Tag Archives: winter

Punxsutawney Phil is worse than a coin flip in predicting the weather

Posted on by

How well does Punxsutawney Phil predict the duration of winter? Not so well according to one source:

Photo by Oleg Mikhailenko on Pexels.com

Phil’s track record is not perfect. “On average, Phil has gotten it right 40% of the time over the past 10 years,” according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages “one of the largest archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic research in the world.”

The three-month temperature outlook for February through April 2023 calls for above normal temperatures across the eastern and southern US and below normal temperatures for the northwestern US, according to the Climate Prediction Center…

Despite his mixed record when it comes to actually forecasting the weather, there’s no doubt Phil’s fans still hold him in high regard.

After all, his full title is Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary.

In other words, Phil is worse than a coin flip in predicting the coming weather. This is not good; any expert would hopefully be better than that.

However, there is some evidence that many expert predictions about the future are not great. How well can people predict the future performance of the stock market or natural disasters or geopolitical change? Not so well. And it is not just that it is difficult to predict the future; we think we can predict the future so it can be even more damaging when projections are wrong.

I suspect very few people care if Punxsutawney Phil is right or wrong. They like the tradition, the ritual, a festive gathering in the middle of winter. Still, Phil offers a window into our own abilities and confidence about knowing the future…and it is a cloudy window at best.

If winter was less harsh in the Chicago area, would residents like this?

Posted on by

Let’s say winters in the future in the Chicago region turn out to be not as cold, do not involve as much snow, and/or include more warm days. In just the last month, we have experienced wind chills of roughly -30 degrees below zero and 50 degree days. The Chicago region has had moments of winter but not a full month of winter. Would Chicago residents like a long-term shift away from winter?

Photo by Vishal Shah on Pexels.com

On one hand, many Chicago area residents complain about the winter. They make clear their opinions about the cold, snow, potholes, salt, longer traffic times, winter gear, heating bills, and more. At least a few vacation in warmer climates during the winter and some move to warmer climates.

On the other hand, it is hard to imagine the Chicagoland experience as it is known now without winter. What about the social capital created by griping together? The possibility of a white Christmas? The pride about shoveling and still doing life when talking to people in parts of the country where a light amount of snow shuts everything down? Invigorating winter outdoor activities? Supposed “Bears weather”? Jokes about the two seasons of winter and construction? And so on.

Perhaps new weather patterns would lead to a reconfigured understanding of what winter is. People can adapt to change over time. They can find different ways to bond and different experiences or group identities that bring them together. The long-told tales of the Blizzard of 1967 or Snowmageddon 2011 will fade further into the archives. Chicago could still have a winter that is different than the South or West even if it s different than what it is in the past.

Learning to drive in the snow requires practice and caution

Posted on by

With cold and snow in much of the United States, a car dependent society runs into more difficulties driving. What it does it take to learn how to drive in the snow? Practice and caution. Let me explain.

As a newer driver, I had opportunities to gain valuable practice in driving in snow and bad conditions. I remember one time driving home from work on a school night at about 8 PM after several hours of snowfall. The road was completely covered but the path of the road was discernible amid trees and other markers. Hardly anyone else was out. I made it home by driving slowly.

Around the same time and working at the same place, I found myself leaving for work at 6:30 AM one winter morning. I did not give the car much time to heat up so when I pulled out of our subdivision on to the main road, the rising sun hit my not-clear windshield and made it impossible to see out the front. I stopped, rolled down my window, and slowly drove forward a short distance until I could pull over, let the car warm up, and have a completely clear windshield.

These were potentially risky situations. They were also learning experiences. Pair these experiences – and numerous others – with a few clear rules for driving in snow and icy conditions. First, do not follow anyone closely. Give yourself more space between vehicles. Second, brake slowly in case you start slipping. This means you need to start slowing down earlier. Third, adjust your speed for conditions. Watch how other vehicles are doing and how clear the roadway is.

Wintry conditions are not always possible to handle but are often manageable with practice and caution. These guidelines are less helpful if drivers have fewer opportunities to drive in such conditions. And even following these guidelines is no guarantee; a driver cannot control the actions of other drivers and surprises can arise (such as unseen ice). Even as we ask new drivers to practice certain maneuvers and skills, perhaps we should add snow and ice experience to that mix. Or, maybe it should be a bonus certification required for some parts of the country and recommended elsewhere.

