Southern United States winter storm

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

Remarkable cold spell for the United States, especially the Deep South.

Temperatures were about -15c in Houston, which is fairly close to the Gulf of Mexico.

As the houses aren't constructed for cold weather, the inevitable burst pipes have made drinking water a public health issue.

Energy prices have increased from about $0.10 per kilowatt to c. $7.00 per kilowatt.

One lady's electricity bill for her house was $6,000 for a few days.

Is this a "once in a generation" event.... or likely to become more commonplace?

It depends who you ask, some will say with a warming Arctic it will become more common , others that it's just weather variability- once in a generation type thing, as you put it

A 7000% increase on energy prices on struggling people?

Oh America, you never fail to impress me.

The atmosphere scientist Jennifer Francis has been talking about how polar amplification is reducing the temperature difference between Arctic and temperate regions and this is causing changes to the jet stream which is now meandering much more, when the jet stream meanders, it pulls colder arctic air south with it which results in these kinds of extreme events. The same phenomenon caused the blocking systems that led to Houston getting flooded after Hurricanes Harvey in 2017, and another blocking system caused Superstorm Sandy to travel up the east Coast of the USA instead of traveling east across the Atlantic as most gulf hurricanes tend to do

A paper recently published warns that the slow down of the polar vortex and diminishing temperature gradient between the poles and tropics will also lead to worse and longer lasting summer heatwaves in the US. We have seen that the Texas energy infrastructure is vulnerable to cascading failures, If there is a similar power grid disruption in an extreme heatwave, many people will die from heatstroke

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/same-mechanism-behind-southern-cold-spell-could-drive-prolonged-heat-waves

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

2014:

"In Much of U.S., Extreme Cold is Becoming More Rare"

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-cold-events-in-a-climate-context-16931


Extreme cold is becoming more rare because of climate change, but when extreme cold occurs, it's down to climate change.

If ever there was a perfect example of the term 'gaslighting', then this is it.

What do you think of the actual mechanisms involved in the Texan winter storm? How did that polar air reach so far south? Do you think Francis’ explanation has any scientific merit?

Akrasia wrote: »

The atmosphere scientist Jennifer Francis has been talking about how polar amplification is reducing the temperature difference between Arctic and temperate regions and this is causing changes to the jet stream which is now meandering much more, when the jet stream meanders, it pulls colder arctic air south with it which results in these kinds of extreme events. The same phenomenon caused the blocking systems that led to Houston getting flooded after Hurricanes Harvey in 2017, and another blocking system caused Superstorm Sandy to travel up the east Coast of the USA instead of traveling east across the Atlantic as most gulf hurricanes tend to do

A paper recently published warns that the slow down of the polar vortex and diminishing temperature gradient between the poles and tropics will also lead to worse and longer lasting summer heatwaves in the US. We have seen that the Texas energy infrastructure is vulnerable to cascading failures, If there is a similar power grid disruption in an extreme heatwave, many people will die from heatstroke

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/same-mechanism-behind-southern-cold-spell-could-drive-prolonged-heat-waves

Can't have a thread about a weather event now without the usual people immediately claiming it can be attributed to the ole agw. It's like that "meteorologist" on a tv clip posted on some thread here the other day who blamed the "almost ice-free Arctic ocean" for this Texas outbreak. We're reaching the annual peak in Arctic ice, so he's 100% wrong with his "ice-free", but that will go unchallenged and the population will swallow it without question.

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Care to address the contradictory messaging from 'climate scientists' as I showed in my post (and that is just one of many, many examples) rather than asking totally unrelated questions?

How exactly is the cause of the winter storm ‘totally unrelated’ to the topic

Akrasia wrote: »

I don’t believe in Mother Nature. I believe in science

Because science just does whatever the **** it does!

