We’re almost halfway through January, and we have yet to have a sustained cold here. It’s been down to 20 a couple times, but that is it. This is not good, for a number of reasons. On a personal level, I need the seasons or I am off kilter (more so than usual). But more importantly, we need sustained cold to kill off a lot of bugs, to help plants and trees continue their normal cycle, to kill off weak wildlife, etc.
It’s a problem.
zhena gogolia
It’s going to be 65 here on Sunday. I hate snow, but this is disturbing.
Jerry
I’m in North Carolina and it’s the same way down here. I’m going to have to call all sorts of bug killers this Spring, I just know it. Roaches, ants, termites, skeeters are all going to be hell this year.
LivinginExile
I am worried about how bad the japanese beetles will be if we don’t get some major frost in the ground.
LivinginExile
My comments keep disappearing.
RP
This will end so poorly for us as a species.
It’s the #1 reason I don’t envy the young one iota.
Aleta
The bug thing is a worry for sure. As well as the cold keeping the numbers of pests in check, I worry in general that when bugs get out of synch with the timing of migrations, it could affect food supply for arriving birds and all.
RP
Martin
Global warming? Then how do you explain the ice in my freezer, libtard?
FlyingToaster
I know from growing up with them that a number of fruit trees require a solid freeze to reset their clocks. People looking for Montmorency cherries (they’re sour, folks) will be shit outta luck next July, unless February gets cold.
Our local (to Bwahstin) forecasters don’t have another serious cold snap predicted before the end of the month; Northern New England will get the Alberta Clippers, and we’ll get rain. Hopefully enough to keep the Quabbin full.
donnah
Same here in SW Ohio. Tomorrow and Saturday we’re expecting heavy rain and flooding. But if we don’t get some real winter weather, it won’t kill the fleas.
I like snow. But there doesn’t seem to be any in our near future.
trollhattan
Fruit trees commonly need lengthy freezing or at least cold dormant periods to produce well the next season. I hope things get back to normal, whatever the hell that is now.
Cheryl Rofer
We’ve had a lovely winter here so far in New Mexico. Enough snow to keep the ground reasonably wet, frozen in places, a few cold snaps, but the snow has melted quickly. Unless we get some very dry weather from now until spring, that half-pound of wildflower seeds I’ve been distributing when I’m out with the kitties should do well.
RandomMonster
I move to Maryland from California last year and I damn well expect some snow for my efforts. Sheesh.
WaterGirl
Here in the midwest, freeze / thaw, freeze / thaw is the worst possible thing for the trees. We lost so many trees in the spring, 2 or 3 years ago. The nursery that did the one-year guarantee on trees they had sold and planted took a real hit that year, losing a ton of money.
And of course anyone who lost a tree was not happy, either.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I’m in Northeast Ohio, so pretty close to where Cole lives in WV. We’ve had a very mild winter so far, snow only sticks on the ground for a few days at the most before climbing back into the 40s or higher.
I’ve noticed since around 2014 or so that the weather has been really fucking weird. There seems to be only two seasons now, summer and winter, with maybe a few weeks of spring and fall in between. However, this winter has been different, obviously
Morons I talk to never make the connection that these more frequent unseasonably warm days are actually bad and are happy it’s warmer than it normally is
jl
@FlyingToaster: Chilling-hours or chilling-days. I’m in California, and the stone fruits we grow here, usually measured in chilling-days, and is number of cumulative hours (measured in days) that tree is between freezing and a maximum temperature specific to that fruit or variety. But stone fruits in California is between 32 and 45 degrees. Maybe back east there are fruits where temps below freezing count towards chilling requirement. Cherries, from 10 chill-days to 30. Peaches have a huge range from 2 days to 40 days, depending on variety.
Warming temps already pushing cherries north in California.
So, as a final unhappy note, articles from 25 years ago on effects of global warming on Pacific coast are coming very exactly true. Minimum temps and nightime temps rising faster than mean temperature. So effects of global warming on crops that have chilling requirement happening much faster than rise in mean temp indicates.
