Crazy weather in Midwest, United States

[TSE]

Anyone else in the midwest experiencing CRAZY weather this year???

This winter was ridiculously warm at random weeks, but besides that it was perfectly normal winter, except it didn't get warm and didn't stop snowing until the second week of April!

Now this summer has been nothing but raining, thunderstorming, tornados, and 50-60 degree temperatures!

I've experienced this both in Iowa and now Minnesota! What's up with that!

Has it been like this in other parts of the US/world?

 

[senseless]

I'm in Pennsylvania and have never had spring allergy problems as bad as this year. It's all weather related.

 

[smithrh]

Famous professor that I took my senior thesis with said:

"It's normal for the weather to be abnormal."

I've never forgotten that - well, he DID say it a lot; he really wanted to emphasize that what people think are odd weather patterns and excursion are really very common.

 

[Gregg2]

Famous professor that I took my senior thesis with said:

"It's normal for the weather to be abnormal."

I've never forgotten that - well, he DID say it a lot; he really wanted to emphasize that what people think are odd weather patterns and excursion are really very common.

So he doesn't subscribe to the global warming theory, eh?

We've had, er, the usual abnormal weather in southeast Wisconsin for at least the last 12 months, or by the professor's definition, the last 12 years, decades,...

 

[mobilehaathi]

So he doesn't subscribe to the global warming theory, eh?

Hold up there skipper, you're putting words in his mouth.

 

[zioxide]

Has it been like this in other parts of the US/world?

"Superstorm" Sandy? The massive blizzard in February?

Our weather is only going to continue to get more extreme and violent as long as we keep polluting the planet with greenhouse gases.

Storms like Sandy, Nemo, or the mile-wide EF5 wedge tornado that hit Moore, OK a couple weeks ago in the past were very rare, but now are becoming more and more the norm.

Look no further than the hurricane season for the past few years. 2010, 2011, and 2012 each had 19 named storms. Only 1933 and 2005 had more storms.

This chart from wikipedia from 1850-now definitely shows an upward trend in the amount of hurricanes we've had.

 

[TSE]

"Superstorm" Sandy? The massive blizzard in February?

Our weather is only going to continue to get more extreme and violent as long as we keep polluting the planet with greenhouse gases.

Storms like Sandy, Nemo, or the mile-wide EF5 wedge tornado that hit Moore, OK a couple weeks ago in the past were very rare, but now are becoming more and more the norm.

Look no further than the hurricane season for the past few years. 2010, 2011, and 2012 each had 19 named storms. Only 1933 and 2005 had more storms.

This chart from wikipedia from 1850-now definitely shows an upward trend in the amount of hurricanes we've had.

That's crazy! I knew of other storms such as Hurricane Sandy, just wasn't sure if they were abnormal for those parts of the world.

I really hate this cold rain! It's getting to me and making me grumpy! At the same time though, lakes around the Twin Cities were drying up so it's nice to see them, along with the rivers, filling back up! Rather flood than drought!

 

[Apple OC]

Anyone else in the midwest experiencing CRAZY weather this year??? - Now this summer has been nothing but raining, thunderstorming, tornados, and 50-60 degree temperatures!

Summer starts in 3 weeks ... weather will improve.

 

[a-m-k]

My state has been in a tornado warning or watch a few times already...

Though, nothing happened...yet.

 

[TyPod]

It has been crazy here in Wisco.

 

[smithrh]

Hold up there skipper, you're putting words in his mouth.

Well, if anyone clicked on the link I supplied, it would become clear that he's dead, as it was an obituary. So, no one's putting words anywhere at this point!

Having said that, he was a complicated guy. Besides discovering the jet stream, be predicted the typhoon that struck Adm. Halsey in the later stages of the Pacific war. So, his meteorology skills were obviously there.

Let's also make clear that meteorology is not climatology, although they are tightly intertwined.

He did talk a lot about global cooling, but as it became clear that there's clearly global warming, he started talking about how it was not caused by humans, but rather a natural cycle. Yet, he also talked quite a bit about the impact of climate on humans.

He was getting on in years when I took the course, and that was a while ago.

 

[The.316]

Late May and June is when we start hitting the beach here in Greece, but its been cool, windy, and rainy for the past few weeks now. It was hot during our Easter, which was the beginning of May, but has dropped since then to the low 20s, and the wind has been nuts, upwards of 30 km/h daily. We have also had A LOT of earthquakes lately. Nothing over the top, 2.5s to 3.5s, but they have been happening more often than usual. Some people are thinking we get a big one here where I live, like in 95, when we were hit with a 7.2. Luckily I lived in Florida at the time.

 

[Gregg2]

Hold up there skipper, you're putting words in his mouth.

Yes, I know. It was quite intentional.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Yes, I know. It was quite intentional.

I'm curious what purpose it was to serve then, as it isn't good form to make unsupported inferences if you want to make a legitimate point.

If it was for the sake of satire, it clearly went whooshing over my head...

 

[MacNut]

The El Reno tornado has been classified as an EF5 and the widest tornado ever recorded.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/el-reno-oklahoma-city-tornadoes-recap-20130601

For the second time in two weeks, the state of Oklahoma has seen its second EF5 rated tornado.

