From the “weather is not c..c..cl..climate” department, cold and snow hits hard. Meanwhile, Hot Weather Convinces Media of Climate Change; Cold Weather Ignored.
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And it heads far south too. A hard freeze warning has been issued for the Miami and Fort Lauderdale area: And lest somebody say that this cold event isn’t significant, I’ll let the NWS do the talking here: Longest Stretch of Cold Weather in 15 to 25 Years Possible This Week …Longest Stretch of Much Below Normal Temperatures in 15 to 25 Years Possible… Temperatures are expected to remain much below normal over all of south Florida this week, with the possibility of even colder temperatures this upcoming weekend. For detailed information on expected temperatures, please follow the indicated links for our textual and graphical forecasts. For freeze/wind chill watches and warnings, please check our hazards page. It is not unheard of to have freezing or near-freezing temperatures in south Florida each winter. In fact, inland areas south and west of Lake Okeechobee experience freezing temperatures at least once a year on average. Over the metro and coastal areas of south Florida, freezing temperatures are less frequent, but even in these areas freezing temperatures have occurred about every 5 to 10 years on average. Temperatures drop to at least 35 about every 1 to 2 years in the Naples area, and about every 2 years in the outlying areas of southeast Florida. For the urban areas of Miami/Fort Lauderdale, temperatures drop to at least 35 degrees about 2 to 3 times a decade, At West Palm Beach, the average is about every 1 to 2 years. What is more noteworthy about the current cold snap is the duration of the event. Typical south Florida cold snaps last about 2-3 days before winds switch to an easterly direction and blow warmer Atlantic air across the region. However, our current weather pattern is what is referred to as a “blocking pattern”. This means that weather systems that typically move from west to east at fairly regular intervals are instead remaining in place for several days. A strong low pressure system over northern New England and eastern Canada is being “blocked” by a large high pressure system near Greenland. This in turn is creating a stationary high pressure system over the western U.S. and Canada. The result of this blocked flow is an uninterrupted and prolonged flow of air from the Arctic region of Canada southward over the eastern two-thirds of the country, including Florida. Temperatures have dropped to below 50 degrees for three consecutive mornings over almost all of south Florida, with temperatures dropping to 45 or lower from Collier County east to Palm Beach County and points north. The latest forecast calls for lows to drop below 45 degrees over all of south Florida through Thursday morning. This would give 6 consecutive days of sub-50 and/or 45 degree-or-lower temperatures. Following are the dates of the last time we had at least 6 consecutive days of low temperatures below 50 degrees in southeast Florida: Miami and Fort Lauderdale: January 2001 Record is 13 days in Miami (January – February 1940) and 12 days in Fort Lauderdale in January 1956 West Palm Beach: January 2003 Record for West Palm Beach is 12 days set in December 2000-January 2001 and January 1956. Following are the dates of the last time we had 6 consecutive days of low temperatures of 45 degrees or lower in Naples; Naples: December 1989 Record for Naples is 8 days in January 1977. Following are the dates of the last time we had 5 consecutive days of low temperatures of 40 degrees or lower in Moore Haven; Moore Haven: January 24-28, 2001. Record for Moore Haven is 9 days from December 31, 2000 to January 8, 2001. Therefore, it’s been at least 7 years since we’ve had a prolonged stretch of temperatures in the 40s and 30s, with some areas going back as far as 21 years! Taking into account the daily average temperature, it’s possible that we’ll have up to 5 consecutive days of temperatures averaging at least 10-15 degrees below normal. For most of south Florida, the last time we had a stretch that cold was in 1995, with some areas going back to the mid to late 1980s. Here’s a sampling of headlines around the world: Temps Plunge to Record as Cold Snap Freezes North, East States
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years
Vermont sets ‘all-time record for one snowstorm’
Iowa temps ‘a solid 30 degrees below normal’
Power goes out at Reagan National outside DC
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years
Peru’s mountain people ‘face extinction because of cold conditions’…
Beijing – coldest in 40 years
World copes with Arctic weatherWinter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA
Britain braced for heaviest snowfall in 50-years
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade
Northern Sweden on the way to 50 degrees below zero
From the “weather is not climate” department, inconvenient travel: Here’s a sample of headlines related to difficult if not impossible holiday travel: Christmas Eve storm in central states creates travel misery (WaPo)
