I have been wanting to add to this post for the last few weeks but have not had the time, partly due to the weather in fact. Here in Central New York we had temperatures in the 50's right up until around January 23. Really, really, really freaky as we normally ALWAYS have the first snow on the ground that doesn't go away around mid November. We have had occasional thaws, where for a few days or a week it will warm up, but that was just wrong. It was the warmest December and January we have had ever since they have been keeping records. Right about the time it started to get cold my local weather man made a series on how global warming is likely to affect our winters in the future that turned out to be a dead ringer for what happened this year.
http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/loc...m&navCatId=480 He said we would have overall warmer winters with occasional blocking patterns of severe snows. Well, we got the blocking pattern all right, you all probably saw my area on the news. In around two weeks we got most all the snow we would normally get over nearly the whole winter. It snowed every day a foot, then two or 4, it was crazy, no one here has ever seen anything like it, and we are a pretty tough bunch of people when it comes to snow. Here is a picture of my front yard on the 16th of Feb (that is a full sized pick up in my front yard we are trying to sell for my elderly father in law. The large white pile in front of it is my front deck, it has 3 tiers, not that you could see any of them.)
Then all of a sudden, as fast as it started it stopped. The blocking pattern went away and all of a sudden now we have 40 degree days the last two days?! I was walking around without my coat today in the warm bright sunshine, and people were talking about how you could lay out and get a tan. The snow is of course melting rapidly (thankfully), but again we are all looking at each other saying "this is just weird!".
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