why Katharine Hayhoe is so misinformed when she is summarized saying “An upsurge in heavy rainstorms in the United States has coincided with prolonged drought, sometimes in the same location, she said, noting that west Texas has seen a record-length dry period over the last five years, even as there have been two 100-year rain events”.
Record events only sound significant if the area in consideration is rather small
Breaking a record, by itself, doesn’t mean much of regional or global significance because records are broken every day.
On the other hand, the Medieval Warm, the Little Ice Age, the Roman Warm, or the Holocene Optimum are “significant” periods due to duration and global scope.
What stands out is where that front went through…….
Another thing is precipitation that will continue to keep the Mississippi full.
BTW, Lat, if you’ve got time, check out my new post, it doesn’t really have anything to do with climate, but rather the economic mess the U.S. is in and possible fixes.
You too Steve, and everyone else here. I’d be interested in some feedback.
excellent….did I tell you I love your brain! LOL
I commented and it’s stuck in moderation or something. 🙁
(Yeah, it was OT I know, LOL)
Question:
If cold weather (not glaciation) causes additional precipitation, then why did deserts overall (with an exception being parts of the Western US) retreat during warm periods such as the Holocene optimum? During two warm periods in the last 12k years, the Sahara became grassland….
Probably has to do with weather patterns. Precipitation normally forms in unstable air.
The position of the Sahara desert is determined mainly by the pattern of high pressure systems. Currently for example the desert is moving north into Morocco but the southern edge is also moving north with the result that the Sahel is greening.
It is interesting to note though that the Sahara experienced higher rainfall during the LIA (which of course did not really exist).
http://library.thinkquest.org/16645/the_land/saha_cl.shtml
The PhD’s have little understanding of the fundamentals of their degreed profession. But they are certainly very well versed in the fundamentals of latching on to and riding the gravy train. And the first fundamental is to never say anything non-supportive with respect to AGW hysteria, no matter how untruthful or absurd it might be.
So where’s the drought Katherine Hayhoe is crying wolf about?
Portions of Texas have been very dry this year.
That still isn’t a drought.
But you could work with numbers long enough to come up with some that appears alarming. Or, you could work with numbers to make it look like nothing unusual is happening.
Global warmers have a real problem though because gobal temperature data show cooling since 1998.
Some of the precipitation maps this year of the West seemed to suggest that cold air mass from the Arctic had pushed down across the Western US and essentially precipitated all the water out of the atmosphere, depleting it, and upon arriving in the Southwest, dry cool air met warm dry air and there was nothing to precipitate, creating the drought conditions in AZ, NM, TX.
What I don’t quite get about that map is how there are max high temps and low max temps in the same area. Is that some kind of statistical artifact or what?
AG, If you followed the sweep from Texas to Ohio you can see when the cold front went through. It’s pushing warm air from the Gulf in front of it, so you can have a record warm, followed by a record cold.
and of course, the whole thing with records is lame……………
All in all, it was a doozy of a cold front, so there’s a lot more record cold
oh, and that was driven by a cold front….
…not more moisture in the air 😉
Ahead of a cold front it normally gets very warm
and the wind blows real hard too, in twisty things 😉
Thanks. I guess if I was on the Team I would claim that the warm front caused the cold one.
Anyhow, love these maps and graphics. Very interesting. Very blue and green where we live with fresh snow in the mountains again.
warm air rises, which creates a low/vacuum, that sucks in the cold air……………………
I honestly think that’s what they believe LOL
When a given parcel of air cools, it can’t hold as much moisture and precipitation ensues. But if a large region of air is warmer, it can hold more moisture to begin with. As others have pointed out, prevailing winds and orographic features affect local weather patterns. But if you want to just focus on temperature, the heaviest precipitation is in warm area (tropics) and the coldest regions (poles) are dry.
Annual rainfall in Alaska is higher than Mississippi. http://www.betweenwaters.com/etc/usrain.html
“Admittedly, this is not perfect. For example, the only rainfall figure I have for Alaska is for Juneau, which is much wetter than the rest of the state. (In fact, I think Alaska was the answer the game had for the state with the least annual rainfall. Much of the state is very dry.)”
August in Fairbanks…..lots of rain.
Anchorage…. lots of rain, most of the time when it isn’t snowy and cold.
Alaska is ranked #39….
Nevada is lowest #50
http://web2.airmail.net/danb1/wettest_driest_us_states.htm
crap, Alaska is 10 times higher than every southern state…
…I didn’t realize that
Like everywhere along the northwest coast, the Pacific (west) slope is wettest and the east slope interior, in ‘rain shadows’ is drier. Most of Alaska is in that ‘rain shadow’ and further north you are in the cold dry Arctic.
Drive across the North Cascades from Seattle to the Wenatchee and you go from ‘rain forest’ to semi-desert… and Seattle is already in a rain shadow from the Olympic Mountains. Same pattern repeats itself further inland. Thus the west slope of the Rockies in Glacier Park has an ‘interior rain forest’ while the east slope is drier again.
Alaska is big. Average rainfall for that state would necessarily be very wrong for some/most areas.
and Florida is plenty warm and humid right now….
…and in a severe drought
What we need is a cold front to stir things up.
Apparently it’s warm in the Australian snow fields, because there’s lots of it:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/early-snowfalls-offer-hope-for-ski-season/story-e6frg6nf-1226059825426
First time in a long time that lifts have been opened in May.. and we still have more than a week left.
When I lived there, it was true about SoCal. Rain came during February and March. Just got back from a wedding there, and it was cloudy and rainy the whole time! I really wish global warming would make a come back! My swim trunks never left my suitcase!