Environment

Heavy Weather: Rare Cloud Sign Over New York City

by Emily Gertz

category: Climate Change

Published June 30, 2009 @ 02:57PM PT

This pendulously creepy cloudscape greeted New Yorkers as we came out of our offices, schools and homes last Friday evening, soon after some sudden thunder and lightening storms swept across the city.

People in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and other parts of the Midwest will probably wonder why these perfectly normal mammatus clouds were such an event for people in the NYC metro area that they spawned dozens if not hundreds of blog posts, online videos and photos, and even a report on CNN. [[With, disgustingly, the obligatory-this-week Michael Jackson connection.]]

It's because these kinds of clouds are incredibly unusual for around here. I grew up here, and lived in the area until I was about 24, and honestly don't remember seeing anything like them before.

With another heavy squall coming down as I type, this June may yet become the wettest, as well as the coldest, ever for New York City; right now, at 9.40 inches as of June 27, it's second-wettest. As far as the official record goes, it's still running behind behind June 2003's 10.27 inches, and June 1903's 9.78 inches in 1903.

I'm pretty cautious about attributing particular weather events to global warming. I've let my reporting be guided by the usual prim scientific disclaimers that it's almost impossible to make such a link directly. Although, researchers were pretty outspoken last year in linking the massive Midwest floods to climate-changed weather patterns.

But this season's weather is converting me to a less conservative stance (personally if not professionally). For one thing, climate change is in fact happening faster than even top scientists expected a few years ago.

And this spring's weather is right in line with the weather upheavals that have been forecast for our region as climate change progresses: odd seasonal temperatures, more frequent and intense bursts of rain; conditions which increase the odds that these displays of mammatus clouds are to become more frequent phenomena in New York City's sky.