I guess, soon, if we want seasons, move to Antarctica and wait a spell. Or stay where you are if you want very hot dry season and less hot maybe dry maybe very wet season.
Ohio Mom
The older I get, the more I hate everything about winter: the endless dark, the cold, the snow, sleet and ice, the biting winds… So I must admit I am relieved every day it is unseasonably warm.
But there are three young couples in my extended family who have either just had a baby or who are about to, and it’s been all I can do not to scream at them, What are you doing?! You are consigning this new being to a life of cataclysm and horror.
They will never know the world we have known. And we can’t begin to imagine what awaits them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
I’ve been binge watching the X-Files, in season four right now.
I was thinking, what if Stargate SG-1, the West Wing, and the X-Files all took place in the same universe? How cool would that be?
TaMara (HFG)
@LivinginExile: For some reason they were in trash, so I released them and maybe that will stop it from happening.
Aleta
@WaterGirl: Yes, bad for the sap, and also the tree buds that are meant to stay tight through the winter instead start to open up in the warm spells. Then the temp swings low again and some or many are damaged.
jl
@Aleta: That’s true too. Temp instability really bad. And will get worse as northern jet stream becomes more unstable due to lowering temp gradient between arctic and tropics.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Inhofe tossed a snow ball onto the Senate floor. How do you explain that, libturd? QED
FlyingToaster
@jl: AFAIK, it’s chilling days. I grew up in Missouri with a Montmorency cherry in my yard, and it was something like 10-20 days. Which was never a problem, since in winter we usually got at least a week where it stayed below freezing. We didn’t get that much snow (prairie, most of the snow dumped west or south of us), but we got cold.
Boston is warmer, but significantly wetter. There’s a Montmorency up the hill from me, probably 3 dozen peach trees within a few blocks, and a half dozen plums. Brown School playground has like 20 apple trees. I suspect the cherry and the plums are going to have very little fruit, because we haven’t kept cold more than 4 days at a time. And it’ll be in the 60s this Saturday and Sunday.
eddie blake
cold as fuck today in nyc.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
There was a TV show or movie from a year or two back that seemed to mock that idea. An infertile couple are trying to become pregnant and the wife mentions that her sister thinks that it’s cruel to bring children into the world if it’s going to end because of climate change, and the husband responds that her sister is a nut.
I just don’t think a lot of people care or understand what’s going to happen. Most people just assume something will be done to save the planet
kindness
Yup. We only had 2 nights when it got below freezing in December here in N Cal Central Valley. Usually we get a couple weeks of it. There’s already bugs flying around I shouldn’t be seeing till late February. Hoax my ass.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Spoke to my Mom who lives in northern Mississippi just south of Memphis…it was 65 today. That’s way too effing hot.
Martin
@jl: My apple tree needs a decent bit of cold weather, which is iffy at best here in coastal OC, but I surprisingly had a big harvest last year. There’s been nothing remotely close to cold here. Normally we’d have a lot of mornings in the 40s and a few in the mid/high 30s, and I think we’ve had one in the 40s so far.
I’ve been figuring it’s just a matter of time for the tree before there just aren’t enough cold hours each year to reset it.
taras
@kindness: i’m here in Sac and finished with the winter already.
can’t wait for spring; 3 more weeks to go.
Mnemosyne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“The X-Files” takes place in the same universe as “Homicide: Life on the Streets” and the “Law & Order” shows.
We know this because Richard Belzer appeared as the exact same cop character (Detective John Munch) on all three shows.
kindness
@taras: I ski. I’ve hit Dodge right above me once but I want to hit Tahoe a couple times and I haven’t yet. Spring is here but I want the snow up there to stay for a bit. I’m better with the cold than I am with the 3 weeks of 100 degree + days we get in Modesto.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
Did you all hear what Dem Rep. Max Rose said today?
First off, fuck him for saying that the airstrike was justified when the admin couldn’t provide an adequate justification. Second off, it doesn’t matter if the resolution is “non-binding” or not; Moscow Mitch will kill (and has) any bill the Dems put forth. And it’s not “playing politics” to put forth a bill trying to restrain Trump’s abilities.
