The Plain Truth

Hurricane forecasters give up trying to predict summer storm season in December – because they can’t do it

American's top hurricane experts have admitted defeat and abandoned efforts to make a December forecast of the number of hurricanes the following year.

William Gray and Phil Klotzbach are famous for their advance predictions of how many storms are likely to hit during the following hurricane season, which runs from June to November.

But the pair, from Colorado State University, have now announced that a look back at the past 20 years of forecasts shows that their methods do not actually work.

Weathermen: William Gray, left, and Phil Klotzbach, of Colorado State University, have given up trying to predict the numbers of storms six months in advance

CSU's hurricane forecasting team has since 1992 predicted the number of storms that will take place the following year in early December, mere days after the end of the previous season.

Residents and authorities in the U.S. Deep South's hurricane country have paid close attention to the forecasts, as even a mid-strength hurricane can cause billions of dollars of damage.

More...Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2073908/Hurricane-forecasters-trying-predict-summer-storm-season-December.html#ixzz1gYwxEGNv

Another Hurricane heading our way???

Will Katia Copy Irene?

As recovery from Hurricane Irene is still in the early stages, another potential problem storm is stirring in the tropics.

Katia us just a tropical depression at the moment, but it if it does become a tropical storm, it’s expected to move north and west and become a hurricane off the coast of the lesser Antilles early next week, News4 chief meteorologist Doug Kammerer reported.

It’s far too early to say whether it will continue to follow a similar path as Hurricane Irene, but while some computer models show it blowing off to sea, others have it coming very close to the region.

You might want to hang on to those unused jugs of Irene water as Kammerer keeps an eye on Katia.

 

Click here for Tracking Map

Watch a Historic, 140-Year-Old Bridge Get Swept Away by Vermont Floods

It's a tragedy, but it does remind one of Funny Farm...

STORY>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Perfect Storm of Hype: Politicians, the media and the Hurricane Irene apocalypse that never was

For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.

“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”

Time-lapse Tuesday: Watch a dust storm sweep Phoenix

Joplin Devastated By Tornado; More Severe Weather Today

"Scenes from the city look much like those of the tornadoes that claimed more than 300 lives in the Southeast last month..."

Dozens are dead and even more injured after nearly 50 tornadoes tore though parts of the Midwest on Sunday.

At least 89 people were killed in Joplin, Mo., which received the worst of the severe weather. Damage was widespread across the city as homes, schools and a hospital were hit by a massive tornado.

According to AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Alan Reppert, x-ray films from the hospital were found 70 miles away in a driveway.    More>>>

NOW COME THE FLOODS

As if tornadoes and damaging thunderstorms were not enough, historic flooding is also threatening the Mississippi River, below St. Louis, as well as the lower part of the Ohio River.

The rising waters are expected to top levels set during February 1937. This mark is the middle Mississippi Valley's equivalent to the 1993 event farther north along Old Man River.

Even if rain were to fall at a normal rate for the remainder of the spring, the consequences of what has already happened in the Midwest will affect way of live, property, agriculture and travel/shipping/navigation for weeks in the region.

While the amount of evacuees currently numbers in the hundreds, it could soon number in the tens of thousands as levees are topped or breached and rivers expand their girth into more farming communities, towns and cities.   MORE>>

What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?

Repeat of 1859 Carrington Event would devastate modern world, experts say

NASA/Wiki Commons image

Richard A. Lovett

National Geographic News

On February 14 the sun erupted with the largest solar flare seen in four years—big enough to interfere with radio communications and GPS signals for airplanes on long-distance flights.

As solar storms go, the Valentine's Day flare was actually modest. But the burst of activity is only the start of the upcoming solar maximum, due to peak in the next couple of years.

"The sun has an activity cycle, much like hurricane season," Tom Bogdan, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said earlier this month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

"It's been hibernating for four or five years, not doing much of anything." Now the sun is waking up, and even though the upcoming solar maximum may see a record low in the overall amount of activity, the individual events could be very powerful.

