Memorial Day Weekend Weather

[CanisLupusArctos]

The Canadian influence on our weather has been strong this spring. With only 10 days left in the month, it is averaging about 4 degrees below last May.

This abnormally cold air has caused some very October-like weather around here lately, and is causing this showery pattern we have now. A few times this week, the lake water temp even returned to its winter pattern of having colder water on top than underneath, thanks to the dry Canadian air mass.

Mount Washington has had snow this week, and was at 30 degrees this morning. Each morning this week we've had morning sun, which has heated the earth, which has heated the air above it. That sun-heated air has found itself very buoyant in the otherwise-cold air mass. It rises every noontime, forms a bunch of clouds up there, they grow until they can't hold their moisture anymore, and it gets showery until sunset.

This cold air has had an equal opposite reaction in the western half of the country where a big bubble of abnormally warm air has come north. This spring's continued conga-line of strong cold fronts has been ramming this warm air back to where it came from (we hear about severe thunderstorms and tornadoes every time that happens.)

Despite this repeated barrage from Canada, the computer models are saying a piece of the hot air is going to stream up here for the Memorial Day weekend.

Here is my early-guess forecast for weekend temps: 72 on Saturday and around 80 on both Sunday and Monday. When the weekend's all done, it looks like yet another cold front will cross the area and put the warm air back to where it came from.

The Winnipesaukee WeatherCenter site now has a page dedicated to the latest forecasts for this area. Link is in the upper right portion of the front page.

[Resident 2B]

CLA,

Great forecast!

I am in complete accord with your numbers. This weekend should be an outstanding start to what we all hope will be a great summer.

Have fun everyone!

R2B

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

Here is my early-guess forecast for weekend temps: 72 on Saturday and around 80 on both Sunday and Monday.

The Sunday and Monday forecasts would put temperatures about 8 degrees above normal; and around 12 degrees short of records. So, all-in-all, very comfortable.

Are you offering any money-back guarantees on this?

[Jeti]

Toooo cold for taking a dip??

[SIKSUKR]

Were actually in a bit of an omega block which sometimes can stall for weeks.It looks like this one will move along by this weekend.Long range forecast for the summer is above normal temps.

[Resident 2B]

The good thing about an omega block is that once the block moves to the east of our location, we usually get very nice weather for a good stretch of time. The block should move east by Saturday and the warm flow should develop and hold for the weekend and hopefully well beyond.

R2B

[chipj29]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

The good thing about an omega block is that once the block moves to the east of our location, we usually get very nice weather for a good stretch of time. The block should move east by Saturday and the warm flow should develop and hold for the weekend and hopefully well beyond.

R2B

Don't get too comfy...that block could keep on moving and break down early next week, bringing us back to the "chilly" weather.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Chipj29, I think you're onto something. When the high pressure ridge responsible for the warmth formed in the west, it stayed for about 3 days and moved on. This year the cold fronts are keepin' on a-comin'. A few days ago it was in the 90s in many parts of the Rockies. Today there are thunderstorms happening in advance of the next cold front--the breakdown of the ridge. Winter storm watch is now in effect for the Wind River Range of Wyoming, while northern Utah has winter storm warnings and snow advisories.

Given the strength of the cold fronts we've had this year, I think the models are right-on when they say our warm weekend will yield to the cold front now in the Rockies. That would be around Tuesday.

In my website's forecast this morning I put a long-shot prediction that I kinda hope is wrong: I think we'll see a lot of this flip-flopping this summer because the cold fronts coming out of Canada the past several weeks have been pretty powerful (see the constant stream of news reports regarding the severe weather they've been causing.) If this is the case, we'll be sharing in some of that severe weather, too.

Also, in the world of solar astronomy, watchers are all bewildered about the fact that the sun is stuck in an activity minimum (in automotive terms: "Stuck between gears.") The last solar cycle (23) was supposed to end a year ago and shift smoothly to cycle 24, which would've increased its RPMs until maxing in 2012. But they're still waiting for signs of increase in solar activity. Bottom line is: Get out and enjoy the warm days this summer when they happen, beginning with this weekend. If this wild guess of mine ends up being wrong and the whole summer is hot, you still won't be cursing yourself for having gotten out!

