Hello everyone, I am a complete novice to meteorology but a Phd in history and am starting to get very interested in climate history. I was recently surprised to learn that on top of being at the heart of the Dust Bowl, 1936 also saw record cold winters. This seems like a story in itself that I never learned. What really fascinates me, too, is that Alaska seems to have experienced records in in precipitation in 1936 and maybe some record highs in select areas around December.
Again, I know very little about meteorology. Would a record drought in Oklahoma coincide with record rain in Alaska? Is this something interesting?
All I can find about Alaska during 1936 is in the following post. http://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2014/12/climate-of-1930s.html
Linking Dust Bowl w/ Alaska/arctic
Re: Linking Dust Bowl w/ Alaska/arctic
One explanation can be found here. I'm not sure if that is the reason, and it would depend on the number of long waves in the atmosphere at that time. Norman, Oklahoma is at 97 degrees west, and Fairbanks is at 148, for a difference of 50 degrees. There are more long waves in winter, 5-7, than summer, 3-4 and for Fairbanks to be wet and Norman to be dry, they should be half or one and a half wavelengths apart, with Norman being under a ridge and Fairbanks under a trough.
Here's the analysis of the 700 MB height (about 10,000 feet) for 0000 UTC today, 23 December. You can see two major ridges along 30W and 130W, with another, not quite as well defined ridge over the Great Lakes, around 90W. This implies the long waves are about 50 degrees wide, for seven around the planet. If long waves are a factor, it would depend on just where they were and how many there were and how stable the pattern was at that time.
Here's the analysis of the 700 MB height (about 10,000 feet) for 0000 UTC today, 23 December. You can see two major ridges along 30W and 130W, with another, not quite as well defined ridge over the Great Lakes, around 90W. This implies the long waves are about 50 degrees wide, for seven around the planet. If long waves are a factor, it would depend on just where they were and how many there were and how stable the pattern was at that time.
Re: Linking Dust Bowl w/ Alaska/arctic
Thank you for your response and pointing me in a direction to examine.
My follow up question is, ignoring Alaska for a minute, how unusual is it for extreme cold weather to be followed by extreme warm weather in the same year, or in the case of 1936, record breaking temperatures? Of course, the Dust Bowl is also going on at this time with little precipitation. Seems like the upper Plains, though, got a little higher than usual precipitation in the winter.
To my completely untrained eye, it sort of looks like a La Nina that gets swallowed up or shifted in the high pressure system to the south. Again, I do not know much about weather yet, but am going through journals and meteorology to get better.
Thank you again!
Below are some maps from wikipedia
<p>
My follow up question is, ignoring Alaska for a minute, how unusual is it for extreme cold weather to be followed by extreme warm weather in the same year, or in the case of 1936, record breaking temperatures? Of course, the Dust Bowl is also going on at this time with little precipitation. Seems like the upper Plains, though, got a little higher than usual precipitation in the winter.
To my completely untrained eye, it sort of looks like a La Nina that gets swallowed up or shifted in the high pressure system to the south. Again, I do not know much about weather yet, but am going through journals and meteorology to get better.
Thank you again!
Below are some maps from wikipedia
<p>
Re: Linking Dust Bowl w/ Alaska/arctic
I'm sorry, but I have no idea how common or not this would be. You'd have to ask a climatologist. 
Re: Linking Dust Bowl w/ Alaska/arctic
After looking around I found this article. They essentially argue that a sea surface temperature cause a La Nina or La Nina like drought, but then it morphs in size and perhaps location because of aerosols and vegetation loss into the Dust Bowl.
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail ... N=38016953
The “Dust Bowl” drought of the 1930s was highly unusual for North America, deviating from the typical pattern forced by “La Nina” with the maximum drying in the central and northern Plains, warm temperature anomalies across almost the entire continent...
"Vegetation reductions explain the high temperature anomaly over the northern U.S., and the dust aerosols intensify the drought and move it northward of the purely ocean-forced drought pattern. When both factors are included in the model simulations, the precipitation and temperature anomalies are of similar magnitude and in a similar location compared with the observations. Human-induced land degradation is likely to have not only contributed to the dust storms of the 1930s but also amplified the drought, and these together turned a modest SST-forced drought into one of the worst environmental disasters the U.S. has experienced."
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail ... N=38016953
The “Dust Bowl” drought of the 1930s was highly unusual for North America, deviating from the typical pattern forced by “La Nina” with the maximum drying in the central and northern Plains, warm temperature anomalies across almost the entire continent...
"Vegetation reductions explain the high temperature anomaly over the northern U.S., and the dust aerosols intensify the drought and move it northward of the purely ocean-forced drought pattern. When both factors are included in the model simulations, the precipitation and temperature anomalies are of similar magnitude and in a similar location compared with the observations. Human-induced land degradation is likely to have not only contributed to the dust storms of the 1930s but also amplified the drought, and these together turned a modest SST-forced drought into one of the worst environmental disasters the U.S. has experienced."