Wednesday May 2nd… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. Here is today’s main climate change related topic:
Early May Heat
It happens every year, but due to climate change the trend of seeing the first hot weather of the season is earlier in spring. Uncomfortable, record setting heat has popped up in some areas of the country, so its time for me to got to work dishing out reports. After a very cold April in the Midwest and portions of the Northeast where well over 3000 reports of record cold occurred by May 2nd we are seeing thermometers flirt with or slightly exceed the 90F degree mark:
Oh, and it snowed 2 days ago.
Dulles and BWI airports have reached at least 88 degrees today tying records from 2010 and 1951. More info:
82 F here in Niagara, Ontario. Then there’s Albany, NY.
Let’s see for edification purposes what the atmosphere looked like on Wednesday in association with record warmth in the Northeast. First here is what we have at 500 millibars:
The lobe of cold low pressure or extension of the polar vortex that was parked over the Midwest in April is gone, merging with the vortex in the north Atlantic producing what is called a positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. A strong, warm ridge is now over the East.
When we look at the surface we see a pattern resembling that of June instead of early May. A Bermuda high has already gotten established ushering warm air as far north as southern Canada:
Tomorrow ahead of a front we should see more record heat in the Northeast with some locations getting to 90F from Philadelphia south to Richmond:
I have seen no studies confirming that global warming is causing more frequent wild swings in temperature from cold to hot in a relatively short time, but I have seen enough evidence this winter and spring to think so. I may add more relevant reports (or ETs) to this post.
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The Climate Guy