[ITD]

Wait a minute, solar activity affects how warm it gets? When did this cool cycle start? I would be fascinated by a little lesson on how this works. (Ok, the first question was a little tongue in cheek, but I am interested in a little mini course in how these cycles work, how long they typically last and if they are relatively predictable).

[CanisLupusArctos]

ITD, A lot of this knowledge is new to me, too. A couple months ago I got into a conversation with a relative I don't see very often (who happens to be an environmental scientist) and he got me on a renewed "learning new stuff" kick. I'm still processing a lot of what I'm seeing.

When I checked some of my own weather station's records I did discover a general cooling trend since around 2000. Couple that with the fact that Winni has had some late iceouts since 2000 (I think 2 of them were May iceouts.) Last year's would've been a May iceout if the April 16 storm's wind hadn't ripped it apart so violently as it did.

Off the top of my memory...........

May 2002: Accumulating snow as far south as the Boston suburbs.

October 2002: Ditto.

Winter 02-03: Snowy and cold. Big snowstorms, even in Boston. I got lots of great snow pictures.

January 2004: Record cold. Boston Harbor partially frozen. Wicked cold.

December 2004: Snowstorms 'n' Ice storms. Even in Boston. Great pics.

January 2005: The Blizzard of 2005 hits Boston area with more than 2 feet and hurricane force winds on the coast. 38 inches of snow at Salem MA.

The rest of winter 2005: I got a ton of snowstorm pics with my new camera.

Fall 2005: Unusually cold during the great rain storm. The rain was snow in the White Mountains where it reached record levels. Top-to-bottom ski runs possible at Wildcat before Halloween. I got great pics of peak fall foliage covered with snow while I was driving around Vermont.

(**The unusually warm December coincided with a strong El Nino in the Pacific, which broke down in Mid January.**)

The rest of winter 2007: Very, very cold. Coldest temp occurred in March. White Easter.

Last summer: A few really hot days but otherwise cooler than normal, especially in the second half of August.

** Last fall saw another break in the cold trend, for what reason I don't know. After the break was over, last winter got started. Early.

Once again, that's all from the top of my memory, not the official records. I did check my written records going back through all of last year and I found only a couple of months above normal, with the rest being either near or below normal, especially in late winter/spring.

For more information, you can Google "Global Cooling" and it will lead you to some very interesting legitimate info (mixed in with the ridiculous panic sites you might expect from a search like that.) Just use your common sense to decide which is which.

For more info on the solar cycle, do this Google search: "Cycle 24." Also try "Cycle 24 effect on climate" or "Solar cycle effect on climate."

For information on Volcanoes, which have a proven track record of affecting the climate, visit the Volcanism Blog at volcanism.wordpress.com. Also do these Google searches: "Mt. Pinatubo 1991 effect on climate"... and the really interesting one, "Mt. Tambora 1815"...."New England Year Without A Summer 1815."

Another alternative viewpoint (and very interesting) climate/nature blog is wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com.

You can also try www.climateaudit.org.

Finally: www.iceagenow.com. At first glance it looks wacky and that bothered me. But my relative recommended it to me, so I kept my promise by giving it a chance. I discovered they have links to lots of mainstream news stories that form an interesting picture when they're put side-by-side in the same place. The site's maintainer likes to add comments in the middle of the news stories, which I find annoying, but he also provides links to the originals.

Many of these are from a growing number of scientists who are ditching the global warming theory. I present them to you as "the other viewpoint" because if you want Global Warming info, turn on the TV to just about any station. These present info that's not popular at the moment, but nonetheless worth reading. A note on the legitimacy of blogs: Yes, there are a lot of nut-jobs doing blogs out there. Just remember that there are just as many "alternative view" blogs that have a track record of forcing legitimate news into the unwilling TV/newspaper spotlight. In other words, don't discount it just because it goes against what's popular... just learn as much as you can from both sides and decide for yourself.