I get that Rose is a freshman congressman and in a tight district, but come the fuck on
debbie
@donnah:
It will be near 70 degrees in central Ohio on Saturday.
Sorry, but I don’t miss the ice.
TS (the original)
Fires down under have highlighted a very similar problem. Taking awhile for some politicians (worldwide) to recognize said problem. They would then have to do something about it.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): More than you think.
My daughter is pretty convinced that she won’t survive climate change. There’s no collective urgency to be seen. She doesn’t believe it’ll ever come – old rich white men will never degrade their station in life for the sake of saving the rest of us.
My son is more optimistic, but not a lot more.
mrmoshpotato
I was walking around in a windbreaker and t-shirt today – in fucking Chicago – in January!
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: How do you explain your freezer of you don’t believe in science, Trump trash? ?
frosty
It was 14 when I woke up this morning in South PA. This weekend it will be in the 60s. WTF?
The Dangerman
@Martin:
Eventually, the choice will be made for them. I’m not remotely smart enough to guess when that will be or the mechanics of how that plays out
ETA: Been weird weather this year in my area (Central CA). Feels like much wetter and colder at times this year (the Grapevine closed earlier than I can ever recall, for example) but yesterday felt like Spring.
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: I have a tiny Jesus living in there turning water into ice. Every glass of scotch is a tiny miracle.
CarolPW
@Martin: We have failed the younger generations in so many things that they fear (correctly) can hurt them. For all, climate change and gun violence. For many, add in food, housing and health care insecurity and there is little reason for them to not be cynics.
Martin
@The Dangerman: No, they’ll die first. That’s almost a certainty. I mean, we have Steyer and Bloomberg, together worth $60B, campaigning to address climate change, could singlehandedly pay to replace every coal power plant in the US. But they’re instead going to spend their wealth on Facebook ads.
Kattails
It’s like the seasons are out of sync. Last year took a long time to get cold, but then it stayed cold for a very long time and everyone ran out of firewood in the spring. We’ve had weird weather, cold but up-and-down. Last night 8º, tomorrow and the next couple of days up into the 40’s. A couple of days of sleety stuff, the first round I just drove over to pack it down & then put down wood ashes for traction. It stopped for a couple of hours then started up again, but all night only got me another two inches of sandy crap, luckily the snowblower was able to scoop it.
I expect some kind of thaw in January. But there are few birds around, and only a couple of hummingbirds in my bee balm patch where the year before I had half a dozen. I work retail for my bread and butter and cat food (OK wine too) and have had to restrain myself from lunging across the counter at some of the idiot comments about weather, global warming, “oh isn’t this second month of no rain great?” …no you moron, it’s a f*cking drought, people’s wells are drying up. This is the southwestern quadrant of NH. But again, things seem to be off by a month, we might get a deep freeze in February; and here the bugs we want dead are ticks.
The Dangerman
@CarolPW:
I’ll just ponder on the housing. I don’t see how anyone gets a 30 year mortgage these days with the gig economy. If you have a secure job, you aren’t making enough*. If you are making enough (and not in healthcare, which seems secure), your job lasting 30 years almost surely isn’t going to happen.
*maybe this only applies to CA, where the cost of living is way, WAY whacked.
EmanG
It’s cold here (for AZ) but would you settle for a coming winter?
http://`https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/what-will-happen-to-trumps-republican-collaborators.html
Eric U.
the real problem with the mild early winters we have had over the last few years is that it melts a lot of polar ice and then we get really frigid weather from February-April. I can handle the cold in February, but I want it to start getting warm in March, not have to wait until May. Last couple of years I have been dodging ice on the road in Pennsylvania into late April. Ridiculous.
EmanG
In praise of a coming winter?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/what-will-happen-to-trumps-republican-collaborators.html
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Apparently, some “conservative” goober called this statement “fascistic”:
Yup, that’s totally calling for a child ban ?
I don’t know what this 40% thinks. That the world is just going to keep on going the way it always has? That climate change isn’t real, that it’s not happening? They’re naive fools if so.
