THEWEATHERMOGIL:: The U.S. is a big country and has lots of weather
As this past weekend’s winter storm exits the mid-Atlantic region and the dig out begins, I caught the following on the main National Weather Service web page (Jan. 25. 2016):
Tranquil Weather Returns To The East While Accumulating Snowfall Moves Into The Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes
High pressure will return to the east coast following the historic winter storm that dumped record snowfall. Low pressure over the central U.S will bring accumulating snow and some ice to the central and northern Plains, Upper Midwest, and the Great Lakes. Travel may become hazardous by later Monday into Tuesday. Read More…
This put into perspective something that I have known for a long time. The United States is a big country (Fig. 1). Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, the area of the 48 contiguous states is 3.11 million square miles. Consider these other areas from around the globe:
Europe = 3.79 million square miles
Antarctica = 5.41 million square miles
Russia = 6.60 million square miles
North America = 9.54 million square miles
United Kingdom = 94,000 square miles
All of this areal information is from bing.com.
Our Nation spans about 57 degrees of longitude (that’s about one-sixth of the globe going west-to-east) and about 22 degrees of latitude (that’s about one-eighth of the latitudinal banding). With mountains, lakes, prairies and ocean influences, and given the typical sizing of high and low pressure systems, it shouldn’t be too surprising that there is almost always a potpourri of weather going on across our Nation.
In fact, typically, there are at least one or two low-pressure regions of note and one or two high-pressure systems affecting the 48 states (Fig. 2). Even today, when “tranquil” weather is returning to the east, there is something else “brewing.”
The same could be said for “stuck-in-a-rut” patterns. It’s not uncommon for one part of the Nation to be in chill mode while another part is very warm. And, it’s not uncommon for the pattern to flip-flop over the course of weeks or months, either. Consider how warm the eastern states were in Dec. 2015, only to succumb to massive wintry weather weeks later.
In olden days, we just accepted this. Now, with social media feeds permeating our every waking moment and wall-to-wall news coverage vying for ratings, EVERY weather system has become a weather system of critical importance.
So, I vote for putting weather back into perspective. Yes, weather is important; it affects our lives, our pocketbooks and our safety. It is my chosen profession and I love to study, talk and write about it. But, weather happens! It happens when things get stormy and it happens when the sun shines. And there will ALWAYS be a weather story, somewhere. If it isn’t in the U.S., then the story will be somewhere else – maybe a windstorm in Europe; maybe turbulence attacking an airline as it flies across the Pacific; or perhaps a freeze affecting coffee beans in South America.
It doesn’t mean that storminess is more frequent or more intense or that the climate is changing. It doesn’t mean that the world is coming to an end because Washington was shut down by a snowstorm and not by political controversy. And weather records, much like sporting and other records, are always being broken.
Most of the time, in most places, the weather is pretty good…or at least bearable. Let’s take it for what it’s worth. After all, it’s the only weather we have.
© 2016 H. Michael Mogil
Originally posted 1/25/16