Four steps for city dwellers to improve winter

Posted on by

The Danish concept of hygge may have the four part secret for surviving winters in dense settings:

Hygge principle: Warmth. Unlike some American cities, where snow seems like a shocker year after year, Scandinavian cities acknowledge and build for their cold climate, with higher energy standards for walls and doors, vestibules that prevent drafts, coat racks for winter gear, and public plazas that block wind and capitalize on southern sun. Then there’s the ritual of the sauna…

Hygge principle: Light and color. With far fewer hours of sunlight, wintertime contentment relies on literal or metaphorical brightness—hence the typical Danish scenes of candle-bedecked dinner tables and windows laced with twinkle lights, or Copenhagen’s streets with their famous Crayola-colored buildings…

Hygge principle: Access to nature. While hygge’s overarching style seems to be an indoorsy, “cocoa by the fire” feel, Pia Edberg, author of The Cozy Life: Rediscover the Joy of the Simple Things Through the Danish Concept of Hygge, points out that experiencing nature is elemental to hygge. “As the old saying goes: ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.’”…

Hygge principle: Gathering places. Perhaps the most important antidote to winter’s isolation is hygge’s emphasis on communal gathering and social connection. In Copenhagen, privately owned third places—restaurants, bars, cafes, bookstores—are as central to the wintery social life as public squares are in the summertime.

The American way of rugged individualism may lead to many long cold winter nights…

Really, though, these adaptations to climate are interesting to consider. Every so often, you will find people making arguments that places like the Sunbelt in the United States are attractive because of their warmer weather. But, how much is this a factor versus other possible factors? Or, how is it that many countries along the equator and in tropical zones are outside of the first world? Would New York be the leading global city in the world if it had a climate like Miami or Cairo? In this case of Denmark, is it more about a different kind of society – the Scandinavian way of life that seems to make it to the top of a number of rankings for best places to live – rather than an approach to winter?

At the same time, it wouldn’t hurt to have more fun during the winter months. The weather and lack of sun from Thanksgiving to New Year’s doesn’t seem to prompt the same kind of despondency prompted by January and February.

Local governments staring at higher salt prices ahead of winter

Posted on by

The supply of salt is tight, leading to higher prices for local governments:

Replenishing stockpiles is proving challenging, especially for some Midwestern states, after salt supplies were depleted to tame icy roads last winter. And price increases of at least 20 percent have been common in places including Boston and Raleigh, North Carolina…

Some local governments are avoiding the problem thanks to multi-year contracts or secured bids. Chicago, for example, used roughly three times more salt last winter — 436,000 tons — than it did in 2012-2013, but the city has locked-in rates based on a contract negotiated a few years ago.

Other states aren’t so lucky.

In Ohio, where more than 1 million tons of salt was used on state roads last year — a nearly 60 percent increase over the average — last year’s average price was $35 per ton. This year, 15 counties received bids of more than $100 per ton, and 10 counties received no bids from suppliers…

For road officials, that translates into having to conserve and be creative. In many places, brine is added to salt to boost its effectiveness. Officials also are buying trucks that can, among other things, spread salt in the morning and clean streets later in the day.

I’m sure a lot of these governments are hoping for less-than-normal snowfalls. At the same time, it is also a good time for creative solutions to getting snow and ice off roads. I hope the long-term answer isn’t what we often saw in northern Indiana: just don’t completely clear the roads at all during the winter. This may have been due to the higher amounts of snowfall due to lake effect snow on the east side of Lake Michigan and it wasn’t terrible because of a lack of hill. Still, such a general strategy would slow down a lot of road travel.

I haven’t seen this suggested anywhere but is anyone thinking of some sort of special and/or temporary tax to cover road salt? These are public roads and the funds have to come from somewhere. Such ploys wouldn’t be popular with motorists but it could be more desirable than taking your life into your hands anytime driving during the winter.

Potholes can be avoided by spending more on road upkeep

Posted on by

Communities can limit the number of potholes they experience each winter if they spent more money upfront on maintaining roads:

The answer doesn’t lie in a revolutionary new cement or asphalt mix — yet, experts say. Instead, it comes down to a few simple things: quality materials, experienced builders, plus regular road maintenance and reconstruction.

“A lot of things cause potholes, but at the core they’re caused because we don’t do enough road maintenance. We push our roads too far and too hard,” said engineer Don Hillebrand, head of Argonne National Laboratory’s Transportation Research Center…

Avoiding potholes starts with getting it right the first time, said Mohsen Issa, a University of Illinois at Chicago structural and materials engineering professor…

Hillebrand, a former auto executive with Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz, spent time in Germany, where “they view roads as a serious thing and spend much more on road maintenance than we do and expect them to last longer,” he said. Deeper foundations and thicker concrete help preserve German roads, he noted.

Roads seem to be the sort of thing many people don’t pay attention to until things start going wrong. However, as this article notes, roads have to be built well and continually maintained. This requires a good deal of resources that people may not want to spend until something goes wrong. Yet, when things do go wrong, fixes are not necessarily quick or easy. This provides a classic lesson in infrastructure: spending money upfront pays off down the road.

A question: just how many pothole stories can the media run this winter?