Read Full Article

Icelandic volcano set to erupt dwarfing last year's devastation, warn scientists

AP image

Daily Mail

Scientists in Iceland are warning that another volcano on the island looks set to erupt, threatening to spew-out a blanket of dust that would dwarf last year's eruption.

Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after noticing an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano Bárdarbunga.

Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides 'good reason to worry'.

Last year's eruption of volcanos near Eyjafjallajokull, located in the south of the island, caused chaos around the world as hundreds of planes were grounding due to dust and ash filling the sky.

Read Full Article

Cyclone roars toward Australia's flooded north

Kristen Gelineau
Yahoo/AP

SYDNEY – A strong tropical cyclone roared toward Australia's flood-ravaged northeast on Monday, prompting evacuations and warnings from officials that the storm could be the worst the already-swamped region has ever seen.

Cyclone Yasi strengthened to a Category 3 on Monday with winds up to 115 mph (185 kph). It was expected to hit the Queensland state coast on Wednesday or Thursday as a fierce Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 162 mph (260 kph). The storm could dump up to three feet (one meter) of rain on some communities already saturated from months of flooding, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said.

But Yasi is expected to strike somewhere along the state's north coast, largely avoiding areas to the south — including Brisbane — that have suffered the worst of the recent flooding. Still, Bligh said the storm's path could change and residents up and down the coast needed to be prepared.

"We couldn't rule out further flooding in areas that have already experienced significant flooding in the last few weeks," Bligh said.

Read Full Article

Scientists warn California could be struck by winter ‘superstorm’

AP image

Liz Goodwin
Yahoo News

A group of more than 100 scientists and experts say in a new report that California faces the risk of a massive "superstorm" that could flood a quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. Researchers point out that the potential scale of destruction in this storm scenario is four or five times the amount of damage that could be wrought by a major earthquake.

It sounds like the plot of an apocalyptic action movie, but scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned federal and state emergency officials that California's geological history shows such "superstorms" have happened in the past, and should be added to the long list of natural disasters to worry about in the Golden State.

The threat of a cataclysmic California storm has been dormant for the past 150 years. Geological Survey director Marcia K. McNutt told the New York Times that a 300-mile stretch of the Central Valley was inundated from 1861-62. The floods were so bad that the state capital had to be moved to San Francisco, and Governor Leland Stanford had to take a rowboat to his own inauguration, the report notes. Even larger storms happened in past centuries, over the dates 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, and 1605, according to geological evidence.

Read Full Article

200 Dead Cows Found in Portage County Field

Year of Extremes, Strongest La Nina: What It Means for Coming Months

2010 was a year of extreme weather events with epic flooding, snowstorms, drought, heat waves and severe cold unfolding across the U.S. and the globe. It tied 2005 as the warmest year on record, and was also a year in which one of the strongest December La Niñas in recorded history was observed.

La Niñas, which occur when sea surface temperatures across the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean are below normal, play a significant role in the overall weather pattern across the globe. The current La Niña has been influential in 2010's extreme events. Details on those events and their connection to La Niña can be found in this AccuWeather.com news story.

While some of the extremes have fallen in line with overall weather conditions typically expected during a La Niña, other events have been the complete opposite. Disastrous flooding in Southern California during December and recent extreme cold, snow and ice in the Southeast are examples of events in contrast with what is typically expected during a La Niña.

This graphic shows the area of the Pacific Ocean where the La Niña is occurring, with the large area of below-normal sea surface temperatures in blue.

So why are these extreme events non-typical for a La Niña occurring? The answer is complex and complicated. But in general, all La Niñas are different. While general trends have been observed throughout recorded history, no two La Niñas are identical.

Variations in strength of La Niñas also lend different results. In general, the stronger the La Niña (or the bigger the departure from normal in sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific), the more extreme weather events we'd expect to have. The difficult part is determining where these extreme events will occur and whether such events will occur with regularity.

Infrared satellite data, which currently is the primary means of measuring sea surface temperatures, has only been available for about 50 years. Prior to that time, most observations of sea surface temperatures came from buoys and ship reports. These older methods don't provide an adequate representation for the globe.

