Buffalo Boy's Blog

The last month or so has featured some really strange weather for mid-winter. Keeping in mind that global warming is a GLOBAL thing not a local thing, I think we have witnessed some of what our weather patterns will bring. Sharp changes from one extreme to another which may give us more of what we got last night. Thunderstorms in the winter!

Western New York is known as one of the few places for thunder snow but when was the last time we had true full blown thunderstorms not once, not twice but three times in a given month. Lets review:

January 6th began a streak of abnormally warm conditions, 52 was the high on the 6th and we would go on to see a stretch of three consecutive days in which the high would exceed 60, 62 on the 7th, 65 on the 8th and 63 degrees on the 9th of January. Down right balmy, people out in shorts, playing golf and washing cars. One day is unusual around here like that, 4 days is a miracle. On the 9th we saw all hell break loose with thunderstorms and heavy rain changing to snow. That was thunderstorm event #1. Odd but probably not unheard of.

January 29th and January 30th again featured highs of 49 and 53 degrees respectively. extremely mild by any January standards and keep in mind, late January-early February is supposed to be the coldest time of the year. The night of the 30/morning of the 31st we were awoken to extremely high house shaking winds with a peak gust at Starpoint of 81 mph and again, thunderstorms with temperatures again changing from one extreme to another.

And then we have the last few days, Yesterday a high of 41 but when we went to bed, temperatures were climbing into the 40's at night and the first of another round of mid winter thunderstorms was beginning. Today, the high was well into the 40s and tonight, the threat of thunderstorms before temperatures take the swing again.

Agree or not with global warming the whackiness of mid-winter thunderstorms is mind boggling. This is stuff we would see in April or October not January and February. Locally this is exactly the kind of thing that they are predicting for our area, warmer than normal winters with extreme temperature swings.

Im willing to bet that we have never seen this many thunderstorm related events this deep into winter. Traditionally, its too damn cold but with temperatures being warmer than average and big swings to extremes we are seeing the results of what many scientists have predicted for not just Western New York and Southern Ontario but for the north-eastern US as a whole.

Add to that that the swings in temperature haven't allowed things to stay totally frozen and there are more walking runny noses and sick people out there than I have seen in recent years, including me. Congested, sinuses are going nuts and achy. I blame it on these extreme temperature swings and Fridays slushy crappy day was no help.