Jan 11, 2018

Winter in North America Is Cold — Dec. 2017-Jan. 2018

by
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Hylke de Vries (KNMI), Gabriel Vecchi (Princeton University), Friederike Otto (University of Oxford), Claudia Tebaldi (Climate Central and NCAR)
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World Weather Attribution
  • The two-week cold outbreak in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada was highly unusual in the current climate; however, it is not unprecedented.
  • Cold waves like this have decreased in intensity and frequency over the last century, but still occur.
  • Temperatures like these are now about fifteen times rarer. This is equivalent to cold waves being about 4ºF (2ºC) warmer than they used to be.