Pair of peregrines on ice floes in the Allegheny River, 12 Jan 2018 (photo by Dave Brooke)
5 January 2025
Harsh winter returns to a large swath of the U.S. today through Tuesday, 5-7 January. From Kansas to Delaware, encompassing the Ohio River end to end, 14 states have Winter Storm Warnings including the southern tier of Pennsylvania.
After it snows low temperatures here will drop into the teens and single digits, 18°F to 9°F on Tuesday through Friday. This will be low enough to form ice on the Allegheny River as it did seven years ago when ice floes lured the Tarentum peregrines to land on the river. For a trip down memory lane see this vintage article.
It seems that Pittsburgh missed waterfowl migration this fall with only a handful of the expected migrants landing on our rivers and lakes. Except for long distance migrants, waterfowl haven’t come at all.
Some ducks, geese and gulls only move south when ice overtakes their location. If they’re hanging out at Lake Erie near Presque Isle, the map of yesterday’s water temperature indicates they have no reason to leave. The water there is more than 40°F and the only ice is in small bays (black color on the map).
There are a few rare geese, though, photographed and posted to eBird and embedded below.
There’s currently a Ross’s goose (Anser rossii) at North Park, noticeably small than the Canada geese it’s hanging out with.
Yesterday there was a brant (Branta bernicla) at Duck Hollow without any Canada geese to keep it company. So it hung out with ring-billed gulls.
And a flock of 16 greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) who normally migrate west of the Mississippi and winter in Louisiana, southern Texas and Mexico have been hanging out with Canada geese in Butler County since 1 December.
These geese are called “white-fronted” because their foreheads are white.
Wondering why the ducks aren’t here? This 2021 vintage article explains why.
Though this willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) thinks he’s hiding his all-white plumage makes him painfully obvious in a snowless landscape.
There are three species of north country ptarmigans (Lagopus) — willow, white-tailed and rock ptarmigans — that change their plumage with the seasons in order to stay camouflaged against the ground. They’re white in winter to match the snow, brown in summer to match vegetation, and mottled as the seasons change. Their molt cycle worked well until climate change made winters shorter.
Fourteen years ago, in 2010, I blogged about the willow ptarmigan’s superior winter camouflage in Where’s Willow? and he was hard to find in the snowy landscape.
But climate change is making winter is shorter. Snow cover does not begin as early as it used to the fall and it melts earlier in the spring. The ptarmigans’ molt cycle is still on the old schedule so he’s no longer camouflaged when the seasons change. You can see this rock ptarmigan easily from far away.
The Great Lakes hold nearly 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. And, more astonishingly, the lakes hold more than 90% of North America’s fresh surface water.
But this water supply is not unlimited. The Great Lakes are a one-time gift from the glaciers that melted in our region thousands of years ago. Less than 1 percent of the lakes’ water is renewed annually through rainfall and snowmelt. That means the Great Lakes can be depleted if we don’t keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin.
The Great Lakes watershed map shows how little of the surrounding land drains into lakes. This is especially true of northern Pennsylvania and Chautauqua County, NY.
As climate change puts enormous strains on fresh water resources, multinational companies look longingly at bottling our rivers and lakes. Fortunately the Great Lakes basin had an early wake up call.
In 1998, an obscure Canadian consulting company, the Nova Group, announced its intention to ship 158 million gallons of Lake Superior water to Asia. Though that specific plan seemed unlikely to materialize, it raised alarms about the vulnerability of the Great Lakes in an increasingly hot and thirsty world.
And so the Great Lakes Compact was born. Signed into law in 2008, it prohibits diversion of water outside the Great Lakes basin with very limited exceptions.
This one-time gift of the Ice Age glaciers won’t be frittered away.
p.s. Prior to 1945 humans diverted Great Lakes water in four locations but these have barely made a dent in the total watershed.
Ogoki pulls water from Hudson Bay watershed into Lake Superior. 1943.
Long Lac pulls water from Hudson Bay watershed into Lake Superior. 1939.
The Chicago River is diverted away from Lake Michigan and into the Mississippi watershed. Beginning in the 1800s.
Welland Canal is a navigation channel from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario that bypasses Niagara Falls. Beginning in 1824.
The combined effects of the Long Lac, Ogoki and Chicago diversions and the Welland Canal have been to permanently raise Lake Superior by an average of 2.1 centimeters (0.8 inches), lower Lakes Michigan-Huron by 0.6 cm (0.2 in), lower Lake Erie by 10 cm (4 in) and raise Lake Ontario by 2.4 cm (1 in), according to the IJC’s 1985 Great Lakes Diversions and Consumptive Uses report.
The amazing thing is that it took only four months to get that way.
In April the Monongahela River flooded the Duck Hollow parking lot — twice — when we had two downpour days of more than 2.6 inches each.
Duck Hollow parking lot — A River Runs Through It — 4 April 2024, 7:19am ET
Then it stopped raining in June and the weather turned exceptionally hot. A drought began in July that became Severe that month in West Virginia and western Maryland.
By late August the boating season was over at Youghiogheny River Lake due to low water. On 1 November when Judy Stark took these pictures, the lake had dropped so far that an old bridge and the foundations of a submerged town were revealed above low water.