After additional surveying and studying of weather data, including the use of information from mobile Doppler radar, the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla. has upgraded the May 31 tornado near El Reno, Okla. to an EF5. This is the highest possible rating a tornado can be given.

In addition, the width of the tornado has been given a "conservative" estimate of 2.6 miles. This is a new record for the widest tornado in history, beating the previous record of 2.5 miles near Hallam, Neb. on May 22, 2004.

The El Reno tornado is the same one that killed three storm chasers on Friday and injured the crew of our own Tornado Hunt team.

This is the second EF5 rated tornado in Oklahoma in a matter of weeks. An EF5 tornado devastated nearby Moore, Okla. on May 20, 2013.

In a web conference held Tuesday, Rick Smith, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla., noted that this tornado was exceptional in many ways.

The massive tornado contained several powerful "subvortices," areas of extremely rapid rotation that swirled within the larger tornadic circulation. These subvortices contained the strongest wind speeds measured within the tornado, greater than 295 miles per hour in several different instances -- well above the 201-mph minimum requirement for a EF5 designation.

Not only did these subvortices contain almost unfathomable winds, but they were moving forward at incredible speeds, making them impossible to outrun.

"Think of the average size of an Oklahoma tornado you'd see on a typical afternoon - three or four of those things moving along the ground at a speed of 170 to 180 miles per hour, crossing each other with all kinds of violent motions going on," Smith remarked. "So this is going to be studied for a long time."

Smith later noted that a few of these vortices may have been moving along the ground at a jaw-dropping forward speed of 185 miles per hour, even as the parent tornado lumbered along at a forward speed of about 24 miles per hour.

"This was an incredible storm," Smith said. "The storm that produced this tornado was doing some phenomenal things."

 

[TSE]

The El Reno tornado has been classified as an EF5 and the widest tornado ever recorded.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/el-reno-oklahoma-city-tornadoes-recap-20130601

Jeeze. That's scary stuff! This kind of stuff definitely is not normal! Maybe if all this crazy weather was isolated separately but it seems as though the whole United States has their own weather problems this year.

 

[MacNut]

Jeeze. That's scary stuff! This kind of stuff definitely is not normal! Maybe if all this crazy weather was isolated separately but it seems as though the whole United States has their own weather problems this year.

This storm had a lot of equipment tracking it. So this is the biggest on record, plus they have gotten a lot better at collecting data on these storms. Don't forget Oklahoma is wide open with not much to slow these systems down. Just like a hurricane in open water will get bigger.

 

[smithrh]

Jeeze. That's scary stuff! This kind of stuff definitely is not normal! Maybe if all this crazy weather was isolated separately but it seems as though the whole United States has their own weather problems this year.

...and once again - "It's normal for the weather to be abnormal."

 

[TSE]

...and once again - "It's normal for the weather to be abnormal."

I hear ya! Crazy, crazy stuff happening! Interesting!

 

[DollFaceDork]

I'm in the UK and it's lovely here.


On the other hand, Europe is flooded badly.

 

[Xavier]

In Ohio, the weather changing randomly throughout the day is expected.

That being said, last week was pretty warm for a usual May, and this June seems to be cooler.

 

[Gregg2]

I'm curious what purpose it was to serve then, as it isn't good form to make unsupported inferences if you want to make a legitimate point.

If it was for the sake of satire, it clearly went whooshing over my head...

Look for your sense of humor, as it has obviously been misplaced. This is the general discussion forum, not a technical troubleshooting one. Maybe I should have used the Big Grin.

 

[snberk103]

The El Reno tornado has been classified as an EF5 and the widest tornado ever recorded.
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/el-reno-oklahoma-city-tornadoes-recap-20130601

..."Think of the average size of an Oklahoma tornado you'd see on a typical afternoon "...

What?!? The scary part is living in a place where you have "average" tornados so often they are simply considered "typical" at all.... Yikes.

Living close to a subduction zone suddenly feels a lot safer.

 

[MegamanX]

"Superstorm" Sandy? The massive blizzard in February?

Our weather is only going to continue to get more extreme and violent as long as we keep polluting the planet with greenhouse gases.

Storms like Sandy, Nemo, or the mile-wide EF5 wedge tornado that hit Moore, OK a couple weeks ago in the past were very rare, but now are becoming more and more the norm.

Look no further than the hurricane season for the past few years. 2010, 2011, and 2012 each had 19 named storms. Only 1933 and 2005 had more storms.

This chart from wikipedia from 1850-now definitely shows an upward trend in the amount of hurricanes we've had.

To be fair that chart really is not that good until at least the 70's/ 80's. Reason being is a lot of the storm would be missed unless it crossed a shipping lane and even then required a ship to be in there and get messurements. Something that is not going to happen.

Now what changed in the 70's and 80's would be satellites coverage and we started sending planes and what not to check on the storms. This means we will catch a lot more of them.

Now stuff over land now we can get decent records dating back to the earily 1900's no problem.

 

[MegamanX]

...and once again - "It's normal for the weather to be abnormal."

problem comes in the abnormal weather is becoming the new norm. That is the larger issue.