Rebecca Boyle: “Spring is just about here, if you go by its official start date, on the equinox. But in the American West, it feels like we skipped right to summer. A record-smashing heat dome has settled over a huge swath of the United States, from California to Montana and down to Texas. At my house in Colorado Springs, where we are 6,700 feet in elevation, highs could hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit this Saturday. The usual high temperature should be around 55 this time of year. Just outside Phoenix, a baseball spring-training matchup between the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds was rescheduled to 6:05 p.m. Friday, rather than a typical afternoon start time. Highs around Phoenix are expected to hit 106 Friday and Saturday, about 30 degrees above normal for mid-March. We are roasting out here.
“This is not normal. Or at least it wasn’t normal in the past. The heat wave is happening because of a bizarrely strong ridge of high pressure in Earth’s atmosphere. The ridge suppresses cloud formation and brings in warmer air. Such atmospheric ridges are more common in the summer, but this one would be unusually intense even for that season. It is the strongest ridge ever observed in March, Kaitlyn Trudeau, a senior researcher at the science nonprofit group Climate Central, told me. The group’s researchers have developed a prediction model that assesses how much a warming trend or record high can be attributed to human-caused climate change. According to the model, climate change is making this week’s western high temps five times more likely.
More subjectively, this heat dome is ‘otherworldly,’ ‘genuinely startling,’ and ‘absurd,’ depending on which meteorologist you ask. The spread of March temperatures on Colorado’s Front Range is typically wide, but not so wide that the Denver metro area should be expecting highs in the 80s—even inching up to 90. March is also, famously, the state’s snowiest month. Peak snowpack usually falls around April 9. This year, we passed peak snowpack a couple of weeks ago, and the heat wave means that by mid-April, much of the snow will probably be gone for the season …
“Snowpack is vital for water in the West, serving as a savings account for summer water needs; the heat wave will flush that account empty. My favorite Colorado ski area, which reaches 11,952 feet in elevation at its summit, could see high temperatures of 55 degrees over the weekend, for instance. The snow will turn to slush and melt fast, and streams will be high and turbid; one of the threats from this heat wave is actually hypothermia, for people who find themselves (intentionally or otherwise) in rushing, snow-fed rivers.
“But then the rivers and lakes filled by melting snow will run dry, months sooner than they should. Lake Powell and Lake Mead will drop, maybe by a lot. The parched ground throughout western states will become a tinderbox. Already, communities in the Denver metro area have declared Stage 1 drought, and others are considering the same, which means restrictions on water use. Governor Jared Polis activated the state drought task force on Tuesday, often a harbinger of statewide-drought declaration. Again, let me punctuate that this is happening in the middle of March.”
I’m currently operating on a ~30% chance society functionally collapses for the lower majority because the food production falls to famine territory and they simply stop shipping food to conventional retail distributors, do to the rent seeking rich paying 10x+ for anything associated with the words limited supply.
AlexFromOgish on
I feel like Boyle’s article stopped just before the climax. Although she did a great job describing how spring was skipped, I was expecting her to include a couple paragraphs about the expected “super El Niño” on its way later this year. When it arrives, people in the west are likely to wish for this “spring weather” again.
GIGGLES708 on
My concern is if these 20+ temps continue into summer, we are screwed. I don’t think summer came early, this is simply the new Spring.
4 Comments
Rebecca Boyle: “Spring is just about here, if you go by its official start date, on the equinox. But in the American West, it feels like we skipped right to summer. A record-smashing heat dome has settled over a huge swath of the United States, from California to Montana and down to Texas. At my house in Colorado Springs, where we are 6,700 feet in elevation, highs could hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit this Saturday. The usual high temperature should be around 55 this time of year. Just outside Phoenix, a baseball spring-training matchup between the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds was rescheduled to 6:05 p.m. Friday, rather than a typical afternoon start time. Highs around Phoenix are expected to hit 106 Friday and Saturday, about 30 degrees above normal for mid-March. We are roasting out here.
“This is not normal. Or at least it wasn’t normal in the past. The heat wave is happening because of a bizarrely strong ridge of high pressure in Earth’s atmosphere. The ridge suppresses cloud formation and brings in warmer air. Such atmospheric ridges are more common in the summer, but this one would be unusually intense even for that season. It is the strongest ridge ever observed in March, Kaitlyn Trudeau, a senior researcher at the science nonprofit group Climate Central, told me. The group’s researchers have developed a prediction model that assesses how much a warming trend or record high can be attributed to human-caused climate change. According to the model, climate change is making this week’s western high temps five times more likely.
More subjectively, this heat dome is ‘otherworldly,’ ‘genuinely startling,’ and ‘absurd,’ depending on which meteorologist you ask. The spread of March temperatures on Colorado’s Front Range is typically wide, but not so wide that the Denver metro area should be expecting highs in the 80s—even inching up to 90. March is also, famously, the state’s snowiest month. Peak snowpack usually falls around April 9. This year, we passed peak snowpack a couple of weeks ago, and the heat wave means that by mid-April, much of the snow will probably be gone for the season …
“Snowpack is vital for water in the West, serving as a savings account for summer water needs; the heat wave will flush that account empty. My favorite Colorado ski area, which reaches 11,952 feet in elevation at its summit, could see high temperatures of 55 degrees over the weekend, for instance. The snow will turn to slush and melt fast, and streams will be high and turbid; one of the threats from this heat wave is actually hypothermia, for people who find themselves (intentionally or otherwise) in rushing, snow-fed rivers.
“But then the rivers and lakes filled by melting snow will run dry, months sooner than they should. Lake Powell and Lake Mead will drop, maybe by a lot. The parched ground throughout western states will become a tinderbox. Already, communities in the Denver metro area have declared Stage 1 drought, and others are considering the same, which means restrictions on water use. Governor Jared Polis activated the state drought task force on Tuesday, often a harbinger of statewide-drought declaration. Again, let me punctuate that this is happening in the middle of March.”
Read more: [https://theatln.tc/48MsTyzN](https://theatln.tc/48MsTyzN)
I’m currently operating on a ~30% chance society functionally collapses for the lower majority because the food production falls to famine territory and they simply stop shipping food to conventional retail distributors, do to the rent seeking rich paying 10x+ for anything associated with the words limited supply.
I feel like Boyle’s article stopped just before the climax. Although she did a great job describing how spring was skipped, I was expecting her to include a couple paragraphs about the expected “super El Niño” on its way later this year. When it arrives, people in the west are likely to wish for this “spring weather” again.
My concern is if these 20+ temps continue into summer, we are screwed. I don’t think summer came early, this is simply the new Spring.