A storm of “historic proportions”: Roads closed, 6300 airline flights cancelled, people snowbound. Snowzilla indeed. From the article:
Dubbed the “Blizzard of Oz” in Kansas, the storm coursed its way through the Midwest and Plains states — collapsing roofs, forcing highway and school closures, leaving tens of thousands without power and breaking snowfall and low-temperature records.
Airlines canceled about 6,300 flights Wednesday, according to the flight tracking service FlightAware.com. About a third of the canceled flights were out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest hubs. Eighty-four flights were canceled at Los Angeles International Airport.
At least two deaths were blamed on the weather. On Long Island in New York, a homeless man set himself on fire trying to stay warm, and in Oklahoma a 20-year-old woman was killed while being pulled on a sled by a pickup that crashed into a pole.
Full story here
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While I often lament California’s nutty government, it is 61F and sunny as I write this. – Apologies.
Damn global warming
I have two related postings that might be of interest:
A salute to the meteorologists that did an incredible job on this storm: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/salute-to-meteorologists.html
And, why were some caught unprepared in spite of three days of warnings: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-were-people-unprepared.html
Mike
My sister is freezing in Goliad, Texas and my wife and I are going to the ballet tonight in San Fran. Go figger.
The snowpack in the mountains will be a welcome water source in summer. I am sure the Ogallala Aquifer and others will be replenished as well.
We need to kill all new water control legislation based on climate models. Unless you take wooden nickles.
http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/pending_legislation/#Water
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2000/world_water_crisis/default.stm
It’s like reporters are in a competition to win the hyperbole award.
Well you see it’s the warm air in the Arctic holding more moisture, even through that air is below freezing………..
We’re 78F and clear…………….
We got a foot of global warming dumped on us here in Missouri. 2 feet in some places…I sure want global warming to stop, this snow and cold is going to be brutal if it continues!
I think its time to pray to Al Gore to relieve our suffering and to help us not turn the Earth into a snowball through global warming…
Since Tuesday, all the school districts in the surrounding Dallas/Ft.Worth area have been cancelled due to the extreme storm that passed through. If I remember correctly, the news said the past couple of days have been the coldest in over 20 years. Also, we here in Dallas, Tx were having rotating power outages from about 6 a.m. to about 2 p.m. due the extreme cold being felt throughout the state. It’s crazy! I guess our fabulous statement “Don’t Mess with Texas” does not apply to mother nature! ;0)
Weird: Two deaths blamed storm? A homeless man setting himself on fire is blamed on the storm? A woman being pulled by a pickup on a sled hitting a telephone pole is blamed in the storm? One case of probable dementia and one case of stupidity coupled with bad driving. Concurrent with the storm, but ’caused by’?
Just a weather.
Lots of media hype. Here in Iowa, we had about six inches of snow with lots of wind. Wasn’t any worse than any other blizzard we have had.
I couldn’t get the video to play for some reason. 72 right now here.
I would blame this on AGW but AGW was found dead under a twenty foot snow drift yesterday as MonthlyMeanTemperature fell below ThirtyYearRunningAverage. MonthlyMean and ThirtyYearRunning were found later unharmed.
*yawn*
That was a storm? Where? When?
It sorta, kinda passed through Buffalo leaving less than a foot today. And Chicago only got about a foot and a half (19″) … I’ll try to be impressed … not working. In December, during one real snowstorm, in the town where I live, we got 2 feet of snow (24″) … in the village proper, 3 feet (39″) … and in an adjacent town, 4 feet (49″). So, Chicago, until you get 3 or 4 feet of snow, don’t get too excited. You can stick to watching YouTube clips of Chicagoans falling on their butts (don’t these folk have the sense to stay indoors?).
Yeah, in Vancouver BC it’s hovering around 5°C, 10°C last week. One snow dump in December, stayed a week or two, and that’s it. The west coast is outside that blocking pattern of cold.
“two-thirds” ? ? “cripples” ? ?
I’ve told them a million times not to exaggerate.
Can they show there work and/or sources.
20″ of snow in Chicago, staying inside and surfing the net. Local TV has this storm as #3 for snowfall behind only 1967 & 1999.
their work
Oh! Such a thing can happen only ONCE in a thousand years! At least we know now, beyond reasonnable doubt, that this is the LAST winter crippling storm in the next 1000 years~!
Three hours of clearing (alleged) global warming today. But it’s just weather, not climate, right…oh, wait…that was last week. Not weather IS climate, right? Or am I off again?
Sorry, but I have seen worse on many occasions. The endless nightmare was ’76 through ’79. In Atlanta, U-Haul would pay you to haul or drive an empty trailer or truck to the frozen north.
This one happened to stretch through Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and points north. It hit just about all of the several media headquarters.
