The main purpose of this ongoing blog is to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day and are archived on each prior post. I’ll refer to extreme or temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: The Advent of Cold Wave Blair
Dear Diary. This is more like it. Compared to the winter of 2024, which was the warmest in history across the continental United States, this time around we are seeing more typical weather. Unfortunately, that typical January weather spells danger for millions of people living across portions of the northern and central U.S. There is one positive aspect of climate change since there will be less dangerous cold weather with time.
We now have major CAT3 Cold Wave Blair, named for the Weather Channel’s Winter Storm Blair. This second major cold wave of the season coincides with Winter Storm Blair, thus by my rules it will also get that name:
Blair will move through the central U.S. causing heavy snow and ice on its cold side with some severe storms on its south side:
At least meteorological models will be wrong about this 500 millibar forecast that many meteorologists including yours truly were concerned over. This run developed what would probably be a historic CAT4 cold wave across the country that might have produced many all-time frigid records:
Instead of the entire core of the polar vortex rotating into the Midwest by the 9th, we will see a more typical weather pattern:
Going back to this weekend, there has been a big temperature shift from December to January. Here is a warm chart from December 30th, 2024:
And that from today, January 4th, 2025:
Air temps and windchill readings will be well below zero across the Upper Midwest this weekend, which will be below average but fairly typical for January. I doubt that we will see more than a couple of hundred daily record low temperatures out of Cold Wave Blair. The worst of Blair roars into the South next week:
CAT3 Cold Wave Blair should be with us for much of January:
Of course, I’ll be letting you know how many records we see from Blair as well as how bad weather will get from this system.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is some brand new 2024 climatology. Reports are archived on prior January 2025 posts:
Here is More Climate News from Saturday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)