Drought reveals old bridge on Youghiogheny River Lake, 1 Nov 2024 (photo by Judy Stark)Drought reveals remains of Old Somerfield in Youghiogheny River Lake, 1 Nov 2024 (photo by Judy Stark)
In just four months the Monongahela River switched from flood to drought. Since it flows from West Virginia to Pittsburgh, it’s useful to look at precipitation in Morgantown, WV to understand these extremes.
The graph below shows Morgantown’s 2024 monthly precipitation through yesterday, 10 November. Normal precipitation is in green, Actual is in blue. Notice it was at or above normal until July and severely below normal in September and October. (“Normal” precipitation in August came in two downpours that ran off rather than soaking in.)
Monthly Actual vs. Normal Precipitation in Morgantown WV, Jan 1 – Nov 10, 2024 (graph by Kate St. John using NWS data)
Yesterday it rained in the Monongahela watershed for the first time in weeks, a long soaking rain that lasted all day. In Morgantown it accumulated just over an inch (1.02″) and was enough to match their month-to-date “normal” for November.
We’re so thankful for yesterday’s soaking rain but we’ll need more than one day to end the drought.
Fingers crossed. Thursday looks good for rain.
p.s. Yes, Sunday’s rain was not enough. This evening KDKA TV News showed footage of brush fires over the weekend, including one that was burning while it was raining.
The NWS meteorologist in this video, Colton Milcharek, says that it will take a rainy day like yesterday every week for 5 weeks for us to get out of this long term drought without mishaps.
In 1944 the US Army Corp of Engineers completed a flood control dam across the Youghiogheny River that created a lake into Maryland. The project included a new bridge for US Route 40 because the Great Crossings Bridge at Somerfield would be submerged and so would the town’s low lying streets and buildings.
Pittsburgh is not in severe drought so it’s hard to understand how this lake could drop unless you know where the river comes from. The Youghiogheny is a north-flowing river with headwaters in the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland. Notice that the rest of the Monongahela river basin starts in West Virginia as well.
The headwaters of both the Youghiogheny and Monongahela have been in drought since early July. At this point the drought is Extreme to Exceptional in western Maryland and West Virginia.
The speaker is one of 44 climate scientists who released an open letter this week warning that by 2050 a tipping point will likely cause the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to fail, making northeastern Europe much colder and ushering in a host of other adverse effects. He is from Britain and 2050 is just 26 years away.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean and a major component of Earth’s ocean circulation. It transports heat and salinity northward and returns cold water to the south. —- paraphrased from Wikipedia
Climate scientists have been studying AMOC for decades because they realize that as Greenland melts, it dumps freshwater into the North Atlantic. The freshwater influx slows the northern end of the AMOC and that messes up the whole system.
We (Americans) haven’t paid much attention to this because we think it will only affect Europe but “messing up the whole system” will change the planet completely. Adverse effects include:
Northeastern Europe will get much colder
A new Ice Age will begin so the entire Northern Hemisphere, ourselves included, will get colder. See Warming Up to the Next Ice Age.
The Gulf Stream won’t transport water away from North America (the far end is chopped off) so, within a matter of years, sea level will rise one-to-three feet on the East Coast.
The tropical rain belt will move south, disrupting wet and dry seasons in the Amazon and Africa.
This 13-minute video from PBS describes what AMOC is, how it affects us, and what will go wrong when it fails.
I have heard that mangroves protect coastlines during hurricanes and tsunamis but I could not imagine how they did it until I saw this video from Licypriya Kangujam (@LicypriyaK), Special Envoy for the President of the Republic of Timor-Leste and 13 year old climate activist.
Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, is the eastern half of Timor island, located north of Australia. The other half of the island is part of Indonesia.
Timor island is located in the region with the highest diversity of mangroves in the world — 26-47 species in one place. Compare this to just one or two species in Louisiana.
When a hurricane hits Louisiana we often hear that the damage would not have been so great if they had more mangroves. Louisiana is now trying to restore their mangrove forest but it is slow going.
Learn more about mangroves in this award-winning video from The Marine Diaries.
What happens when you irrigate? Irrigation inevitably leads to the salinization of soils and waters. In the United States yield reductions due to salinity occur on an estimated 30% of all irrigated land. World wide, crop production is limited by the effects of salinity on about 50% of the irrigated land area. … Concern is mounting about the sustainability of irrigated agriculture.
Where does all the salt come from? Application of irrigation water results in the addition of soluble salts such as sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulfate, and chloride dissolved from geologic materials with which the waters have been in contact. Evaporation and transpiration (plant uptake) of irrigation water eventually cause excessive amounts of salts to accumulate in soils unless adequate leaching and drainage are provided.
This worldwide problem will get only worse as climate change increases drought, so a team of researchers looked for salt tolerant crops.
Focusing on the tomato’s closest wild relative, the tiny currant tomato (Solanum pimpinellifolium), they selected “over 2,700 cultivars, raising the seedlings in two environments: a greenhouse, and an open field.”
The best results came from five cultivars from Peru.
