Far from Zero

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

Snow is like the star quarterback or running back on a football team.  It gets all the publicity and to a large degree for good reason.  Snow gathers our attention; it needs to be shoveled and plowed.  It creates hazardous travel conditions and often disrupts our schedule.

But the long 50 yard pass for a touchdown that makes the highlight reel would not be possible if your offensive line did not do their job.  In the same way, although everyone notices the snow, the moisture content of the snow is something that largely goes unnoticed.  Yet in the end, it is the most important element of a snowfall.  Although until the event on Sunday this winter has been mainly brown, precipitation amounts have been far from zero.

The three principle months of winter average 2.14 inches of liquid precipitation (rain and melted snow) and since December 1, officially, Fargo Moorhead has recorded 0.87 inches of precipitation, certainly below average, but not by as much as most people would probably guess.

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Air Mass

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

The term air mass is used frequently by meteorologists.  By definition an air mass is a large volume of air that has similar properties.  Those properties would include temperature and often moisture content.  These air masses will develop certain characteristics over the course of many days or weeks by remaining in a certain geographic regions.

In the winter, the far northern latitudes receive little or no sunlight allowing the air in these areas to become increasingly cold.  Plus, because the nearby moisture source, theArctic Ocean, is frozen over, the air also becomes very dry.  Although the term Arctic is frequently used when colder air moves in, most of our colder air masses locally originate in centralCanadaand not in areas above theArctic Circle.

Therefore, by definition many of our cold snaps in the winter should be referred to as a polar air mass, notArctic.  Although, the air mass the moved through a couple of days ago was of true Arctic origins originating in Siberia and interiorAlaska.

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Always Humbling

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

Yesterday in this space, I mentioned that our just completed first half of winter was the warmest such stretch since 1881.  As the old saying goes, records are made to be broken, plus, as I wrote about earlier in the week, the winter of 1877-1878 may have started even warmer, so the term record is a relative term with a database of only 130 years.

Yet, the past several weeks was still impressive to me in the sense that these exceptionally mild temperatures occurred during a time-frame when many atmospheric and oceanic signals suggested that temperatures would be colder, or at least nearer to the long-term average.  Again, our database of past events is limited, especially when it comes to oceanic conditions which have the largest overall impact on our weather, yet glancing through the data, I could not find a winter that started off well above average with similar overall conditions to what is currently present in the oceans and in several atmospheric oscillations currently in play.

Simply put, this winter is a prime example of our limited skill in forecasting beyond 1 or 2 weeks.

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Warm Half

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

January 15 marked the half-way point of climatological winter and that stretch we just finished was the warmest on record.  The period from December 1 through January 15 averaged 25.3 degrees which was not only the warmest such period on record; it was the warmest by over 3 degrees.

The previous record for the first-half of winter was back in 2006-2007 with an average temperature of 21.8 degrees.  The second half of that winter finished much colder, yet, that winter overall still finished above average.  As many of you will recall, after that winter, the next 4 all finished with below average temperatures.  The first half of the winter of 2008-2009 finished with an average temperature of just 2.8 degrees which was the 13th coldest such period and a remarkable departure from what we have recorded this year.  The past month and a half was not only warm, but relatively dry.

Since December 1 Fargo Moorhead has officially recorded 0.53 inches of rain and melted snow which was the driest start of winter in 10 years.

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Positive Winter

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

The average number of days with a low temperature below zero during the winter in Fargo is 50.  So far this season, below zero temperature readings have been rare.  Officially we have recorded three days with below zero temperatures.  The first was back on December 9, then the other two occurred last Thursday and Friday, with the below zero reading on Thursday occurring late in the day.

I have referenced the winter of 2006-2007 a few times recently as that was the last winter that recorded a mild December and early January.  That winter we also had very few below zero readings through early January, just like this year, but in the end, 29 such days were recorded as the second half of that winter turned much colder.  So although it is likely this winter will have far viewer negative days than the average, at this point I do not think that the record for the fewest number of negative days in a winter is in jeopardy.

That record is 14 set back in the winter of 1986-1987.

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Warmer in the Past

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

Although the winter has turned noticeably colder in the past few days, the temperatures this winter have been so mild that on many occasions I have heard numerous people mention that this has been the nicest winter ever.  As frequent readers to this blog know, the weather records in Fargo Moorhead started in 1881. It is unfortunate that records did not start a few years earlier, because the winter of 1877-1878 was likely either the warmest winter, or one of the warmest winters since European settlement in the region. 

Bismarck’s weather records started in 1874 and that winter ranks as the 2nd warmest behind the winter of 1930-1931.  That winter is considered the warmest on record for the Twin Cities, although, it was before the modern record cut off of 1891 for what is considered official records for them.  The February 10, 1878 edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press had a story reporting that the cavalrymen from Bismarck, Dakota Territory left the city in shirtsleeves.

Too often we think of our weather as being unique, when it actually has all happened before. 

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What a Stretch

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

The first 10 days of January was a remarkable stretch of mild temperatures.  The average temperature during that period was 29.7 degrees, which was 5 degrees warmer than any other such stretch on record and a phenomenal 20.3 degrees above average.   Locally during that period we recorded 4 record highs, one tie and on two other days that we missed the record by 2 degrees or less.

Three of those record highs were in the 50s, including a 55 degree high on January 5 which was the warmest temperature recorded in January since 1881.  The last time Fargo Moorhead recorded three 50 degree or warmer high temperatures this month was back in 1942.  The most 50 degree high temperatures in January was back in 1900 when 4 such days occurred.

Back in December 2006 we had a brown Christmas, that was followed by a very warm first half of January, just like this year, but the 2nd half of the winter turned very cold.  A reminder on how quickly patterns can switch in this area

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Calendar

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

If you have not heard, the StormTRACKER 2012 is available at US Bank locations.  Great pictures, weather stats and only $10 (proceeds to the Food Bank).

 

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Averages of Averages

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

If you would make a graph of the official averages for a full year you would see a nice smooth line that bottoms out in mid January and peaks in mid July.  On occasion someone will ask or write me about how interesting it is that the averages follow such a smooth curve.  In truth, the averages actually do not work that way, but instead the National Climatic Data Center uses a mathematical formula to smooth out the official averages for all climate sites in the United States.

So although our current 30-year smoothed averages will bottom out at 18 and -1 degrees from January 17-22 then begin to rise January 23, the raw averages would tell you a different story.  In that same stretch in mid January the raw 30 year average highs for those days would fluctuate from 15-23 degrees and the average lows would range from -3 to +4 degrees.

Confused?   Perhaps some of you are, but it will likely surprise no one to learn that in our climate nothing is smooth, not even the averages.

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50s Drought

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Daryl Ritchison

Temperatures in the 50s this time of year have been rare in recent decades.  Since 1881 on only 13 occasions has the temperature reached 50 degrees or higher in Fargo Moorhead in January.  Plus, most of those occurrences were between the years of 1900 to 1944.  January 1944 recorded two 50 degree high temperature days and since then Fargo Moorhead reached that milestone only two additional times.

One on January 24, 1981 and the other occurred ten years ago on January 25, 2002.  January 1900 recorded a record four days with a high in the 50s, with January 1942 recording three.  Those two months account for one-half of all such days.  Although, January 1908 recorded only one 50 degree day on January 20, it was the warmest January day on record with a high of 54 degrees.

That record stood unmatched until last Thursday when Fargo Moorhead officially reached 55 degrees, for not only the 14th recorded 50 degree in January, but also the warmest on record for the month.

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