A major snowstorm hit the U.S. mid-Atlantic region on Dec. 19, 2009, laying down more than 20 inches of snow in some locations. That storm alone set new records for December snowfall totals in the region, but Old Man Winter wasn’t done yet. Another major snowstorm hit the region on Feb. 6, 2010, and then a third storm pummeled the region with blizzard conditions on Feb. 10. Together, those three storms contributed the majority of the record-breaking winter snow totals in the region—55.9 inches of snow at Reagan National Airport, 79.9 inches at Baltimore-Washington Airport, and 71.6 inches in Philadelphia.
Ironically, while people living in the mid-Atlantic region received record-setting snow totals, people in Vancouver, Canada, experienced their warmest January ever recorded. Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympic games used trucks and helicopters to bring in snow to prepare the slopes in time for skiing and snowboarding competitions.
A resident of Bowie, Maryland, clears snow from his driveway (left) while Olympic organizers use helicopters to import snow to the slopes near Vancouver, Canada, to prepare the slopes for the 2010 winter games (right). Left photo courtesy of David Herring, NOAA; right photo courtesy of Jonathan Hayward, AP.
Still, bitter cold temperatures and blizzards of historic proportions prompted the questions: Why were there so many historic snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region this winter? Are they evidence that global warming isn’t happening?
No, the globe is warming. But the real story behind the mid-Atlantic’s winter isn’t about climate change, it’s about climate variability. Climate variability, the term scientists use, explains why record-breaking snowstorms and global warming can coexist. In fact, many of the weather events observed this winter help to confirm our understanding of the climate system, including links between weather and climate.
2009 Winter Outlooks for Temperature (left) and Precipitation (right) issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center on October 15, 2009.
On October 15, NOAA announced its 2009 U.S. Winter Outlook in which we called attention to a well-understood climate variation - the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters called El Niño. Our Winter Outlook emphasized the potential for wet, stormy weather across the southern United States, with drier conditions prevailing in the Pacific Northwest and the Ohio Valley regions. As predicted, these conditions did occur this winter. For example, wet and stormy weather caused flooding and mudslides in California, and severe thunderstorms were more frequent than usual in the Southeast. Meteorologists in Seattle reported an unusually warm and mild winter.
El Niño conditions occur when Pacific sea surface temperature in the region highlighted above is warmer than average. That warm water produced higher-than-average evaporation and brought moisture toward the continental United States. Click the image to play the movie showing how El Niño-influenced wind patterns carried moisture northward and eastward from the Pacific Ocean across the southern half of the United States. Animation courtesy of Ned Gardiner, NOAA, and Science Bulletins.
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