If you’re looking for exciting weather this probably won’t be the place for you over the next couple weeks. This ridge of high pressure is slated to stay quite firmly in place. It will keep sending the warmth towards Anchorage instead of Oceanside… well, except for Victoria area, Sooke got up to 15 yesterday! Tell that one to your friends and relatives out East. ;)

So I know I have at least one reader, Mike, from Pennsylvania. How’s the weather out there?! Cold yet?

There are records being set all over the US and Canada, but not just cold. It was -45F (-40C) in Maine yesterday a new state record. While in California, the huge High pressure that is giving us all the fog brought 73F (21C) temperatures to San Jose, a new record. And strangest of all, the Pineapple Express that normally washes over us this time of year is being deflected into Alaska, where a new record of 53F (12C) was set… this only a week after a low of -50F in the same town (a change of 100 degrees Farenheit!).

All this data is courtesy of Jeff Masters:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

So WHY is it so cold??

a sharp kink in the jet stream is responsible for the wild weather we’re having. A ridge of high pressure over Alaska is forcing the jet to bow northwards into northern Alaska, allowing warm air from the Hawaii area to stream northwards over the region. Whenever the jet contorts into such a pattern, there must be a return flow of cold air from the pole that develops. That is occurring over the eastern half of the U.S., bringing us our Arctic air blast.

He also had some very interesting things to say about his “top climate story in 2008“.. the loss of Arctic Sea ice and how it might be directly affecting our weather in North America.

The impact on the jet stream
The unprecedented melting of arctic sea ice the past two summers has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the early winter weather over the Northern Hemisphere. Several modeling studies presented at the December AGU meeting showed that sea ice melt on this scale is capable of injecting enough heat into the atmosphere to result in a major shift in the jet stream. Dr. Overland remarked that the early cold winter over North America this winter, and the exceptionally cold and snowy early winter in China last winter, were likely related to arctic sea ice loss. The sea ice loss induced a strong poleward flow of warm air over eastern Siberia, and a return flow of cold air from the Pole developed to compensate. Thus regions on either side of eastern Siberia–China and North America–have gotten unusually cold and snowy winters as a result.

I’m pleased to announce I’ve compiled all of the over 99,000 images capture last year by the alberniweather webcam and crammed them into a 10 minute video. (If you’re interested, a “full year” of images every five minutes would be around 105,000… so we’re missing a few days worth :)).

You can see the video on Youtube here. I highly recommend clicking the little “High Quality Version” link at the bottom edge of the video as it does make a big difference and isn’t much different in terms of download time.

You can see all the daily, weekly and monthly timelapses at http://www.youtube.com/alberniweather add it to your Bookmarks! :D

The Westcoaster also has a report on the record rainfall experienced last week on the West Coast.

the first daily record fell Jan. 6 when the Tofino weather station recorded 178.6 millimetres of precipitation. The old daily record was set on the same day in 2004, when 75.4 millimetres of precipitation fell.

The second daily record fell Jan. 10, when 164.6 millimetres of rain fell, she said. The old record for that day was set in 1987 when 114 millimetres of rain fell.

“We normally get for the entire month 435 [millimeters],” said McCarthy. As of Monday morning, 523.6 millimetres of rain had fallen at the Tofino weather station, she said.

The record for the most precipitation to fall during January was set in 2005 when the Tofino Weather Station recorded 895.8 millimetres of precipitation.

Well, after 4 weeks of I think what can only be described as abnormal and disruptive weather (sort of like 2006, but colder!).. it looks like we’re getting a bit of a break.

The forecast is for fog, some unsettled clouds and some sun. I expect there to be lots of fog and for the warmth to be hard to come by, but hopefully by the end of this week I’ll finally be able to see my yard. There is still 6″ of snow in parts!

I’d also like to point readers to this article on a new research paper that answers an interesting question. Are the recent years of global warmth really that unusual? The answer, Yes.

This months report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (they track the amount of ice/snow at the North and South poles) was also interesting especially juxtaposed with the report above.

Ice growth throughout most of December 2008 fit in with the expected pattern of ice growth in winter months. However, from December 12 to 19 there was almost no increase in ice extent (seen in the flattening of the timeseries line). The week-long pause in expansion of the ice edge is not unprecedented in the satellite record; several Decembers during past decades show similar events. However, such slowing has been unusual in recent years.

Rain Rain come today
Wash all this snow away.

If you’re on the west coast you can modify it slightly… :)

Rain, Wind, come today
Wash and blow this snow away.