It wasn’t bad in Southern Tier NY. About 5 inches with some ice. It’s actually snowing more right now than it did earlier….
dallas;
It’s just a screenshot, not a live link. Here’s the source page: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-pn-blizzard-nation-20110202,0,7222907.story
I think Joe Bastardi predicted this weeks ago………….
That’s so sad, the young lady just 20 years old.
I see homeless people getting herded by police every few trips to southern states, particularly Texas. My dog can go off chasing rabbits in the desert southwest and you’ll suddenly see people popping out of the bushes where they often live in little tents or plywood boxes. I’m wondering how many homeless just die and you hear nothing about it. So many states just push them down the road.
I saw this coming following Big Joe Bastardi tweets, giving me plenty of time to schedule going home. Spent half the day getting the [snip] Detroit Diesel to start.
Kip Hansen says: February 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm
“One case of probable dementia and one case of stupidity coupled with bad driving.”
“Two deaths blamed storm? ”
Not exaclty, CO2 caused the Global Warming and Global Waring caused the storm.
So the root cause is not ‘the storm’ but rather CO2.
Just like the deaths caused by the heat wave around Moscow last summer, most of them were people getting drunk and the going for a swim to cool off and drowning because of the Global Warming caused by CO2.
If it had not been for Global Warming caused by CO2 these people would not have gone in the water and drown, they would have walked in to traffic and been killed by a CO2 emmiting device. Either way they would have been killed by CO2.
/sarc
It’s worse than we thought!
Was sunny and 70 in Charleston, SC. And we don’t have the gov’t of CA..just Georgia next door.
Cyclones and hurricanes need warm water plus a temperature difference. Warming increases the temperature at the poles, causing less variation from tropics to poles.
Now that the temperature is falling we can expect more cyclones and hurricanes.
My prediction for the next few years: cold + windy (storms, cyclones, hurricanes). The exact opposite of what Global Warming predicts.
Look around the world now: A huge cyclone in Qld that fizzes out due to lack of warm water; blizzards and record cold in the northern hemisphere.
What a laugh. The Alarmists are going to spin and spin until they become an absolute joke. What a tragedy. Hundreds of billions squandered on a scam. People in the third world going hungry while we turn food into fuel.
Let’s see … cycle gives a storm peak every 34 or 35 years, with more trouble on the downward side.
2011 – (34 or 35) = 1976-7, an upward turn. Yup, see comment above. And I also remember 1976-7 in Oklahoma. Fierce.
1976 – 34 = 1942, a downward turn.
Quick check of Google news archive for “1942 blizzard”:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=1942+blizzard&btnG=Search&um=1&ned=us&hl=en&scoring=a
Yup. Not just articles from ’42, but many from ’56 or ’66 saying “this year’s blizzard is nothing compared to the monstrous blizzards of ’42.”
Here I thought it was Snow’s evil twin, Warmzilla as the warmists would have us believe.
In Denver it was pretty cold this morning, -17 F, but that was not the all time record for this date. The all time record low for Feb 2 happend in 2007.
Darn global warming!
You think it was bad in the states?
Here there was tragedy! Snow in Toronto!
The news yesterday was not about the weather at any one place, instead it was the fact that it was snowing in the rockies and it was snowing in New Jersey, and it was the same storm system. How often has that happened?
I am finding it quite entertaining watching the media. I think they down a couple of those high test caffine drinks before they go online. Anthony if you ever feel you are getting bored and don’t know how to fill your time start another website were we can post media hype and inaccuracies.
Evidently Global Warming also causes “stupid”.
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At least two deaths were blamed on the weather. On Long Island in New York, a homeless man set himself on fire trying to stay warm, and in Oklahoma a 20-year-old woman was killed while being pulled on a sled by a pickup that crashed into a pole.
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No big whoop here in most of PA. Couple inches of snow, some ice that melted by about 9am. I know there are some power outages around the state. Pretty unimpressive. Windy and cold as heck now.
10 Feb, 2009
Alex Hill, the chief government adviser with the Met Office, told The Scotsman there was no future for skiing in Scotland because climate change would see winters become too warm for regular snowfall.
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2 Feb, 2011
“There’s no inconsistency at all,” Michael Mann, the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, told LiveScience. “If anything, this is what the models project: that we see more of these very large snowfalls.”
