Posted on 05/01/2008 6:32:08 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie
Poet T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month.
Looking at April 2008, you can add snowiest.
Storms late in the month made it the whitest April ever in places such as Park Rapids and Detroit Lakes in Minnesota, with the latter city more than doubling its previous snowfall record for the month.
The first 70-degree day of the year usually arrives in April, but the highest the mercury reached in Fargo last month was 68 degrees on the 15th, said John Wheeler, WDAY-TV meteorologist.
The last time Fargo saw an April without a 70-degree day was 1996, he said.
The last time before that was in 1979.
Ice, fishing
Heavy snow cover is helping to keep many Minnesota lakes frozen, but whether ice will still be around for the May 10 fishing opener is anyone’s guess, said Pete Boulay of the state climatology office.
He said the last time there was a May ice-out on Big Detroit Lake in Becker County was in 1996, when the ice left on the 5th.
The latest the ice disappeared on Big Detroit was on May 17 in 1950.
Ice remains on Big Cormorant Lake in Becker County, but rain or wind could change that quickly, said Ellis Peterson, who runs the North Shore resort on Big Cormorant and nearby Leaf Lake.
Peterson plans to open the resort’s cabins on Friday, but with frost still in the ground near buildings he may not turn on the water, a situation he called very unusual for this time of year.
Even if Big Cormorant thaws out in time for the fishing opener, Peterson said the water will be too cold for successful angling.
He said smaller lakes, which may be a little warmer, will provide better chances.
Walleye wild card
Walleye spawning is usually complete by now, but this year the process could still be going on when May 10 arrives, said Bob Merritt, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources hydrologist.
For anglers, that could be good or bad.
If walleyes are still spawning – and anglers can get on the water – it could be great fishing, Merritt said.
Immediately after spawning, female walleyes are exhausted and are not very active for about a week.
But male walleyes, which are smaller, are quick to bite after spawning.
Another factor is water temperature.
Fish are rarely active when water temperatures are low, Merritt said. As of Wednesday, the picture isn’t looking good for anglers on May 10, he said.
“It’s going to be a strange one,” Merritt said of the fishing opener.
‘Remarkable’
Fargo-Moorhead snowfall for the season stands at 59.8 inches, well above the average of 46.7 inches, Wheeler said.
April snowfall totals in parts of northwest Minnesota, like the 50 inches reported near Park Rapids, were remarkable, he said.
“Four feet of snow in a single month would set a record at most places in the region in any month … and this is April!” said Wheeler, adding the average April snowfall is around 2.3 inches.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Olson at (701) 241-5555
Oh, No! ;)
Cold and snow in Minnesota? I’ve got a great dog bites man story they could run as well.
Glad my carbon credits are finally paying off!
Well maybe. In any event, this winter made a mockery of the climate models the AGW folk rely on, and for a more serious reason than that it was colder than expected—the models purport to predict trends around which there is random variation, to which they could have attributed this cold winter.
No, it made the more honest of them realize that they had omitted a big negative feedback mechanism: melting of Arctic sea ice puts more moisture in the atmosphere in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, which results in much heavier winter snowfalls, which in turn increase the Northern Hemisphere’s albedo, cooling the Earth.
The fact that the models omitted such a large (and obvious—I’ve been pointing it out to colleagues smitten by AGW worries for years) effect shows what complete rubbish the models are at a more easily understood level than the critique of attempting long-term prediction of a chaotic dynamical system (which also shows they are rubbish).
Wow. One might even call that process a “natural cycle”, huh?
The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet |
Yeah, we woke up to a inch of global warming on our lawn this morning. Happy May Day!
But 40 below definitely kept out the riff-raff. Uff dah!
LOL!
Well there you go there then now, eh?
Oh fer cute!
Snow is still on the lawn this morning, and I saw my first mosquito. Bang on, brother.
The truth is, we are probably entering a new "Little Ice Age". In 100 years, Gore's people will be laughed at as this age's "Flat Earth Society". We should preserve his head in a jar just so people can make fun of him.
In addition to their model being wrong about the effects of slight warming, they are also dead wrong in their claim that human activity has any impact on the weather. The level of carbon in the atmosphere is so miniscule compared to other elements, and compared to other actors (such as the sun) as to be a total non-factor, as opposed to a slight contributing factor. There can be localized effects, such as when a city’s asphalt makes it hotter than it used to be, but regionally and nationally, there are no impacts from human activity on the temperature or on storm patterns.
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