this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Thing is, it's really not that cold. We've just forgotten how to deal with it.
Granted the cold seems to be making it a lot farther south, but for most people this used to be normal.
I've been telling my kids that this is what December used to feel like
There is a pattern: more persistent heat waves, more persistent cold waves, more persistent wet and dry periods. On a planet that is a bit hotter on average, we get "more weather".
It's true that I haven't yet seen temperatures as low as some of the worst winters I've experienced in the Southeast. I remember as a kid a few bad ones that shut things down for a week or more, destroyed lots of trees and property with ice buildup, etc. What makes it far worse than just cold is the wind caused from the Arctic blasts (driving storm fronts), as well as the higher humidity from more moisture in the air in general. Add to that the regularity of these Arctic temperature shifts every year now since the jet stream is toast from the reduction of the difference between the latitude temperatures as the Arctic warms.
I am getting tired of some of these Youtube weather channels with their "this is a bad one" videos every week. They are bad, but don't act like it's not "normal" now. I guess "yet another wave of cold/hot" doesn't get clicks.