Increasing Concern about No Summer Ontario, around Great Lakes
The coming cold is liable to lead to an increase in ice in the great lakes in the 5 day period Starting Sunday this weekend. With each passing day, we are seeing things I cant recall in my lifetime. There is no sign of plant life here on March 17. The usual push of crocuses , which I have seen in past winters here as early as Feb 15.. but have never not seen it since arriving at PSU in 1973 ( so we are talking 40 winters now) by March 15th on the south side of buildings where the reflection of the sun off the building warmed the ground, is not there. Even the the year of the great March blizzards, the shoots were out and of course got buried. The reason is because the ground is still frozen. But the fear I have is the severe cold in January that came with no snow on the ground may have killed them. I don't know if that is possible, but every out severe cold outbreak I ever saw here had snow on the ground. And while snow cools the air above, it insulates the ground below. Well -9 with 40 mph winds and no snow on the ground may have caused a big problem, I don't know. I do remember my wrestling coach lost all his bushes in the 1994 outbreak here, just killed them outright.
But what I am seeing on the ECMWF coming is dreadful for it being this late. Jessie pointed out Migratory birds flying south a couple of days ago. I dont know how that works, but a bunch of them are flying south again.. over my house as I am writing this. So I am aware of some things I never noticed before. Perhaps I was just inattentive and the cold snapped me to attention.
But a look at the Brazilian meteogram this morning reveals once again a dreadful look deep into the spring. In Chicago, like last year, its sniffing out snow into May
It gets worse downwind from the lakes in Ontario
Toronto again has as skiff of snow in mid June and I think to the right of the big rain at the end of June I can see a touch of green
close up
Ottawa
Montreal
This is horrible.
The message here is not that this has to happen. Its that last year it had the same kind of thing going on and the result was a spring that was nasty as we have seen in years. Of course last year winter did not start till later. This year its been longer and stronger
I dont know if people are aware of this, or just laugh at it. I am not laughing at anything given what we have been dealing with. And if we are going to laugh, we should probably wait till we know this cant happen. But right now, with each passing day, I am more concerned.. The JMA is cold right through June around the lakes and that model has blown away the other models.
ciao for now