What have you heard about this winter's forecast for the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida?

[AnTonY]

On 1/11/2018, 1:49:22, tropicbreeze said:

The southern coastline of Australia is a lot further from the Antarctic Circle than the US-Canadian border is from the Arctic Circle. Tasmania has negligible effect as it's a small island which still doesn't get down that far south, although it does go a long way below the main continent. The other consideration is that in winter apart from the US having no moderating water to the north there's also the Siberian land mass and adjacent Arctic ice mass which affects the area. Australia has the Southern, Indian and Atlantic Oceans to moderate what comes in from the south west.

But the Siberian mass would still have to cross the larger ocean.

[tropicbreeze]

It definitely does, but it's only one small bit of ocean. The Siberian and American land masses are continuous beyond the Arctic Circle. Antarctica barely touches onto the Antarctic Circle. To the south west of Australia the ocean goes most of the way around the planet. To the north west of the US there's only a short stretch of ocean to the frozen Siberian land mass. To bring the situation closer to equivalent you'd need to remove Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Siberia. And even then the US would still have a lot less moderating ocean between it and the North Pole, unless you also moved the continent more than 10 degrees closer to the equator. It's clear if you look at a map (taking into account the distortions, of course).

[mdsonofthesouth]

Europe is closer to what the US would be like without Canadas landmass I think. Whil wed be hotter and stickier due to be lower and essentially riding the gulf stream, the mildness would be somewhat similar in nature, although i think we would be milder. But in my opinion that would easily make florida act much like Darwin and such and become more tropical and of course no savannah, with the remainder of the continent seeing more humid subtropic type weather. Just my take on it.

[Sandy Loam]

I have no clue, but we do know that Europe is much warmer than it is supposed to be at its northerly latitude.  I believe Toronto is at a similar latitude to Rome, but those two cities obviously have very different climates.

I came across an article from LIVE SCIENCE journal which summarizes an important study that was published in NATURE in 2011.  I quote an excerpt from that article below.  It explains how the east of both North America and Asia are colder than they are supposed to be, whereas the west of both Europe and the west of North America are warmer than they should be, e.g. coastal Washington State/coastal southern British Columbia when compared with that latitude on China's east coast.  Quote:

"It was thought that Western Europe is kept warmer than it's latitude would suggest because of the Gulf Stream, which shoots warm equatorial waters up along the eastern coast of North America and across the North Atlantic to Europe. But the new study shows how atmospheric circulation helps cool the eastern boundaries of the mid-latitude continents.

The warm water off an eastern coast will heat the air above it and lead to the formation of so-called atmospheric waves, drawing cold air from the northern polar region, according to the study, which used computer simulations of the atmosphere. Here's how it works: To the east of the warm region, the air swirls in the counterclockwise direction. These motions draw in cold air from the north, balancing the heating over the warm ocean waters.

The cold air forms a plume just to the west of the warm water. In the case of the Atlantic Ocean, this means the frigid air ends up right over the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

"It's not that the warm Gulf Stream waters substantially heat up Europe," said study team member Yohai Kaspi of Caltech. "But the existence of the Gulf Stream near the U.S. coast is causing the cooling of the northeastern United States."

(End quote)

The article goes on to say that western Europe's good fortune in being so warm in winter is only 10% attributable to the Gulf Stream, contrary to previous theories.   The rest of its warming is due to the factors explained above.  If those ocean current somehow changed, it sounds as though Europe would turn into a total ice block.

[Xhoniwaters1]

Looks like New Orleans is forecasted to drop into the low twenties (again I think) for tomorrow night. I am sure a lot of the mature Louisiana Queens won't be around anymore after this winter.