Snow slow on the go, but wild weather elsewhere

Since early January, snowfall in Coeur d’Alene and surrounding regions has been relatively scarce. Until last Thursday, about an inch of snow had fallen at Cliff’s station since early last month.

However, it looked like winter again as 1.6 inches fell on February 3, taking the seasonal total to just over 52 inches.

It’s certainly been a pattern of extremes. The first half of the winter season got off to a good start in terms of snow, but the weather pattern has changed since early last month.

Most of the snow and cold weather has moved eastward and has been reported in the central and eastern portions of the country. Record snows have been falling in New England with sub-freezing temperatures observed down into central Florida in late January.

Lows dropped down into the middle 20s down near Orlando, likely damaging some citrus crops.

Based on our cycles and long-range computer models, there's a chance of more snow around the middle of the month, during the full moon lunar cycle. Snowfall amounts at this point don't look to be substantial around that time, but it’s possible that we could have a better chance of snow at the end of February and early March.

Cliff and I haven’t given up on our snowfall projects of just over 83 inches, but if conditions don’t start changing within the next several weeks, we may have to lower that figure.

THE WEATHER ELSEWHERE

Down in California, after residents saw record rains and mountain snows in October and December, the faucet of moisture has been literally shut off in early 2022.

My cousin who lives near Sacramento has been calling and wondering when he will see some fresh powder in the Sierra Nevada mountains so he can get back on the ski slopes. He may have to wait until the middle to the end of the month for new snow in that part of the country.

Of course, the crazy weather hasn’t been confined to North America. It’s almost hard to believe that snow covered the sands of the Saudi Arabian desert last month. In addition to the snow, “historic hailstorms” were reported in the desert regions as well, another rare event.

Parts of Greece, Turkey and Jerusalem were turned into winter wonderlands. Athens saw over 3 inches, with “feet” of snow in the mountains of Turkey in late January.

Although Japan does receive some snow during the winter, weather bureaus in that country had to issue heavy snow warnings from a major winter storm in early January. That was the first warning of that type in more than four years and the storm resulted in the cancellation of over 100 domestic flights.

While many parts of the Northern Hemisphere have been in the grips of Old Man Winter, the Southern Hemisphere is also having its share of wild weather. For example, the coffee and sugar cane regions of Brazil in South America dealt with rare damaging frosts and freezes during their winter season last July.

Now it’s their summer, and the same areas hit by the unusually extreme cold are experiencing relentless heat and drought. In Australia, record heat was reported around the Great Barrier Reef in December. Last month, Melbourne experienced its longest heat spell in eight years.

EXTREMISM RULES

In other “extreme” weather news, the World Meteorological Organization, the agency that maintains global records, reported last week that it confirmed the longest single flash of lightning in recorded history. It occurred April 29, 2020, nearly two years ago, and covered an area of approximately 477 miles across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The flash was seen and recorded by satellite and beat the previous record set in Brazil of 440 miles set back in 2018.

The WHO also confirmed a record for the greatest duration for a single lightning flash. On June 18, 2020, a massive thunderstorm developed over South America in the countries of Uruguay and Argentina. The flash lasted for a whopping 17.102 seconds, beating the previous record of 16.73 seconds from a storm over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019.

By the way, each day there are approximately 3 to 8 million lightning flashes across the globe. They can seem quite large when viewing from a distance, but the width of a typical bolt is about an inch. The length can stretch for up to 2-10 miles and the typical duration of a lightning flash is about one-fifth of a second.

The typical bolt of lightning is about 40,000 to 50,000 degrees and is about four to five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

Damage costs from lightning are estimated at $4-$5 billion each year in the U.S. More than 10,000 forest fires are caused by lightning annually.

Across the Inland Northwest, many of our large fires in the summer and early fall seasons have been caused by numerous lightning strikes from dry thunderstorms.

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Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com