Ice Storm Caution

[Fred588]

The forecast for todayand at least tomorrow is for an serious ice storm for a major portion of the plains and midwest. While my studio is going to be on the arm sde of this one those of you in its path need to take this one seriously. Upwards of a half inch of ice accumulating on trees and power lines will do some substantial damage. Be prepared!

[Tim Kelly]

Here in Dear Old Blighty we are getting a warning of blizzard conditions AND a 5-metre ( or 15 feet in Old Money; when did we adopt metric? What is this, Canada?) Storm Surge; all the communities down the East Coast are being evacuated and the Army is rushing sandbags to the area; what I want to know is, what ever happened to Global Warming? They promised us a permanent Hawaii-type climate, with pineapples being harvested in Scotland! There's a guy who every year takes out an ad in the Daily Telegraph to thank the local troop of Boy Scouts who every year, shovel "three feet of Global Warming" away from his front drive. There are times when I want to stake out the head of Friends Of The Earth or Greenpeace (our two largest bunny-hugging groups) on the roof of the London Weather Centre in the middle of winter and turn the fire hose on them, all the time telling them, "Wouldn't want you to get overheated, would we, what with all this Global Warming about!" until they admit that the world is NOT geting warmer, but colder! It's at times like this that I have to admit that "The 800-pound Gorilla" (as Leona Helmsley called El Trumpo) has a point....

[Fred588]

At the risk of getting into a political issue I will point out that no scientist ever talked about a permanent Hawaiian environment in any future any of us will see. Climate change is much more subtle than that. It is also a near certainty that any overall warming trend will mean warmer in some places and colder in others, wetter in some places, drier in others. Its the long-term average that matters.

Here in Dear Old Blighty we are getting a warning of blizzard conditions AND a 5-metre ( or 15 feet in Old Money; when did we adopt metric? What is this, Canada?) Storm Surge; all the communities down the East Coast are being evacuated and the Army is rushing sandbags to the area; what I want to know is, what ever happened to Global Warming? They promised us a permanent Hawaii-type climate, with pineapples being harvested in Scotland! There's a guy who every year takes out an ad in the Daily Telegraph to thank the local troop of Boy Scouts who every year, shovel "three feet of Global Warming" away from his front drive. There are times when I want to stake out the head of Friends Of The Earth or Greenpeace (our two largest bunny-hugging groups) on the roof of the London Weather Centre in the middle of winter and turn the fire hose on them, all the time telling them, "Wouldn't want you to get overheated, would we, what with all this Global Warming about!" until they admit that the world is NOT geting warmer, but colder! It's at times like this that I have to admit that "The 800-pound Gorilla" (as Leona Helmsley called El Trumpo) has a point....

[Mynock]

Not going to say I'm sorry to miss this one. Actually going to be pretty warm for January here, in the 30s instead of the teens.
Overall global temp is going up, but rising temps screw with the Jet Stream, ocean currents, etc and make the weather less predictable. Last week temps were in the teens, yesterday was 50 lol. Overall i think the winters have been getting milder where I live, not going to bitch about spending less money on heat.

[kham]

Hasn't given up snowsqualling yet, but maybe by tomorrow its going to be a normal day. I certainly hope so, it would be good to get some fresh milk and some odds n ends. Not near out of food, but fluids, thats key. And booze. If you run out of booze and a storm, there's no point to living

Not sure where you are Myn but the normal January thaw next week for maybe 10 days here (if near freezing is a thaw..) but then it gets real. February is a coldest month anyways.

[Boggy Man]

At the risk of getting into a political issue I will point out that no scientist ever talked about a permanent Hawaiian environment in any future any of us will see. Climate change is much more subtle than that. It is also a near certainty that any overall warming trend will mean warmer in some places and colder in others, wetter in some places, drier in others. Its the long-term average that matters.

Here in Dear Old Blighty we are getting a warning of blizzard conditions AND a 5-metre ( or 15 feet in Old Money; when did we adopt metric? What is this, Canada?) Storm Surge; all the communities down the East Coast are being evacuated and the Army is rushing sandbags to the area; what I want to know is, what ever happened to Global Warming? They promised us a permanent Hawaii-type climate, with pineapples being harvested in Scotland! There's a guy who every year takes out an ad in the Daily Telegraph to thank the local troop of Boy Scouts who every year, shovel "three feet of Global Warming" away from his front drive. There are times when I want to stake out the head of Friends Of The Earth or Greenpeace (our two largest bunny-hugging groups) on the roof of the London Weather Centre in the middle of winter and turn the fire hose on them, all the time telling them, "Wouldn't want you to get overheated, would we, what with all this Global Warming about!" until they admit that the world is NOT geting warmer, but colder! It's at times like this that I have to admit that "The 800-pound Gorilla" (as Leona Helmsley called El Trumpo) has a point....

Exactly! For example, with the decreasing amounts of Arctic sea ice, and warmer air pushing further north, what seems to happen more and more often is that warmer air over the Atlantic ocean is being pushed further north just east of Greenland (fueled by storms moving along the Gulf Stream), and over the North Pole, acting like a wedge, forcing the coldest air to be displaced/concentrated further southward into northern North America and Asia, with increased cold weather in places further south, and also into Europe. But it varies, and on the Pacific side, if we have an El Niño, cold air is pulled down through the Bering Sea into the Pacific Ocean, which relieves the cold air up north. But, when we have a La Niña, as we have this winter, warm air is pushed up north of the Bering Sea, pinching the cold air from both sides (from the Pacific and the Atlantic), resulting in more severe cold outbreaks on the continents (there is some periodic cross-pole migration of cold air still). But, right now, it looks like the stubborn high pressure area over the Pacific responsible for our North American cold snap (pushing warm air northward in the west Pacific and cold air southward in the East Pacific, along the west coast) has moved to the west, and the flow through the Bering Sea is reversing for now (pulling some Arctic air into the Pacific while bringing warmer air to the west coast), with a warming trend for North America (January Thaw), for now at least.

And, on the west coast, they are bracing for some rather nasty conditions! After around 2 months of cold weather and accumulating snow and ice, they are finally getting back into their more typical "wet coast" pattern, with a stream of Pacific weather systems stretching out all the way to the Philippines! So, on top of the rain that is headed their way, they have to contend with mountains of snow that will quickly melt from the rain and warm temperatures, not to mention that the ground is frozen from the cold, which means it won't hold water, and then add to that the fact that the hills and the surrounding mountainous terrain will force the runoff to be concentrated in lower areas! It sounds like the perfect recipe for widespread flooding!

For the interior, we are expecting snow and ice pellets (wonder if we will get freezing rain) that will change to rain mid-week.

[Fred588]

As of right now (7:45AM) it is STILL thick fog here. Day FIVE of this crap will begin about noon if it goes on. However, thunderstorms are in the forecast all day starting in about 20 minutes so perhaps its finally changing.