New York expected to have weather similar to Alabama by 2050, but this winter will be brutal
By RYAN GORMAN
New Yorkers enjoying this week's warmth might be in for a chilly surprise this winter, but cold weather in the Big Apple may be going the way of the dodo.
America's largest city may no longer face snowy weather by 2050, according to one report, but not before this winter fires a frozen shot across the brow of millions.
New York's winters will more closely represent those in Birmingham, Alabama, than the frozen tundra New Yorkers trudged through last winter, the New York Panel on Climate Change recently found.
Winter warmth will not approach the mid-70s felt across the Tri-State region Tuesday, but average temperatures are expected to rise by about five degrees Fahrenheit, according to the experts.
The milder temps are expected to last year-round, and push the annual number of 90-degree days in the Big Apple from an average of about 18 now to as many as 52 per year, according to the group.
This news comes on the back of climate scientists recently finding the Polar Vortex is the result of global warming, but refutes those earlier claims of colder, snowier winters being felt across the lower 48 states.
By comparison, the brutally hot summer of 2013 had 16 days above 90-degrees, according to WNYC. This past summer had a paltry seven.
The rising temperatures are believed to be a result of global warming, which a recent report found is contributing to the largest ocean level rise in 6,000 years.
Scientists have recently discovered that sea levels have remained virtually constant since about 4,000 B.C. and only began rising about 150 years ago, according to a study published in PNAS. The Industrial Revolution began only a few decades prior.
Despite models predicting long-term temperature rise, this winter is expected to be especially brutal, at least across the northern half of Europe and the U.S.
A series of fall snowstorms that has buried Canada and Siberia under feet of snow is believed by meteorologists to be a predictor of major snow events in those regions.
"The [Canadian Arctic] Archipelago caught snow earlier than usual," David Robinson, a New Jersey state climatologist who maintains a dataset for snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, told the Washington Post.
"Some snow on the mainland tundra of Canada and Alaska too, up into the Brooks Range and northern Rockies. That amazing Calgary snow event shows up."
Early-season snow across the upper reaches of the North American continent often is an indicator of harsh weather to come, experts believe.
"I would consider it at least a cold bias for this upcoming winter," Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), a unit of Verisk Climate, told the Post.
"I remember that North American snow cover extent got off to a fast start in 2000 and that did portend a cold winter."
The early snow blanket, coupled with the Great Lakes being six-degrees colder than the average for this time of year, means weather patterns are coming into place for a long, cold, snowy winter.
Tuesday's 75-degree highs could be a distant memory in only a couple of weeks.
Snowstorms have struck New York on Thanksgiving in years past.
Related links:
Antarctic sea ice hits an all-time high, NASA blames global warming
Road salt supply low, demand high as winter looms
Global warming likely to cause colder and snowier winters, scientists say
