Pirate's Cove

Said Nor’easter rather fizzled in many places, such as the New Jersey Shore and New York City. It wasn’t quite as bad as originally forecast. The NY Times is on it

Heavy Snowfall in Northeast Disrupts Travel and Vaccine Rollout

A powerful winter storm pummeled much of the Northeastern United States on Monday, canceling flights, shutting down parts of the nation’s largest subway and disrupting travel for millions of people along the I-95 corridor.

By Monday night at least one person had died because of the storm, the police said.

In New York City, more than 16 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park by 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service, and another few inches were expected overnight.

Earlier forecasts had predicted up to two feet of snow, which would have made the storm one of the biggest in the city’s history. But by late afternoon, most of the heavy snowfall bands that had been blanketing the city with one to two inches of snow an hour had moved north.

Let’s head to the end of the piece, shall we?

Such storms have always been a part of winter in the Northeast. But there is evidence that a warming world is influencing the severity of winter storms even as it is making winters somewhat milder over all.

Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, pointed to the Arctic, which is warming much faster than the rest of the planet, and the phenomena of the disrupted polar vortex, which can be triggered by blasts of sudden warming in the stratosphere.

Together, the two kinds of warming are a potent combination, he said: “The general warming of the Arctic, that’s kind of like the gasoline. When you get the polar vortex, that’s the match.”

We can fix this with a tax, you know. Meanwhile, here’s the Weather Channel (which always seems a bit surprised that weather happens)

Despite climate change, snowfall appears to be increasing along the Northeast Urban Corridor over time.

According to a February 2020 report from Climate Central, three of the top five cities that exhibited the largest gains in snowfall since 1970 – Atlantic City, New Jersey; New York City and Newark, New Jersey – were near the Northeast seaboard.

These I-95 corridor snowfall increases over the decades were most prevalent in winter and spring, rather than fall.

This may be due to a combination of factors, including warmer ocean water able to supply more moisture to winter storms, and more frequent blocking patterns in the upper atmosphere, such as the Greenland block, which ushers in cold air and can lead to slow-moving snowstorms in the East.

The other factor is you driving to get a burger in your fossil fueled vehicle.

Finally, if you feel like watching a 2 minute video, “CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli joins “CBS This Morning” for a forecast of the major winter storm hitting the East Coast, as well as the impact climate change is having on storms like this.”