Therefore, there is only a short history of La Niñas and El Niños (the opposite of La Niña with warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific) available for study. Thus, we're not at a point where we can directly correlate "all" extreme weather events with La Niñas or El Niños, nonetheless predict when and where they will happen.

The current La Niña is still going strong and expected to persist through at least the spring. AccuWeather.com long range forecasters think it could even last well into the summer or early fall.

So what does that mean in terms of weather for the coming months? What can people expect for the rest of winter and the upcoming spring? Will there be a continuation of non-typical extremes like we've seen over the last few months?

What to Expect in Coming Months

In short, AccuWeather.com Expert Long Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok says that we can expect to see more of the non-typical La Niñna events in parts of the country in coming weeks.

For example, he expects colder-than-normal conditions to continue affecting the East through the end of January and possibly the first half of February. In contrast to December, which was coldest compared to normal in the Southeast, the upcoming cold in the East is expected to be most extreme in the Northeast.

A blast of cold air coming to the Northeast the weekend of Jan. 22-23 is forecast to be especially brutal. A healthy snowpack covering much of the East now will help make upcoming cold outbreaks even more intense.

This graphic depicts average weather conditions expected across the U.S. during a strong La Niñna from January through March. In general, AccuWeather.com long range forecasters' thinking is in line with this for much of the rest of the winter.

In the Southeast, Pastelok thinks the cold that continues in coming weeks will be significant enough to make temperatures for the entire winter average out below normal for much of the region. This would be an impressive feat, considering that La Niña winters in the Southeast are typically warmer than normal.

In general, Pastelok also expects a continuation of stormy weather from the Tennessee Valley into the mid-Atlantic for much of the rest of the season. Storms that track through this zone can vary between producing snow, ice and heavy rain.

The bitter cold destined for the East will first blast through the Midwest. So more extreme cold is in store for people across that region as well.

Southern California is still a question. Both Pastelok and AccuWeather.com Western Expert Ken Clark have commented that while a repeat of what happened in December is highly unlikely, another storm of significance cannot be ruled out for Southern California this winter.

The Southwest started this winter off with cool temperatures but has recently experienced warming. That warmth is starting to spread eastward into Texas, and Pastelok expects most of the interior Southwest and Texas to stay warmer much of the rest of the winter.

Above-normal precipitation is expected for the Northwest for the rest of the season with higher-than-normal snowfall in the interior. Temperatures should average below normal for the rest of the season.

 

 

Related to the Story:

Severe Weather Center

Winter Weather Center

Global Warming Center

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Florida's freeze wipes out thousands of acres of agriculture

Heather Sorentrue
CF News 13

Plan on paying more for fruits and vegetables over the next couple of months.

Florida's freezes wiped out thousands of acres worth of agriculture and millions of cases of food.

Bruce Rottman is picking fruit to get a picture of how bad Florida's freezes were on citrus.
  
Rottman works with the USDA, surveying crops to assess damage.

“There's one right here that's on the border line,” Rottman said. “It's got some damage right here where you can see the wavy segment wall there. The fruit is dry right here.”

Read Full Article

Major winter storm barrels up East Coast

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A winter storm that brought a rare white Christmas to parts of the South was barreling up the East Coast early Sunday, with forecasters predicting 6 to 10 inches of snow for Washington and blizzard conditions for New York City and New England.

Airlines canceled hundreds of Sunday flights in the Northeast corridor, with more likely to come as the storm intensifies.

Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina declared states of emergency early Sunday or Saturday night. As North Carolina road crews tried to clear snowy and icy highways, Mid-Atlantic officials spent Christmas Day preparing for up to a foot of snow, plunging temperatures and high winds.   MORE

Blizzard Paralyzes NYC, Boston...

'Horrendous'...

Wreaks Havoc on Travel...

Subway stalled for 7 hours in snow drifts...

Newspaper reporter files from A train...

WATCHES/WARNINGS...

19 Inches In New Jersey...

RADAR...

Latest Details...

FOOTBALL DELAY OUTRAGES FANS: 'NATION OF WIMPS'...

'WUSSIES'...

