Did I hallucinate the arctic temps this past weekend?QuicheSmash t1_j7fg74v wrote
That big polar vortex was being pushed around by warm air. So once it passed, there's just warm air behind it.
This unfortunately will be how it goes. Winter weather will be both unseasonably warm and frigid, as opposed to just cold. The time of consistent winter weather has passed.
GreenPL8 t1_j7ft150 wrote
This is the new normal. Extreme and unpredictable weather fluctuations. A destabilized polar vortex. It will kill crops and wreck the supply chain. Accept it and figure out how to prepare given this new reality.
Corey307 t1_j7h0653 wrote
This is what climate change deniers and people who don’t care do not understand, that we are already having serious issues with crop losses globally. As those crop losses worsen food won’t just become more expensive it will become less available. The vast majority of farmed crops do not tolerate severe weather fluctuations. One freeze or heat wave might not kill off a crop but it will damage at reducing you and could take out the whole crop.
suzi-r t1_j7iyl3e wrote
Yes…we’ve been told to expect warm-up into spring followed by snow in April. Historically, that fits into an April outlook…let’s wait & see how much…
Jessica_T t1_j7lsl2c wrote
It's a spinning top. As it slows, the wobbles get larger, and larger...
Excellent_Affect4658 t1_j7fm3j4 wrote
The cold snap wasn’t even really that unusual though (or if it was, it was only for the high winds). We have several days with temps like that in a normal winter, we’ve just all gone soft.
clamworm t1_j7fxy53 wrote
Right, several days, in a row. Not a day here and a day there. That's what's different now. The 30, -30, -30, 30. Not 10, 5, 0 ,-5, -10, -10, -10, -5, 0, 10, 5... like it used to do.
PeteDontCare t1_j7fqyho wrote
Not sure why the downvotes. Not a native Vermonter here, but been here long enough to know and remember that long stretches of subzero or single digits were always expected and normal. In fact, if you mentioned how cold it was, Vermonters were quick to tell you that it was normal and to buck up. Although the added wind may not be a regular thing, I have to agree with your conclusion that folks seem to have a short memory and people seem to be going soft. They never used to cancel school for several inches of snow, either....
Excellent_Affect4658 t1_j7fu560 wrote
Even just a few years ago (around Christmas 2017) it was subzero for most of a week, with lows around -20. Totally normal thing, happened every year when I was a kid. I only remember 2017 because my in-laws had just moved up here from PA and were like “WTF have we done?!!!”
thunder-cricket t1_j7g8ak0 wrote
Was it in the 40s on the week before and after? Because that's what this conversation is about.
PeteDontCare t1_j7fvmyl wrote
I remember this too.... Because we were fascinated by that whole throwing boiling water into the air trick to watch it instantly turn into "snow". I think it's all the hype around these cold snaps on national news and social media that has everyone forgetting what the norm always was
thunder-cricket t1_j7g82k7 wrote
This thread isn't about how there was a long stretch of cold. This wasn't a long stretch. It was a couple of days of -20 degrees, sandwiched between these disturbing, so-called 'winter' days of 40+. That's what's alarming, unexpected and not normal. Hope that helps.
Excellent_Affect4658 t1_j7gritd wrote
The comment I was responding to says, verbatim, “both unseasonably warm and frigid”. It is not. These are not unseasonably frigid temperatures. They are unseasonably warm. The swings are probably more abrupt than they used to be, but that’s not what I was objecting to.
thunder-cricket t1_j7h2kp5 wrote
OK. In that case, you're taking one portion of one sentence out of it's context to object to it, in an effort to obfuscate the real point and defend your argument: that the weather is normal and not alarming. The problem you say, and i quote verbatim, is "we've all just gone soft."
You're wrong. We haven't "all just gone soft." The weather we're experiencing is not normal and is alarming.
The full sentence is: "Winter weather will be both unseasonably warm and frigid, as opposed to just cold. The time of consistent winter weather has passed."
Excellent_Affect4658 t1_j7h45ou wrote
The weather is alarming, but not because it's cold, which is what gets all the attention. The cold snap was normal; it's the rest of the winter that people should be alarmed by. I'm not trying to "obfuscate" anything. Asking for precision is not denying climate science.
thunder-cricket t1_j7h5wm2 wrote
People are alarmed by the whole winter. People's aren't complaining that it was cold over the weekend; people are saying the swings are the alarming thing. That's what this whole post is about, including the person whose comment you're responding to. If you're not trying to obfuscate (it means to make obscure) the point of that comment, which you are now saying you agree with, I'm not sure why you took a few words out of their overall context to object to.
PeteDontCare t1_j7g8f0o wrote
It seems to be about neither of these scenarios, but rather an observation
thunder-cricket t1_j7g9gr8 wrote
There are two contending observations. Some people are observing that the extreme temperature swing we're seeing in the past 7 days is alarming.
And others (including you), are observing "no they're not; we've always had cold days in the winter. This is expected and normal," which obfuscates the point of the first observation. No one is saying it's alarming that it was very cold for a few days. We're saying it's alarming it was -20 one day and 45 two days later.
PeteDontCare t1_j7gaktq wrote
Yes, some people are saying both things. The original post didn't take a stance. You're just as wrong as I am, buddy
thunder-cricket t1_j7gbrul wrote
>Yes, some people are saying both things.
You can't say something is both abnormal and normal at the same time. I'm not sure which people you think are saying both things, but they are wrong and make no sense.
>The original post didn't take a stance.
