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Several high-temperature records have been broken this year. This year is gonna be ultra-hot. Despite the distracting Nor’eastah-Nemo today, it has been a very warm winter in the U.S.

Via PBS/Climate

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Cold streak is about to snap. Winter, it is over…

usagov:

From NOAA Visualizations:

A drop in the jet stream sent temperatures across the United States plummeting over the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend. The pronounced change in temperatures can be seen in this weather data from NOAA/NCEP’s Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis.

Areas colored blue are below freezing. The diurnal cycle of heating and cooling can be seen over time, but the pattern is clear: much of the U.S. is pretty cold.

Why is it so cold? Counter-intuitive event called, Stratospheric Warming.

An unusual event playing out high in the atmosphere above the Arctic Circle is setting the stage for what could be weeks upon weeks of frigid cold across wide swaths of the U.S., having already helped to bring cold and snowy weather to parts of Europe.

An Arctic cold front was sliding south from Canada on Friday, getting ready to clear customs at the border on Saturday and Sunday, bringing an icy chill to areas from the Plains states through the Mid-Atlantic by early next week, including what promises to be a chilly second inauguration for President Obama.

Temperatures in Washington on Monday are expected to hover in the low 30s, only a touch milder than Obama’s first inauguration, when the temperature was 28°F. 

Reinforcing shots of cold air are likely to affect the Upper Midwest, Great Plains and into the East throughout February, with some milder periods sandwiched in between.

Sudden stratospheric warming events occur when large atmospheric waves, known as Rossby waves, extend beyond the troposphere where most weather occurs, and into the stratosphere. This vertical transport of energy can set a complex process into motion that leads to the breakdown of the high altitude cold low pressure area that typically spins above the North Pole during the winter, which is known as the polar vortex.

The polar vortex plays a major role in determining how much Arctic air spills southward toward the mid-latitudes. When there is a strong polar vortex, cold air tends to stay bottled up in the Arctic. However, when the vortex weakens or is disrupted, like a spinning top that suddenly starts wobbling, it can cause polar air masses to surge south, while the Arctic experiences milder-than-average temperatures. 

During the ongoing stratospheric warming event, the polar vortex split in two, allowing polar air to spill out from the Arctic, as if a refrigerator door were suddenly opened.

Climate Central

Hottest day on record in Sydney, Australia: 45.8 C (114.4 F) ›

A scary :26 seconds. One of NASA’s labs analyzed and plotted temperature records from 1880 to 2011. The result is a historical document of our impending doom.

Global temperatures have warmed significantly since 1880, the beginning of what scientists call the “modern record.” At this time, the coverage provided by weather stations allowed for essentially global temperature data. As greenhouse gas emissions from energy production, industry and vehicles have increased, temperatures have climbed, most notably since the late 1970s.

In this animation of temperature data from 1880-2011, reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average. (Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Visualization credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)

“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS Director James E. Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record.”

NASA

Melting roads, evaporating gasoline(!), and huge wildfires in Australia. Four minutes with Melissa Block of NPR and Dr. Karl Braganza, manager of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre in Australia. Via NPR

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Temperatures have changed so much in Australia, that the country’s weather service had to increase the size of it’s thermometer. Australia, now in summer time, is experiencing a record heat wave that’s scorching the land, causing brush fires, habitat destruction, and loss of human life. Around 100 people have died this year from bush fires in Australia (a ‘bush fire’ about the same as a ‘wildfire’ in the U.S.).

So severe is the heat that the Bureau of Meteorology had to update its mapping system to accommodate very high temperatures. They’ve added two new colors to their range of their temperatures, purple and pink. Previously, the map was capped at black, which represented the highest temp at 50c. But temperatures are breaking records on a near daily basis, regularly exceeding those highs. (In fact, climate scientists have warned officials that Australia should prepare for even worse temperature swings.)

You can see the two added colors on the graph on the right of this map.

Hottest Day in History for All of Australia ›

30 records broken Dec. 19, 2012

332 record broken so far this month

6,247 records broken during 2012

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kateoplis:

For those who might be keeping score, we just passed the 333rd consecutive month of global temperatures above the 20th-century average.

November 2012 was the fifth-warmest November since records began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its monthly climate report. The agency calculated that the 10 warmest Novembers on record have all occurred within the past 12 years.

∞  12/21/12 at 01:45pm via

478 notes

Hottest year on record, by far…

Via climate.gov

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PBS

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Temperature will dip to 35 f tonight here in western Mass!

nbcnews:

Summer’s over: Canada blasts down arctic chill

(Photo: Nightly News)

It will be a cold week for millions as arctic blasts continue to move in from Canada. Expect record lows, stormy weather and perhaps even some snow from the Northern Plains to the Great Lakes. NBC’s Michelle Franzen and The Weather Channel’s Julie Martin report.

Watch the report.

(via nbcnews)

∞  10/07/12 at 07:46pm via

22 notes

Nice primer on temperatures. He covers the temperature of the human body, certain places in the US like Death Valley, coffee, lava, the sun, even melting atoms. Really fun!

skeptv:

How Hot Can It Get?

TEMPERATURES!

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Discussing Sea Surface Temperature Climatology ›