A slow-moving storm spread snow, sleet and rain across the nation’s midsection Thursday, making last-minute holiday travel treacherous but promising a white Christmas for some. The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Texas. It cautioned that travel would be extremely dangerous in those areas through the weekend and that drivers should pack a winter survival kit. Winter Storm Disrupts Holiday Travel (NYT) “Snow will be falling at a rate that snow plows are not able to keep up with,” AccuWeather reported on its Web site, “while winds gusting past 40 miles per hour will cause severe blowing and drifting along with whiteout conditions.” Heavy snowfall causes disruption across Europe (BBC) Heavy snow and ice are causing disruption across a wide swathe of Europe. Flights have been delayed or cancelled at airports in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Power providers in south-east France say they have had to cut supplies to around two million people to avoid a massive regional blackout. In Poland, nearly 60 people have died this December because of the weather. Rare blizzard strikes West Texas
DALLAS — In much of the rolling plains of West Texas, a blizzard has never been recorded. There has been one now. The region west and northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area saw blizzard-like conditions throughout the day Christmas Eve as up to 8 inches of snow fell in the region, according to the National Weather Service. Winds gusting at up to 65 mph drifted the snow as deep as 5 feet in some areas. No blizzard warning had ever been issued for an area of Texas as far south as Interstate 20, said Jim Wingenroth, senior forecaster at the National Weather Service office in San Angelo. Heavily traveled Interstate 20 between Cisco and Abilene was closed after six inches of snow fell in the area 130 miles west of Dallas, said Larry Smith, Brownwood area engineer for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Treetops glisten, but storm snarls Midwest holiday (Atlanta Journal Constitution) The Star-Telegram said the Dallas-Fort Worth area was experiencing its first White Christmas in more than 80 years. While the area had a sprinkling of holiday snow in 2004 and 1997, the lasttime it experienced “a true, New England-style dose of snow on Christmas Day was Dec. 25, 1926,” the newspaper reported. Some churches canceled Christmas Eve services, while others saw sharply lower attendance. Oklahoma City had received 14 inches of snow by Thursday night, breaking a record set back in 1914 of 2.5 inches. Source by Anthony Watts
By Anthony Watts
Gore started this. Note to journalists everywhere: IT’S THE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION STUPID! See this article to understand why linking snow on Kilimanjaro to small changes in global temperature is just flat wrong. The plains around Kilimanjaro have gone through years of deforestation. Less trees > less evapotranspiration > less snow. Don’t believe me? Here’s news of a recent study from Portsmouth University Of Mt. Kilimanjaro ice waving us good-bye due to deforestation. Here’s another peer reviewed study from UAH saying the same thing.
Mount Kilimanjaro – Trees put moisture into the air via evapotranspiration, upslope winds precipitate it on Kilimanjaro. Image: Wikimedia
From News.com.au Agence France-Presse The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 1912 was 85 per cent smaller by 2007, and since 2000 the existing ice sheet has shrunk by 26 per cent, the paleoclimatologists said. The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the most likely cause of the ice loss. Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added. “This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain’s ice fields,” study co-author Lonnie Thompson said. Mr Thompson is the professor of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University. “If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close,” he said in the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the yearly loss of the mountain glaciers was most apparent from the retreat of their margins, Mr Thompson said an equally troubling effect was the thinning of the ice fields from the surface. The summits of both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned by 1.9m) and 5.1m respectively. The smaller Furtwangler Glacier, which was melting and water-saturated in 2000 when it was drilled, has thinned as much as 50 per cent between 2000 and 2009. “It has lost half of its thickness,” Mr Thompson said. “In the future, there will be a year when Furtwangler is present and by the next year, it will have disappeared. “The whole thing will be gone.” The scientists said they found no evidence of sustained melting anywhere else in the ice core samples they extracted, which date back 11,700 years.** They said their findings show that current climate conditions over Mt Kilimanjaro were unique over the last 11 millennia. See the story at news.com.au =========================
** There wasn’t organized farming near Kilimanjaro until the last century. Farming preparation clears trees, trees evapotranspirate mositure. Less trees, less moisture.
No surprise then they don’t see it in the ice core record. It is simply bad science to not consider land use issues looking you in the face while you drill ice cores on the slopes. – AnthonySource