Global Cooking

Every day I've been back to work this week, at least one person has remarked something like, "at least it's not that cold outside," or "it's really nice out today!" To which I am usually responding something along the lines of, "no, this is bad, this is very, very bad." It's January and the ground in southeast Michigan isn't frozen. The broccoli plants are still alive in the garden, and still producing, I harvested more on New Year's day.

There are immediate local impacts of the warm weather, of course: Ski areas are closed. Snow removal crews are idle. Heating bills are lower. And lots of people are talking about how "nice" the weather is.

Today is the 26th consecutive day of above normal temperatures here. Every day during these past 26 has had a high temperature at least 7 degrees above normal. The following chart, culled from information at The Weather Underground website shows the temperatures here since December 10:

Date	High	Normal	Diff	Low	Normal	Diff	Mean	Normal	Diff	Precip	Normal	Diff
4-Jan	48	32	16	41	19	22	45	26	19	0.32	0.05	0.27
3-Jan	47	30	17	34	20	14	41	25	16	0.00	0.14	-0.14
2-Jan	44	31	13	30	20	10	37	26	12	0.00	0.01	-0.01
1-Jan	53	31	22	35	21	14	44	26	18	0.00	0.00	0.00
31-Dec	53	34	19	37	21	16	45	28	18	0.49	0.04	0.45
30-Dec	48	32	16	35	21	14	42	27	15	0.00	0.20	-0.20
29-Dec	41	33	8	34	22	12	38	28	10	0.05	0.06	-0.01
28-Dec	43	34	9	36	22	14	40	28	12	0.00	0.10	-0.10
27-Dec	39	32	7	33	21	12	36	27	10	0.00	0.13	-0.13
26-Dec	39	28	11	34	19	15	37	24	13	0.12	0.09	0.03
25-Dec	41	31	10	34	20	14	38	26	12	0.05	0.08	-0.03
24-Dec	44	33	11	35	21	14	40	27	13	0.04	0.01	0.03
23-Dec	44	35	9	39	23	16	42	29	13	0.00	0.03	-0.03
22-Dec	55	35	20	41	22	19	48	29	20	0.44	0.05	0.39
21-Dec	43	34	9	37	23	14	40	29	12	0.15	0.29	-0.14
20-Dec	43	34	9	28	25	3	36	30	6	0.00	0.04	-0.04
19-Dec	43	35	8	28	25	3	36	30	6	0.00	0.06	-0.06
18-Dec	46	33	13	33	23	10	40	28	12	0.01	0.05	-0.04
17-Dec	55	32	23	48	23	25	52	28	24	0.00	0.00	0.00
16-Dec	48	35	13	30	25	5	39	30	9	0.00	0.03	-0.03
15-Dec	46	37	9	37	26	11	42	32	10	0.00	0.07	-0.07
14-Dec	52	36	16	37	26	11	45	31	14	0.00	0.01	-0.01
13-Dec	48	37	11	39	27	12	44	32	12	0.03	0.08	-0.05
12-Dec	52	39	13	41	27	14	47	33	14	0.57	0.16	0.41
11-Dec	48	35	13	41	25	16	45	30	15	0.02	0.09	-0.07
10-Dec	50	36	14	36	25	11	43	31	13	0.00	0.29	-0.29
Average	47	34	13	36	23	13	41	28	13	0.09	0.08	0.01

And there's no immediate end in sight. The Weather Underground has forecasts up through January 11; every day is predicted to be warmer than normal, with an average high 12 degrees above normal.

The precipitation patterns have been weird, as well. Although total precipitation has been about level with the totals posted at Weather Underground, it has come in torrents: Tonight is the fourth monsoon of the past 4 weks. December 31st was the wettest New Year's eve on record in Detroit, and today's rainfall will surely end up much higher than the .32 inches currently reported on the site.

Understanding, of course, that 26 days on one location is a small data sample, and hardly indicative of global anything. Even so: Be scared. Be very, very scared. This isn't Global Warming. It's nearly cooking here in Michigan.