AuntySnow wrote: »

Its not unusual for Dallas and northern Texas to have snow
Its just a freak event to get it so severe so far douth,easier to happen actually than snow in the Sahara albeit at altitude,low enough altitude at times

https://www.space.com/39411-satellite-images-capture-rare-snowfall-sahara.html

It is unusual to have Texas so cold that their electricity and water infrastructure collapses because these infrastructure were not designed for such low temperatures because they were thought to be so unlikely to occur that it would be a waste of resources to protect against them

Akrasia wrote: »

The atmosphere scientist Jennifer Francis has been talking about how polar amplification is reducing the temperature difference between Arctic and temperate regions and this is causing changes to the jet stream which is now meandering much more, when the jet stream meanders, it pulls colder arctic air south with it which results in these kinds of extreme events. The same phenomenon caused the blocking systems that led to Houston getting flooded after Hurricanes Harvey in 2017, and another blocking system caused Superstorm Sandy to travel up the east Coast of the USA instead of traveling east across the Atlantic as most gulf hurricanes tend to do

A paper recently published warns that the slow down of the polar vortex and diminishing temperature gradient between the poles and tropics will also lead to worse and longer lasting summer heatwaves in the US. We have seen that the Texas energy infrastructure is vulnerable to cascading failures, If there is a similar power grid disruption in an extreme heatwave, many people will die from heatstroke

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/same-mechanism-behind-southern-cold-spell-could-drive-prolonged-heat-waves

I preferred when your side of the argument stuck to the company line for freak cold events of "thats weather, not climate". We look like we're moving towards an even more fanatical version where "every freak weather event is AGW".

This extreme one eyed view only serves to create an opposing extreme view and you just push more moderate people to care less about the whole thing.

Akrasia wrote: »

When you say immediately, you really mean a week after it started?
Then you go on to put some random weatherman’s words into my mouth?

I’m not talking about climate change for the lols, I’m linking this event to climate change because there is a plausible mechanism that links them. What do you think about the mechanism I referred to? The Jennifer Francis theory that the polar vortex and jet stream weaken when the difference between arctic temps and tropical temps are reduced

So how come the polar vortex was so strong up to the new year, and during other previous winters? We had a SSW at the start of the year. This is well known to disrupt the jet. If a warm Arctic is to blame then we really shouldn't be seeing the polar jet forming at all.

Akrasia wrote: »

I don’t know, there were the right atmospheric conditions that were caused by something else. Events always have at least one cause.

Those right atmospheric conditions could happen a century ago but no way nowadays, right? What was that something else?

Akrasia wrote: »

Not one person here has even mentioned the science
This is a weather forum that agonises over dew points and wet bulb temps when there is the prospect of a snowflake hitting Cabra, but when Houston gets blasted with freak ice storms, that’s just ‘weather’. Mother Nature can not be explained

I think I've pretty much covered it in my past 3 posts now.

Akrasia wrote: »

Not one person here has even mentioned the science
This is a weather forum that agonises over dew points and wet bulb temps when there is the prospect of a snowflake hitting Cabra, but when Houston gets blasted with freak ice storms, that’s just ‘weather’. Mother Nature can not be explained

I think this forum is full of amateur weather enthusiast's who understand that calling the weather 5 days from now is not an exact science. So when posters claim one freak event is proof of AGW/climate catastrophe and the "science" backs it up they're naturally sceptical.

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

The Arctic was very, very cold in 1895:



Cold Arctic air helped push frigid North Pole air down over the southern States.

It was cold, how cool we’re the tropics that year? It’s not the absolute temperature that drives the vortex, it’s the temperature gradient. The polar vortex may have been weak in 1895, or maybe there was a very powerful storm that disrupted the vortex and had a similar effect from a different cause. I do not have the any way of knowing.
Also, Krakatoa had erupted a decade before the winter snow in 1895, this drove down global temperatures and would have had a wierding effect on global climate and weather as equilibrium had temporarily shifted

There are lots of reasons why the vortex gets disrupted, my point is that a weaker vortex is disrupted more easily and this makes these kind of events more likely to happen,