Six Straight Cold Months For Cheyenne; Historic Snow Across The Likes Of Michigan And West Virginia; Nome’s “Coldest April In A lifetime”; Heavy May Snow Clips India; Cool UK; Record Cool Latvia; + Reversed Polarity Sunspot

Cap Allon

Six Straight Cold Months For Cheyenne

April was Cheyenne’s sixth consecutive colder-than-average month, according to National Weather Service data.

“April 2023 was a volatile month across our area,” so states the Cheyenne Office of the NWS, with both record cold and record high temperatures falling.

The state capital posted its earliest 80F day on record, on the 11th, but cold records outstripped heat and made for a month 0.6F below the multidecadal average.

Such swings between extremes are expected during prolonged bouts of low solar activity, such as the historically low activity we’re seeing now, with the overall trend leaning toward cooling.

In that regard, April was a textbook ‘Grand Solar Minimum’ month.


Historic Snow Across The Likes Of Michigan And West Virginia

May snow is supposedly rare in the U.S.

2023, however, is rewriting the books…


Michigan

The NWS has labelled this week’s snow in Michigan’s upper peninsula “historic” after more 2.2 feet fell on May 1 and 2 alone.

To recap some of the busted benchmarks in Marquette:

The 19.8 inches that settled on May 1 was an all-time record, as was the two-day total of 26.2 inches May 1 through May 2 — the city’s snowiest May on record, and by some margin; the snow then extended into the morning of May 3, pushing the event’s total to 27.9 inches; and since then, an astounding 32 inches have been reported across the city area’s highest terrains.

Wyoming’s groundbreaking snow wasn’t just confined to Marquette, of course, and it also gets even more impressive.

Herman, for example, located in the west side of the U.P., logged 27 inches of snow on Tuesday alone — the greatest single-day May snowfall to occur anywhere in the eastern half of the continental U.S., tweeted climatologist Brian Brettschneider–apparently:

Brettschneider has his fingers in his ears when it comes to the prospect of global cooling.


With the snow came some brutally cold wind gusts which lead to power outages, reports Fox Weather.


West Virginia

Rare May snow has been settling in some strange spots this week, including West Virginia.

The flakes starting flying Monday and were still piling up Wednesday morning as the state woke to its most significant late-season snowfall ever recorded.

Meteorologists have called it an “unprecedented snowstorm”, a “midwinter-like event” which saw winds from the northwest blow cold, moist air up western-facing mountain slopes and drop almost one and a half feet of snow across the high elevations.

In some locations, this snowstorm is the year’s biggest despite occurring deep into spring.

Unsurprisingly, long-standing records are being slain.

Previously, West Virginia’s highest May total was the 10 inches that settled in Beckley back in 1923, with the state’s other top amounts coming out at less than half that — the going-on two feet that settled this week has torn those records apart; it has, without hyperbole, rewritten the books.

“From all sources … the 16.2 inches at Canaan Heights is the largest May snowstorm in WV recorded history,” said Robert Leffler, a retired NWS meteorologist. “It is also the largest 24-total snowfall (10.1 inches) and greatest snow depth ever recorded in WV May records” — with the snow persisting after Leffler’s report.


Cold conditions for May persist this week for many in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Southern states, such as Mississippi, have also busted monthly low temperature benchmarks over the past 24 hours.


Nome’s “Coldest April In A lifetime”

April in Nome, Alaska finished with an average temperature of 8.4F which, according to Rick Thoman of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, is a full -14F below the norm.

This made for the third coldest April on record, with only 1985 and 1924 posting chiller fourth months of the year.

“Unless you’re almost 100 years old now this was the either the second coldest or coldest April that you’ve lived through,” said out Thoman, who also points to an exceptionally cold, all-time record-tying reading or 30 below back on April 8.


Heavy May Snow Clips India

May snow has been clipping the higher-elevations of Himachal Pradesh, India this week.

According to HP Traffic, Tourists and Railways Police, a foot of snow in the Chanshil area blocked roads stranding some 30 vehicles.

“High altitude areas of Lahaul-Spiti, Kullu, Kinnaur, Chamba, Sirmaur and Shimla districts have been experiencing moderate snow since Sunday,” said a Met official.

The accumulated snow is driving temperatures well-below seasonal norms.

The state capital Shimla logged 8.5C (47.3F); Kalpa saw 5.8C (42.4F); while Keylong posted 1.6C (34.9F).


Cool UK

April 2023 in the United Kingdom had an average temperature of 7.8C (46F), which is 0.1C below the multidecadal baseline.

A warmer-than-average Northern Ireland helped offset a colder England.

The below maps come courtesy of the UK Met Office:

@liamdutton


Record Cool Latvia

Thursday and Friday are forecast to deliver Latvia one of its coldest “spring frost episodes” on record.

Over the next eight nights, the air temperature will be below zero with the biggest frost expected on May 5 and 6 when thermometers could crash to -6C (21.2F) and beyond, reports lsm.lv; cold which will “increase the devastating effects on plants,” continues the report, even those “that are usually resistant to spring frost.”

Snow is also on the cards as much Europe braces for truly anomalous conditions for the time of year–continuing April’s trend:

Big May Snow Pounds The Alps; Record Cold Sweeps India; Another Cooler-Than-Average Month Down Under; + Solar Activity Down, Global Temperatures Down, Arctic Sea Ice Up


Reversed Polarity Sunspot

As reported by Dr Tony Philips of spaceweather.com, sunspot AR3296 is breaking the law. Hale’s Law, that is.

The sunspot’s magnetic field is “flipped.”

The below image, a magnetogram from NASA’s Solar Dynamics, reveals the situation:


According to Hale’s Law, Solar Cycle 25 sunspots in the sun’s northern hemisphere should have a -/+ polarity. That’s negative on the left, positive on the right. However, AR3296 is the opposite; its polarity is reversed.

Studies show that about 3% of all sunspots violate Hale’s Law, continues Dr Philips.

In most ways, reversed polarity sunspots are totally normal. They have the same lifespan and size as ordinary sunspots. In one important way, however, they are different. According to a 1982 survey by Frances Tang, reversed polarity sunspots are more than twice as likely to develop complex magnetic fields, in which + and – are mixed together. Reversed polarity sunspots are therefore more likely to explode.

AR3296 has just entered the Earth-facing side of the solar disk — the ‘strike zone’.

Moving forward, it is worth keeping a very close eye on.

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