HILLSBOROUGH: What happened to winter?

Mild temperatures, little snow put area on track to one of mildest ever recorded

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Temperatures could rise above 60 degrees today and near that mark tomorrow, according to weather forecasts.
   What happened to winter?
   It’s either not here yet, or it may never arrive, says David Robinson, a Rutgers professor and the state’s official climatologist.
   New Jersey is on track to have the third or fourth mildest winter since 1895, when detailed weather records began to be kept, he said.
   The winter will probably rank near the top of the list of mildest winters recorded in the last 117 years in New Jersey, he said.
   It will mean three of the top four warmest winters have come in the last 14 years. The year 2001-02 was the mildest winter ever, and 1997-98 is number three, he said.
   Dr. Robinson, who is also one of the state coordinators of a precipitation data-collecting network, said there have been only 9.1 inches of snow this winter at his Hillsborough house. That includes the 4.1 inches that fell on Saturday before Halloween. Another three of the five inches fell on Jan. 21.
   ”We’ve really only had the snowplows out twice and both have been on Saturdays,” he said.
   Odds are pretty high Somerset County won’t reach its norm of about 28 inches a year, he said. Remember, though, that the last two winters were the snowiest back-to-back winters on record, he said. So, if you believe in averages…
   While it hasn’t been snowy, it hasn’t been overly dry, he said. February has been very dry, but January and December were close to average, he said. Remember, the weather has come on the heels of the wettest calendar year in New Jersey history, he said, so we’re not worried about drought.
   The recent history in New Jersey weather has been that of extremes of blizzards and rain, and a continuing trend of warming temperatures. The state has had 13 consecutive months — and 21 of the last 24 months — with above-average temperatures, said Dr. Robinson.
   That’s the warmest such interval ever observed in New Jersey, he said. It’s virtually a model for what scientists predict will happen with rising carbon emissions leading to trapping of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere, he said.
   We’re on a trend to have a climate more associated with Virginia, he said, even if the nation takes steps to mitigate it. If we don’t do anything, we may be on a projection to give a climate more attuned to Georgia or South Carolina, he said.
   To people who might say “fantastic,” he warned them to think of the other side of the coin. Electricity bills will rise with more air conditioning, and trees will bud in March with a risk of being hurt by a late-season cold snap. More-tolerant peach and apple trees may have to succeed present orchards, and we’ll have to deal with plant and tree diseases because insects aren’t killed off in cold temperatures. Sea levels will creep up the beach, to name a few repercussions, he said.