Stagnation

 It means no major weather energy coming through, and we are in an air quality alert, in Toronto.

It was the best of times, the most boring of times.  The Arctic is deflating.  It is funny that the weather people are saying there are more huge cold blobs coming down on us.  No physics - no clue.

It shows their great flexibility as they bend over backwards.  At the beginning of the season, it was 'warmest ever'.  Then came the 'Eternal Polar Vortex'.  

I am saying there will no more excitement from Mr. PV.  

We may even be having another mini heating event, although I can't see it on anything else.  The total heat energy of a heating event is defined by the area underneath the curve.  This new one already looks like it is hooking down again.  

Good physics with aluminum

 

I never see good physics with these 'science porn' sites.  Nearly everything suffers from scaling.  But this one seems good.  Rare earth metals are everywhere.  You keep reading about new sites, and how great they are, but this is useless.

The nasty buggers are nearly impossible to process and get into a useful form.  That's because their very usefulness results from a very aggressive charge structure.  Try putting that in your pocket!

For a reaction, nobody cares about the stuff inside, it's all the surface.  They now claim to have a structure of aluminum that is as sizzly as the sizzliest rare metal.  If I were trymp, I would treat this discovery like the mrna discovery for the covid vaccine.  Get it out there, and compensate later.  Lots of labs sit on this stuff for rights, etc.

If it is as reactive as they say, then it scales well.  Mass production could solve all these rare earth problems without killing all the miners and processors.  I am excited.

ps note the irony, as he hates the covid vaccine.

Severe cold most likely dead in the water

 

Continuous seepage from the Arctic is no longer strong enough to penetrate the default solar heat of the lower continent.

Toronto will be at the boundary zone, which probably means snow in April.  However, I am going to start my tomatoes under the lights in the garage.  I was reluctant when we had bouts of -20.  

The only hope for a 'Texas Buster' is that the Arctic retreats into a 'recharge' and blows out a good one.  Most likely won't happen, since this 'seepage' pattern will go on, until killed by serious heat.

The general cold will continue, and we will have to wait for the May long weekend to plant tomatoes outside.  Cucumbers first of June.  This is our standard temperature for the cold decades before the warm cycle.  A great sign for our Spring outlook is the Gulf of Maine temperatures which have fallen below the chart.

On the first of May, we can summarize the 'Heating Degree Days' for the season, and it will be record cold.  This is the only legitimate measure of the 'coldness' of the winter, and is directly related to your energy use for heating.  In opposition, the warmies will look at exceptions and have nice stories.  I can't argue with them.

ps I think now it's perfectly fine to go back to the standard weather forecast.  We can talk about highs and lows, and the jet stream as objects.