And that 1/3 is still pretty sad. 2/3 of millennials are clueless
I want to hope that the worst predictions are wrong, but the strange weather we’ve had the last 7 years make me doubt it
Duane
The DOJ investigation of Hillary Clinton’s business affair is winding down after two years, with no criminal charges.
Once again, history’s greatest criminal mastermind escapes. BWAHAHAHAHAHA….
EmanG
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/what-will-happen-to-trumps-republican-collaborators.html
At least their future winters might be colder…
(also, this is my 3rd attempt to post. @watergirl, what keeps my comments from appearing? Lack of patience perhaps?)
CarolPW
@The Dangerman: Seems many places with good wages have housing costs out of reach even for those wages, and places those good wages would get you good housing do not have many jobs at those good wages (I guess unless you could telecommute from there).
More importantly on the housing end is that owing a home had been the main way for the middle class to pass down meaningful assets to their kids allowing them to do better than they had. It’s a big reason that red-lining and other racist housing policies have such a negative impact on black financial stability and advancement.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mnemosyne:
Oh yeah, I remember that! There’s a theory that most of American television is just the dream of a comatose boy from St. Elsewhere, which includes H:LTS, the Law and Order shows and the X-Files
EmanG
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/what-will-happen-to-trumps-republican-collaborators.html
At least their future winters might be colder…
(also, this is my 3rd attempt to post. @watergirl, what keeps my comments from appearing? Lack of patience perhaps?)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Duane:
Hitlery must have used her evil mind control powers to wipe the minds of the investigators and the witnesses!
WaterGirl
@EmanG: For some reason, you ended up on the banned list. Pulling you out now.
WaterGirl
@EmanG: Looks like you might have gotten kind of spirited on Friday night, so I don’t know if if it was intentional or if you ended up banned by accident.
But all “banning” is supposed to go through Cole, so I released them all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
oh god
Martin
They all have little Jesus’ turning water into ice for their scotch as well. When you have a recurring miracle in your Frigidaire, why not roll coal?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
today trump said something like ‘they were coming to blow up our embassy’. I’d comfortably bet a thousand dollars he made that up in the moment.
TS (the original)
@EmanG: That was worth the reposting 3 times. The author has done an amazing job of explaining how history repeats itself while taking down trump and his minions.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
Last year’s bomb cyclone, with temps below minus 32 F over much of Iowa for several days straight, and reaching -37 at my Mom’s place, will have delayed the death of many green ash trees.
Emerald Ash Borer larvae begin to die when the tree’s core temperature reaches -28 F. I figure that in northern Iowa, it gave the urban foresters an extra decade to figure out replacements.
That kind of cold reduces ticks, too, and kills some of the disease-carrying kinds of mosquitoes.
Ksmiami
@TS (the original): i think scaffolding, jail and banishment will work for Trump and his Vichy collaborators. Ps, the last time there was such a high concentration of wealth inequality in the us was during the 1920s so…
TS (the original)
@Ksmiami: Those that know no history are destined to repeat it. Being shunned in polite society, whether in or out of jail will be one of their rewards – and trump will have to live with that while seeing President Obama welcomed in every corner of the globe.
Mike J
There were a few snowflakes mixed in the rain today, but nothing stuck. Here in the PNW we have the good sense to mostly keep that snow crap up in the mountains where it belongs.
First sailing race of the season is Saturday. High of 45, 80% chance of rain. A bit chilly, but at least we won’t have snow. Tuesday we’ll be down in the 20Fs. Bleh.
GoBlue72
I’m totally sure Joe Biden will save your asses.
sab
NE Ohio here. I still have pansies blooming in the baskets hanging outside my living room window. In January.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): What’s interesting is the one Dem who voted against impeachment voted for this resolution.
Collin Peterson represents a rural district the Dump won by 30 points and he still voted for this.
CarolDuhart2
@GoBlue72: He will, if only by replacing Orange Cheeto, and letting some sound climate policy take effect. His advisers won’t be the rapture-longing folks who don’t care about climate because they believe Confederate Jesus will end it all, and take them away from all those uppity and other non-conforming types who are refusing to acknowledge their superiority.