The original post asks if they were hallucinating the cold over the last weekend, since it's so warm today. That means the original poster is taking the stance that this isn't normal, since people wonder if they are hallucinating when they observe something that doesn't seem like it could be real.
>You're just as wrong as I am, buddy
Again, hope all that helps.
flambeaway t1_j7fxozg wrote
>we’ve just all gone soft.
Just a noisy minority. Most people just got up and went to work.
KawasakiBinja t1_j7fx3n5 wrote
Yeah, I mean I remember in Jan/Feb 2019 there was a solid week of subzero temps during the daytime - my car even registered -22 F at like 6 AM.
This winter has been absolutely mild in comparison. I've only had to run the snowblower twice.
thunder-cricket t1_j7g9w3k wrote
Do you really not understand the alarming part isn't that it was cold for a few days, but rather the extreme temperature swings?
KawasakiBinja t1_j7gdfi8 wrote
No, I do understand all of that, and I don't like the extreme swings either. My comment was purely about the fact that we've seen such temps before.
thunder-cricket t1_j7h34yq wrote
Ok, but no one is arguing we've never seen such temps before. The argument is the extreme swings is new.
Abitconfusde t1_j7gqira wrote
Well, I have to confess that I don't. It seems like this year has started off really warm. What do the extreme temperature swings signify?
thunder-cricket t1_j7gztz8 wrote
As the comment you're responding to says:
>That big polar vortex was being pushed around by warm air. So once it passed, there's just warm air behind it.
>
>This unfortunately will be how it goes. Winter weather will be both unseasonably warm and frigid, as opposed to just cold. The time of consistent winter weather has passed.
Abitconfusde t1_j7i2x1h wrote
Thank you for responding, but I don't think the comment you quoted is the one I was looking at. Although it seems perfectly clear to me that this is a warm winter with the Arctic blast inserted for fun, and although it seems obvious that steadily warming weather is the trend, and although the trend points to global warming, and although that trend is actually cataclysmic, the comment I responded to made it seem like the pattern signified something more immediate. Like next week or month. I was looking for explication of that sentiment.
Corey307 t1_j7h19y2 wrote
They are a clear indicator of climate change and some thing that should concern you greatly. we’re not just having an easy winter, we haven’t had a winter not really. and it’s not just here, weather patterns around the world are all wrong and it’s accelerating. People focus too much on the global warming aspect of climate change not understanding that as the planet warms weather becomes unpredictable and dangerous. You lose crops to temperature fluctuations and far too much or far too little rain. The figure well if it’s hotter, colder, wetter or drier than it should be I can stay inside but that doesn’t do anything to feed us.
Abitconfusde t1_j7i57r2 wrote
> They are a clear indicator of climate change and some thing that should concern you greatly.
It does, and I may not have been clear. I believe we are living through a slow-motion (for humans... instant in geological time) cataclysm that will cause worldwide death (by war and famine) and disaster by weather events and ecocide. I suspect our course is at this point irreversible without a worldwide "Manhattan project" level of effort in innovation and mindset change. What I read in the comment (but which may not have been intended by its author) was that the pattern foretells tornados or hurricanes or something in the days immediately following the polar vortex.
> The [sic] figure well if it’s hotter, colder, wetter or drier than it should be I can stay inside but that doesn’t do anything to feed us.
True. And as more pollinators die off because they can't stay cool enough or because we think we will increase yields with pesticides, yield will continue to spiral. I suppose I could continue my side rant, but the point is... Yes I'm concerned... panicked even... And when someone suggests a particular weather pattern is alarming, I prick up my ears, because fuck! I'm in a constant state of alarm. Isn't everybody? What makes this particular weather pattern any worse or more alarming than ALL of the other signs telling us that we are on the bullet train to the end of human civilization as we know it?
Corey307 t1_j7ink54 wrote
Well said. You brought up some good points, that climate change causes cascading environmental failures and that it’s not a slow march toward the end because climate change is accelerating. We’re already past the point of no return due to atmospheric CO2 levels add the methane being released from melting permafrost is only making things worse. If mankind somehow reduced its CO2 emissions by 95% overnight it would not spare us from climate change although it would spare us from the worst of it.
The sad thing is I’ve talked about this a lot of times and I get a lot of people who are convinced that carbon capture will save us or that fusion will give us unlimited clean power so we can start polluting. Fusion is at least a few decades too late and we’re at least 20 years away from it being useful. Carbon capture only works at ground level, atmospheric carbon capture it simply is not possible even if all the worlds governments put trillions of dollars into it we’d still be polluting like hell building the means to capture carbon. I’ve tried explaining to people that we aren’t in a car racing toward a cliff, we’re in a car that already went over the edge.
You’re right that this is only one example and that’s why a lot of people don’t believe what is happening. It’s because they’re blind to what’s going on around the world. People really don’t have the time, don’t care or are too freaked out to pay attention. I’m one of the lucky ones in a way, I didn’t have kids because my family genetics are a crapshoot. I’m staying in New England and buying more land because I genuinely enjoy homesteading snd can try to prepare for a food insecure future.
suzi-r t1_j7iyxzr wrote
Loss of equilibrium
Corey307 t1_j7h0orn wrote
The people that were complaining about two frigid days aren’t the problem, the problem is it should not be anywhere near this warm. The average nightly low by the lake for the next 10 days is 23°F and the average high is 39°F, that’s not February weather. Those temps are at least 15 to 20° higher than they should be on average.
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