Solar Output Stepped Down In November; Eastern Aussie Temps To Remain Cool During “Very Unusual” Start To Summer; Colder-Than-Average Nov For Canada; + Fresh Snow And Freeze Warnings Issued Across North America
Solar Output Stepped Down In November
Solar activity has been subdued of late, which has, for the most part, been the story of Solar Cycle 25 (SC25).
Officially commencing in Dec, 2019, SC25 is progressing within the expected range; that is, the cycle is on course to be another historically weak one, markedly lower than SC21, SC22 and SC23, and although currently stronger than SC24, the ‘gap is closing’…
…thanks to a stepping down in November.
Last month saw the sunspot number –a great barometer for solar activity– turn lower, as visualized by the SILSO graphic below:
Solar Cycle 25 looks on course to rival the historically weak cycles of the early-1900s (the Centennial Minimum)–similar to SC24:
Eastern Aussie Temps To Remain Cool During “Very Unusual” Start To Summer
Following its coldest winter on record and a colder-than-average spring, Brisbane began the new season on Thursday with more anomalously-cold conditions as temperatures plunged well-below December norms.
“It’s been a very unusual first day of summer,” said Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Pieter Claassen.
“Right across southeast Queensland, we’re seeing daytime temperatures only reaching the mid-to-high teens (C) … on track with the coldest temperatures that we ever see in south-eastern Queensland in December … across the region, we’re eight to 14 degrees below average,” added Claassen.
Meteorologists will once again be reaching for the record books, according to Claassen.
“The reason for that is we have a lot of cloud cover and we have quite a bit of rainfall … and underneath all that is cool and dry south-easterly winds,” he said.
“When that rain falls into those dry winds, we actually get what we like to think of as an air-conditioning effect, where the rain evaporates in the dry winds and takes more heat out of the environment and things get cooler and cooler.”
Claasson foresees the colder-than-average weather lingering for another week, which seems optimistic when looking at the latest GFS run, which is predicting yet another blast of Antarctic air sweeping southern and eastern parts mid-month:
Colder-Than-Average Nov For Canada
November 2022 in Canada was colder-than-average, finishing with a temperature anomaly of -0.24C below the multidecadal norm, according to the official data compiled by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
It was extremely cold across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nunavut; while mild in Yukon and the Southeast.
November was colder-than-usual throughout the Thompson-Okanagan, B.C.,with snowfall hitting the region early in the month. A myriad of daily/monthly snowfall records were broken, including the two daily records felled in Penticton on Nov 6 and 8.
ECCC has said that the early injection of Arctic air could mean a long, cold winter for much of Canada.
The mean temperature in Kelowna, for example, came out at -1.8C, well-below the average of 2.6; with Cranbrook Airport holding at -6.4C — its third-coldest November in books dating back to 1901.
These aren’t cherry-picked locations, either — it was an exceptionally cold November across British Columbia, as revealed by the table below, courtesy of ECCC:
Long-standing benchmarks have been busted in Saskatchewan, and all.
Most notably the -43.9C logged at Key Lake on Nov 30, which is now the locale’s lowest November reading on record and only 1.1C off the province’s coldest temperature ever, set at Prince Albert on Nov 23, 1884.
Canada’s big freeze has extended into December, too, with additional snowfall and freeze warnings issued…
Fresh Snow And Freeze Warnings Issued Across North America
Environment Canada has issued a winter weather warnings across much of the country, including Saskatchewan; and likewise, below the border, the National Weather Service has done likewise, particularly for Sierra/Rockies snow.
Snow fell in Moose Jaw, Sask. Thursday, with a high of just -9C registered and a windchill of -22C.
Things were forecast to step up a notch overnight, with lows of -22C and a ‘frostbite danger’ predicted (windchill of -33C). An additional 10cm of snow was also on the cards, totals that would comfortably set a new benchmark for “the greatest snowfall in recent history,” reports moosejawtoday.com — besting the 6.5cm from Dec 1, 1993 and the 7.4cm from Dec 2, 1991.
Elsewhere, ECCC has issued an extreme cold warning for B.C.’s Peace River regions, as well as Chilcotin as temperatures near -40C: “Dress warmly. The outer layer should be wind resistant,” read the warning, further noting that frostbite can develop within minutes on exposed skin, especially with such a fierce wind chill.
Puntzi Mountain was the coldest spot in B.C. Thursday morning, with its low of -38.8C; while a reading of -28.9C was logged in Williams Lake, with a daytime high of just -20C; Quesnel saw a low of -27.5C, with a high around -21C; and in the Bella Coola Valley, an Arctic outflow warning remains in effect for inland sections — a deep freeze that shows no real signs of abating.
Special weather statements are also up for most of Vancouver Island and the south coast.
“It looks like things are in tune with that La Nina pattern, which usually brings us cooler winters here in B.C.,” said ECCC.
And in the United States, a windy, winter storm packed with heavy snow moved into the Sierra Thursday, where it soon closed schools at Lake Tahoe, prompted a backcountry avalanche warning and snarled traffic on Interstate 80 west of Reno.
A winter storm warning remains in effect into Friday from south of Yosemite National Park to about 200 miles north of Reno and Lake Tahoe, where more feet of snow are expected around the lake, the National Weather Service said.
“The combination of heavy snow and wind will bring periods of whiteout conditions,” warned the service.
The Sierra Avalanche Center in Truckee issued a backcountry avalanche warning through Friday for the Central Sierra Nevada, including the Tahoe area.
“Feet of new snow and strong winds will overload an already weak snowpack and result in very dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains,” the center said Thursday.
Eastern Washington is also looking at more snow. This is after the likes of Spokane endured their snowiest Novembers in a decade+ — and there’s much more where all that came from:
The cold has also been fierce and record-breaking.
Much of Napa County is under a freeze warning into Friday, along with parts of Sonoma and Marin counties, with Santa Clara and Alameda under a freeze watch, according to the NWS.
The low temperature in Napa overnight Thursday was expected to challenge the record low of 28F set back in 1932, with the lows forecast to be similar across the majority of Napa County communities, according to AccuWeather.
The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among many other forcings, including the impending release of the Beaufort Gyre).
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The “scary” news stories about a heatwave coming to Australia have started. The hottest temps almost all located in areas where no one lives!