What happened to the 'warmest year on record': The truth is global warming has halted

A year ago tomorrow, just before the opening of the UN Copenhagen world climate summit, the British Meteorological Office issued a confident prediction. The mean world temperature for 2010, it announced, 'is expected to be 14.58C, the warmest on record' - a deeply worrying 0.58C above the 1961-1990 average.

World temperatures, it went on, were locked inexorably into an everrising trend: 'Our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far - 1998.'

Met Office officials openly boasted that they hoped by their statements to persuade the Copenhagen gathering to impose new and stringent carbon emission limits - an ambition that was not to be met. 

Winter's icy grip: Drivers and pedestrians battle through blizzards in Kent last week

Last week, halfway through yet another giant, 15,000delegate UN climate jamboree, being held this time in the tropical splendour of Cancun in Mexico, the Met Office was at it again.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html#ixzz17NyAJkyi

Temperatures continue well below average in Southern California

It hasn't been the coolest summer on record, but it's been close, forecasters say.

The average temperature in July was 79 degrees, five degrees below normal, and the first eight days of this month also have been five to six degrees below normal, weather experts said.

Read more: Temperatures continue well below average in Southern California - Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_15723011#ixzz0wG6kHyYz

The Year Without a Summer 1816

Caused by the 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia

&

Krakatoa–Victorian Disaster

On April 10th 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted and killed 10,000 people from the explosion and another 82,000 people from related causes such as starvation and disease. To date, Tambora is the world’s worst volcano disaster in recorded history. The mountain, which stood at 13,000 feet tall, was reduced by 4,000 feet and spewed 93 cubic miles of ash into the atmosphere.

Why There was no Summer in 1816

Creationist chimes in on global warming

An astronomer and apologist explains why global warming is no cause for concern.

Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicist with the Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis, believes environmentalists used the recent celebration of Earth Day as an opportunity to warn people about the dangers of alleged "man-made global warming."

He notes that the earth's climate has changed over the years -- but that, he says, is not a result of industry or the actions of humans.

"These have not...been caused by human industry because there wasn't human industry.  When we take a look back during the 1600s, for example, we find that Europe experienced what we call the 'little Ice Age.'" He points out that "there was a period of decreased temperatures at that time, and that was just natural; it came back up. There was a period during the year 1,000 A.D....when the earth experienced global warming and then it went away. I think what we're seeing today is part of a natural variation, perhaps a cycle," he concludes.

Lisle reports that despite the rumors of global warming, the earth's temperature has dropped slightly since the year 2002.

SOURCE

Remember that ash cloud? It didn't exist, says new evidence

Britain's airspace was closed under false pretences, with satellite images revealing there was no doomsday volcanic ash cloud over the entire country.

Skies fell quiet for six days, leaving as many as 500,000 Britons stranded overseas and costing airlines hundreds of millions of pounds.

Estimates put the number of Britons still stuck abroad at 35,000.

Stranded: Hundreds of desperate Britons sleep on the basement floor at Bangkok's International Airport, Thailand waiting to get flights home

Berks forecaster predicts 40 inches of snow

By Dennis J. Wright
For Montgomery Media Although there is s'no way of proving rumors to be gospel, March 7, 2010, is being talked about as the date for the area's next major snowstorm. And 40 inches is the prevailing amount on the rumor circuit.

The prediction by an amateur Exeter Township weather forecaster for 40 inches of snow on March 7 has taken on a life of its own in the wake of this winter's back-to-back 20-inch accumulations.

Lester G. Moyer, who writes the Moyer's Almanac, successfully predicted the dates of the two snowstorms this month. According to Moyer's Almanac 2010, he wrote that on March 7, when the moon changes at 10:42 a.m., conditions call for high wind and drifting snow.

Moyer said from 10 a.m. to noon is the wet period, and the closer to noon, the worse the situation will be.

"This is where your storms will hit. There will be steep snow or excessive rain. The wind is the governing factor," Moyer told The Mercury Tuesday.

"There will be more moisture then than in the evening. It is how I calculated this. Saturday, March 6, and Sunday, March 7, are my designated days for this to hit. If I had to give it an indication, I would say we're looking at 40 inches or maybe plus. That's the worse scenario," he said in a phone interview.