Yutsano
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Nancy cut him loose. She had enough votes that she could do that.
satby
@joel hanes: WaterGirl and I were talking about this the other day: how the seasons seem to have shifted and the coldest weather starts later in January and continues through March sometimes, pushing spring later. It’s 4:30 am and almost 50° out right now with rain and potential flooding expected over the next two days. This should be spring weather, but at least the ground isn’t frozen. When this happens again in February or March (and it will) it can become serious flooding when the ground is frozen and can’t absorb the rain.
wvng
Over here on the other side of WV from John, we just had the first decent snow of the winter, about 5″. The pattern, if a pattern exists, has been a couple of days of “normal” winter temps (down to teens at night), followed by a week of early spring weather. Rinse, repeat. The last two Novembers were quite cold, then Decembers warm. I expected to see trees budding in December. A few years ago, we had the only sustained (weeks) of continuous below freezing weather I’ve experienced here and lots of people had pipes freezing that had never had a problem.
Frankly, I think any discussion of a pattern misses the point. There is no consistent pattern, and all the ecosystem clocks that depend on temperature related patterns are confused.
And it won’t get better. The changes that are occurring now are baked in, with so many feedback loops accelerating them.
Sigh.
JAFD
Good morning, jackals and jackalettes !
Quarter of seven AM, here in Nuuk, New Joisey, just checked weather.gov.
Predicted high for Sunday, January 12, is 67F
I am old man, but at least they can’t leave me on an ice floe – there won’t be any left ;-)
Have a great weekend, y’all, regardless.
trnc
Example 2823 in a series of words that can now mean anything a republican wants them to mean. I’m starting to get the feeling that Merriam Webster should include a section on words to list specific inaccurate use. Most of the examples would come from the DT and W administrations.
Soprano2
Here in SWMO the weather has been just as crazy. In January we should have consistent highs in the 30’s and low 40’s, and lows in the 20’s and even high teens. We’ve been having a couple of days like that, and then highs in the 50’s and low 60’s and lows in the 40’s. At our pub the manager said there were people sitting out on the patio on Wednesday! We have that same forecast of rain of Biblical proportions today and tomorrow, turning to freezing rain or snow on Saturday – and then highs back in the 50’s next week! If the weather were “normal”, this would be a forecast of a huge snowstorm with accumulations of 12″ or more, which we used to have at least every couple of years. We haven’t had one like that for quite awhile – we get them as rain now. I also second the thing about cold weather lasting longer into the spring, and it seeming like we don’t have much spring or fall. Lots of people complain about it on FB, but don’t seem to put that together with climate change. I keep saying that it’s for sure that the farmers know climate change is real, even if they deny it publicly because they’re Republicans. They have to work with what nature gives them regardless of their political beliefs.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Same deal here in the DC area, and when I was home in Michigan for the Christmas festivities, they had abnormally warm weather and there was no snow, until New Year’s Even when we got about 3 inches. Then it warmed back up again according to the WUnderground app I use.
I grew up in Grand Rapids, and used to visit my Grandparents in Jamestown, NY/Warren PA every Christmas with a stopover in Cleveland to visit my Aunt (mom’s sister), Uncle and three cousins. Except for one freakishly warm Christmas in the mid-to-late ’80s, that drive was white, covered in snow, the entire way, every year. Even that warm year there were several inches of snow on the ground in Jamestown on Christmas day , though melting fast. We made that drive through the early-to-mid ’90s. I still make the Cleveland to Grand Rapids leg pretty much every year, but these days it’s fairly rare to have snow in Cleveland and even up in Michigan it’s iffy.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Score one for the good guys! With the good guys, in this instance, being the planet.
Nice to have a bit of good news.
brettvk
@Soprano2: What I dread here in SWMO are the ice storms. I’m not a fan of deep snow but ice is terrifying to drive on. But I have to say we haven’t had a sustained power outage from ice for many years.
BobbyK
I live in central new york, same problem, been pretty d#mn warm this year. A few years back I golfed with some buddies on Christmas Eve – it was 72 degrees!!