I haven't yet. I'm still learning, and I've just realized there's too much I don't know. I can only say this for now: Cooling is more dangerous than warming. In the world of meteorology, cold air is the heavyweight bully while warm air is the lightweight panzy with the 'kick me' sign on his back. Things usually get more interesting when cold air starts pickin' fights.
------------------------

Now... Bringing this back to the topic of Memorial Day Weekend weather... still looks awesome!!! I'm really looking forward to it, after all this chilly stuff. And if this cooling trend of the last couple years were to continue, I'd expect this week & coming weekend to be an example of the back-and-forth temps that would probably be a common occurrence all summer long. But again, that's just a guess and only a guess.

[Island Girl]

Intellicast and Accuweather is showing high winds for the weekend, mostl from the N, NW. Any one else verify that?

It is interesting that high winds have been forecast for the last two weekends and never materialized.

IG

[chipj29]

There sure are alot of interesting theories out there. One of them is the "cherry picking" of data to prove warming/cooling. The global warming theorists pick one set of years as a baseline to show how warm it is getting. The global cooling theorists probably do the same thing.

It is interesting though, how the global warming theorists never really discuss the last 8 years, as it just doesn't prove their theory, as CLA shows above. The pick extreme events (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc) and try to blame global warming for them.

We are trying to discuss global warming or cooling over the past 100 years or so. The earth has been around for millions of years. 100 years is a blip in the data set.

For the record, I believe that the climate is very cyclical. No, I am not a global cooling theorist, but I do strongly disagree with Al Gore.

[ITD]

Thanks CLA, interesting stuff, otta keep me busy for a while and hopefully out of the SL debacle going on the other forum. Would be nice if our so called unbiased media would report some of that stuff. Oh well, thanks again.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Originally Posted by ITD

Thanks CLA, interesting stuff, otta keep me busy for a while and hopefully out of the SL debacle going on the other forum. Would be nice if our so called unbiased media would report some of that stuff. Oh well, thanks again.

No problem; happy web surfing! Our media is getting worse all the time, feeding us total fluff while the real stories are going unreported until they reach a point where they needlessly catch us by surprise. On May 2, a volcano erupted in Chile (it's still erupting) and the geologists generally agree that it has the ability to explode powerfully enough to duplicate Mt. Pinatubo's effects on the global climate, or even Mt. Tambora's. On the day the geologists discovered that, it wasn't on the news at all.

I agree with Chipj29 in that there has probably been a lot of "cherry picking" of data, that the climate does go in cycles, and I don't know any more than that. Recently an AP article described a study that concluded there is no link between global warming and stronger hurricanes. Immediately it made sense to me, because all big storms are engines that operate on a mixture of hot and cold. Heat is the gasoline but cold represents the air intake. Take out either element, and you've got a less-powerful engine.

Even if the trend towards cooling down continues to affect us this summer, take heart: The notorious "year without a summer" during which it snowed in New England also gave many summery days. The cold fronts kept knocking on the door like cops at a frat party.

That's what seems to be happening this spring. This warm air we're about to get has more cold air behind it. Currently in the Rocky Mountains, snow is now falling in western Montana, Wyoming, northern Utah, and Arizona. It's not just falling at the mountaintops, either. West Yellowstone, where tourist season is beginning, is forecast to get up to 3 feet of new snow above 7,000 feet (not much higher than valley level.) Salt Lake City has 1-2 inches of snow in today's forecast with 3-7 inches in the hills to the east of town. Flagstaff, Arizona is expecting 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow. This cold air will moderate as it moves east, so I don't expect we'll have that much of a cool-down, although NH hikers beware: Our northern summits probably aren't done with winter weather, and they don't recognize Memorial Day or any other "start of summer."

Wind forecast for this weekend:
IG, I think we'll see generally northwest winds from now until Saturday night. they will generally trend lighter as we end up between the cold weather system and the upcoming warm one. On Sunday the warm one will take hold, resulting in a wind shift to southwest. That will gradually increase from late Sunday into Monday.

Revised temp forecast: I'm thinking 70 on Saturday and probably a little cooler out on the lake, where the water temp has been struggling to rise. Sunday we'll be around 75 with a few scattered locations hitting 80. Monday I'll go for 77 with a handful of locations low 80s, and a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Extended hope? Looking at the long range, the national weather pattern shows signs that it wants to repeat itself for the upcoming week... cold air will kill our party late Monday, but will touch off the equal-opposite reaction of heat surging northward into the western US. The heat builds, moves east (again) and finally we get a little piece of it (again) next weekend. If this pattern were to materialize and continue, we'd have cool, showery weeks with warm, sunny weekends. Are we lucky enough to score such a pattern? No guarantees... time will tell... but I just thought I'd share what I think I see as a possibility in the long-range.