Moyer's prediction, first reported in a Berks County newspaper and repeated on Web sites, has gathered momentum. Whether getting coffee at a local diner or picking up a newspaper at a convenience store, word of the possible March 7 snowstorm has the public talking, wondering and possibly preparing for it.

A representative of Liberty Travel, Coventry Mall, said that she's received several phone calls from customers who've heard the rumors.

"Some people have inquired about their trips and what their options are," the representative said. "People can't do anything unless the airlines waive their penalties, and they don't do that until it is 24 hours prior."

While AccuWeather.com could not be reached for comment, its Web site states a different scenario for March 7. The early forecast for March 7 has a high of 52 degrees with mostly cloudy skies and a couple of showers during the day, with low clouds and a temperature of 32 degrees at night.

And the Farmer's Almanac, considered by many the final word on major snowfall predictions, is calling for a wet period in the first week of March, but not a substantial blizzard.

India forms new climate change body-REJECTS the UN!

The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

Major Nor'easter to Slam Mid-Atlantic

: Blizzard warnings have been issued for south Jersey and Delaware.

Original article follows below...

Let's get right to it.

What? A major nor'easter will strike the Mid-Atlantic states producing major snow accumulations and strong winds.

When? Storm begins around midday Friday and lasts through the majority of Saturday.

Where? High-populated areas of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania will likely all experience big snow totals.  Washington, DC and Baltimore could experience foot plus snow totals.

How much snow?  I'll let the map do the talking.  This map takes us out to 48 hours.  This map will update automatically with new forecast totals as the event approaches in time and as forecasts are tweaked.

Northeast I-95 Corridor U.S. 48-Hour Rain/Snow Forecast
(click map for slideshow collection of storm-related maps)

What else should we know?  Don't forget about the winds.  High, perhaps damaging winds, will howl across south Jersey, all of Delaware and eastern Virginia and Maryland as the snow falls.

Wind gusts over 40 or even 50 mph are possible especially right along the coast. 

There is some potential that blizzard criteria will be met at times. 

Blizzard warnings have been issued for parts of south Jersey and the state of Delaware.

Winds will also be gusty around southeastern Pennsylvania, Manhattan, Long Island and coastal southern New England.

During Sunday (especially the morning hours), wind chills throughout the Northeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic will be brutal - largely in the single digits and teens.  Some areas may dip below zero especially interior sections of the Northeast.

What about New York City?  Difficult forecast.  NYC is near the cutoff from where some locations may receive a big snowfall versus locations that may not receive any snow at all.  Here is their forecast in narrative format.

Winter weather alerts:  Winter storm and blizzard warnings are posted for the region.  You can check them out here.

Got any storm maps?:  Yep, we got them. Click here for a slideshow collection of maps including radar, snow amounts, wind speed and current temperatures.

Twitter: We're on Twitter!  Check out what TWC meteorologists are saying about this major nor'easter.

Facebook: Yep, The Weather Channel and weather.com are also on Facebook. You can find our Facebook fan page right here.

Too cold in Peru? Blame global warming.

This article in The Guardian serves as just one more piece of proof that proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming will take any weather phenomenon whatsoever and explain it in terms of Global Warming -- including the cold. Mountain dwellers in Peru are now endangered by ever-colder temperatures, and "climate change" is blamed:

Do you still believe in Global Warming??

COLD, COLD, COLDER

East Coast Faces Deep Freeze; Florida Oranges Threatened...
CHILL MAP...

Heavy snow brings Beijing to standstill...

Britain facing one of coldest winters in 100 years...

Once in generation cold snap forecast for North Carolina...

Fourth Death Related To Cold in Chicago...

Meanwhile Pope urges lifestyle changes to save environment...  in an effort to revive the Holy Roman Empire, where the world will be ruled from Europe!  This is the plan friends, and this is what eventually will happen, according to the Bible. Hopefully we WAKE UP in our generation and stop it from happening now. Global warming is about world government and conquest, NOT about science!

Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict

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