Well, no matter where you live each winter has people wondering if it was ever this cold before. This winter actually was a bit colder for millions of people
Many places didn't get a moderate amount But it is winter and many places haven't had even normal snow for a while
Climate change is something that happens slowly so we tend not to notice its effects. From one year to the next there’s barely any change but if you compare one year with, say 50 years previous, there is a significant difference.
It’s a bit like the people around you. You see them regularly and they always look the same, but look at a photo of them from 10 or 20 years ago and they’re very different.
To give you a real world example, here in the UK if you simply say “1976” to anyone who was around then, the first thing they’ll tell you about is the drought and the heatwave. Back then it was exceptional and so people remember it. In reality however, there have been 18 warmer years since then and they now happen so frequently that they’ve become the new norm.
The snow and cold in some parts of the US (primarily in the east) has been unusual, but not exceptional. Overall the US currently has an average amount of snow.
This first graphic shows where snow would normally be lying in the northern hemisphere on 16 Feb:
Yes, I'm certain that people have forgotten what a normal winter used to be. This is close to what it was in the mid 60's. From the early 80's on it just seems to have got warmer and warmer.
That could well be part of what's going on. If we have less than average snowfall 20 or 30 years in a row, then what used to be "normal" snowfall will seem like really heavy snowfall. There was an XKCD comic strip about that recently... http://xkcd.com/1321/
Certain places are getting unusual amounts of snow, like Georgia. However, New England's snow is mild. This is just laziness on the part of the media who want to reuse the term 'Noreaster'
I am in Florida so it is not a big deal down here but I see in the Carolina's and New England there has been awful winter storms this year. Yet, they don't seem to big to me based on the news coverage. I heard today on CBS's "Face the Nation" today that people may be forgetting how to handle the coldest weather due to the earth's warming.
Is this true and could that explain why a moderate snow amount in a winter like this seems disasterous?