I just had a happy thought for the day... with gas prices keeping many a powerboat on the mooring, has anyone considered a return to sailing? Oversized sailboats mapped all the oceans long before there was ever a powerboat. Seems to me that if these cold fronts keep coming, we'll have plenty of northwest wind to run along the NW-SE alignment of Lake Winni. Makes it easy to go with the wind to Alton, or zig-zag all the way to Center Harbor.

[bilproject]

Has anyone noticed that Al Gore has not been in the news and giving any public speeches in recent months. Could this have any correlation with the recent cooling we have been experiencing? Boy if Al were to stop talking all together we would probably see the start of the next ice age!

I always love the statement by global warming advocates that "the planet has never been warmer than today". I seem to remember that some of the best dinosaur finds have been in northern Montana, Siberia, and the Hudson Bay of Canada. Those areas were like Fla. at that time!

Keep at it CLA. If you can predict the weather with accuracy in the lakes region of NH you have a job at NOAA with out a doubt.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Thank you. I'd love to get a weather forecasting job at some point, if only freelance. Would be fun.

Fine tuning for this weekend's weather:

Radar indicates showers forming and moving from NW to SE over NH. These are "popcorn" type storms, so named because they form like popcorn as soon as the sun turns the heat on. Therefore expect increasing puffy clouds today with passing showers and maybe the rumble of thunder. This effect yesterday produced beautiful virga plumes (rain that evaporates before reaching the ground) that were lit up in a mix of colors at sunset. It reminded me of my road trip through Arizona.

Northwest winds will continue in October-like fashion today.

Tomorrow, these winds will start to die down as the high pressure to our west nears. Its presence will shut down the cloud development and the added sun will push temps to near 70.

Tomorrow Night, the high passes near us, and we'll see clear skies with calm or nearly-calm winds.

Sunday Morning will start off clear and calm, and Winni will probably give us the southeasterly lake breeze for a time, until the high pressure moves off the NC coast which will provide us with a southwest wind. That would kill any lake breeze and pull up some of the warmth from outside New England. We should reach the 70s.

On Monday the high pressure still gives us a SW wind which means more warm air, but the next cold front will be arriving from the NW later in the day. Exactly how warm we get depends on how soon the front's clouds and thunderstorms arrive. Therefore the best chance of getting 80 degrees on Sunday will be from Alton to the seacoast. Otherwise I'm going for an area-wide average of 75 degrees on Monday.

National Notes: I'm amazed at the intensity of the cold air that's behind this warm bubble we're about to feel a piece of. Last night and this morning it made the top national news story with tornadoes damaging Colorado and California. Behind the front, things are wintry. Flagstaff Arizona is 32 degrees and snowing about an inch per hour as I write this. Winter storm warnings are in effect for much of western Montana, southern Utah, southwestern Colorado, and of course Arizona.

This cold air will moderate as it moves east, like it always does, so we won't get that extreme when it finds us next week. However, this spring's weather does raise two awareness issues as we begin the summer.

1) Review your severe thunderstorm and tornado survival knowledge and/or skills. If you don't have them, learn them. If we start getting summertime air masses like the rest of the Continental US has been getting, and if these cold fronts continue to visit us as they have been, we would likely start sharing in some of the severe weather we've been hearing about. This would include tornadoes and large hail, though probably not as much as they've been getting elsewhere, it always has a news-making impact wherever and whenever it hits.

2) Beware in the Whites - The White Mountains are notorious for catching summertime hikers in unexpected snowstorms above treeline. They have a long history of that kind of weather, although it doesn't happen every year. But, this year's overall weather scenario (all over North America) tells me that this summer (so far) has a better-than-average chance of catching NH hikers off-guard in a freak snowstorm. Before you hike above treeline this summer, spend some time looking at www.mountwashington.org, and for preparedness tips you can visit the AMC at www.outdoors.org.