Higher winter temperatures sweep area
Daniel AbbeyThe CMU community was treated to a day of sunshine and sub-50 degree temperatures Thursday – rather uncommon for the middle of January.
And area meteorology experts are unsure when the all-to-familiar winter temperatures Mount Pleasant is used to will return.
Assistant Geography Professor Ashton Peyrefitte specializes in meteorology and said it’s not normal to have the warm temperatures Michigan has been experiencing for this length of time.
“The minimum temperatures have been higher than the maximum temperatures which are 10-to-12 degrees above the normal temperature,” he said.
Peyrefitte said the reason for the temperature differences is the result of a shift of flow in the atmosphere.
During the first three weeks of December, he said, a flow of northern winds brought an abundance of cold air. Since then, however, there has been a turnabout, which caused winds to move westward instead, bringing in warm air from the ocean.
“We don’t know for sure if this will change. It may change and it may not,” Peyrefitte said. “We can’t forecast much in the long range.”
Peyrefitte said the temperature will probably drop back down to normal winter temperatures, but after a few days of snow and ice, temperatures will become high again.
According to the Midwest Climate Center in Illinois, Mount Pleasant’s average low year-round temperature rose from 39.7 degrees in 2002 to 41.6 degrees in 2005.
Though the winter temperatures have been higher in recent years, Peyrefitte said it has little to do with global warming.
He said four or five years is not relevant to climate change because it changes over long periods of time.
In the past 100 years, the overall global temperature has increased one degree.
“We can’t relate these fluctuations to the warming of the planet,” Peyrefitte said.
The National Weather Service created what is called an “equal chance forecast” for this winter.
For December, January and February, The Weather Service is 33 percent confident the temperatures will be high, 33 percent confident the temperatures will be average, and 33 percent confident the temperatures will be low.
Peyrefitte describes that as a forecast of “I don’t know.”
Some CMU students aren’t ready for the cold weather to return.
“I grew up in Michigan, so I’m used to there being snow. It’s been nice, though. I played tag football with some buddies on Friday,” said Grand Rapids senior Adam Kochanski.
Lindsay Meisnitzer, a Troy freshman, said she went jogging because it has been warmer.
“I’m not a winter person so I can’t wait until spring,” she said. “I hope this sticks around.”