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I love Steve’s blog 😉
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
First photo shown by Chicago Tribune is rather apocalyptic….why these drivers thought they could make it along Lake Shore Drive boggles my mind!! We had winds up to 80 mph, snow and water blowing over from the lake:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
However, for all this broo-hah, I do remember worse, including my favorite, 1967:
Following are the five top winter storms to hit Chicago:
1. 23.0 inches on Jan. 26-27, 1967
2. 21.6 inches on Jan .1-3, 1999
3. 20.2 inches on Feb. 1-2, 2011
4. 19.2 inches on March 25-26, 1930
5. 18.8 inches on Jan. 13-14, 1979
Bastardi: 3 of Next 5 Winters Could be as Cold or Colder
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/45220/bastardi-three-of-next-five-wi.asp
I’ve always lived on the West Coast, so maybe one of you can tell me, does it ever just snow on the Eastern Seaboard?
You know, just plain old snow.
Or is it always snowzilla, of historic proportions, slamming the East, crippling 2/3rds of the Nation?
Could this be a predictable aftermath of the recent El Nino?
Consider the News from Chicago: “The total snowfall made it the third worst snowstorm on record, behind only blizzards in 1967 — when 23 inches blanketed the city — and 1999 — when 21.6 inches fell.”
(http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/3615687-417/drive-lake-wednesday-police-shore.html)
Interesting: 1967, 1999, 2011.
Note that the strongest El Nino years include: 1965, 1997, & 2009. — exactly two years prior each time.
(http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm)
I got about 16″ here in western New Hampshire. Roads were pretty bad, but the snow is GREAT skiing snow! It’s like Colorado…well, almost ;^)
They’re forecasting another potential snowfall for this Saturday, then possibly another next week…
Ed Mertin says:
February 2, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Nah sorry Ed. this is the type of thinking/feeling that gets us in trouble.
We need to toughen up.
Natural selection dictates that not all will spread their genes. Us humans have circumvented that to some degree, so we get stooopid bearing stooopid bearing moron ad nauseum.
Our species needs to shed some stupid ED. It’s stupid that leads us to be conned by scams like AGW and Y2K and bird flu and snake oil etc etc
Just think Darwin awards
We got off light compared to what we were told to expect in SE Michigan, they were expecting 9-15 inches of heavy snow on top of base of ice from freezing rain, but got 9 inches officially and no freezing rain. Locally I’d guestimate an honest 15 inches near lake Huron, drifts up to 24 inches, I was afraid the lake effect would really bury us! The snow has stopped and the sky is crystal clear so it’ll be a cold one tonight.
Anthony:
Just returned to MN after 11 days in AZ. Similar temps as yours. Much more stable and less kooky government than CA. Not bankrupt. OK, no ocean…but no Earthquakes either. And, chocolate covered scorpions are tasty! So I’ve vote for AZ as superior to -6 F Global Warming/Radiative Cooling (tonight in MN).
Dry, cold and dusty here in Eastern Washington state. Not a drop of snow in sight. Our local global warming crowd is doing the happy dance around our lack of snow, which conveniently proves to them that global warming is real, ignoring our cold and the precipitation pattern going north and south of our never ending high pressure system.
Gads, why did I order all those snow blowers? Oh that’s right, because the forecasters were predicting higher than average snow fall for the northwest U.S. and I am a greedy capitalist.
@ Carl Chapman
“A huge cyclone in Qld that fizzes out due to lack of warm water”
Yasi hit Tully at Cat 5.
I don’t think anyone there would call 300kmh wind, houses, towns and plantations destroyed, and another 3 – 5 days without power as a “fizzer”
The good thing to come out of Yasi is that the strengthened building code, and the state of preparedness, and the warning system worked as it was meant to. So far no loss of life, and as it slowly tracks inland, yes, it is dying out, still going to hit Mt Isa at Cat 2 though later tonight.
And full credit to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, for fronting up and making the call to evacuate in time, and managing the emergency services.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10703850
I’m glad that CRS, Dr. PH weighed in. We humans of the electronic age seem to have very short memories and lack the ability to read the history books or converse with those who are older than 70 years. Big storm; yes. Historical proportions; maybe. Biggest ever; I don’t think so…
Theo Barker says:
February 2, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I’m glad that CRS, Dr. PH weighed in. We humans of the electronic age seem to have very short memories and lack the ability to read the history books or converse with those who are older than 70 years. Big storm; yes. Historical proportions; maybe. Biggest ever; I don’t think so…
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Thanks, Theo! I was in seventh grade for the all-time record snow in Chicago (1967), and that was my first experience with crowds rushing to grocery stores, hoarding bread & milk etc.
The city really did quite a bit better this time, and I’m sure it is due to improvements in forecasting (the ’67 snow was a complete surprise, it had been very warm 60’s a few days before), GPS, smart phone communication etc.
However, Lake Shore Drive remains clogged with fools who thought their vehicles were more powerful than Lake Michigan. It’s amazing that nobody died in that mess.
Well, this Afternoon here in LaGrande, Oregon . A squadron of robins hit port, and
proceeded to feast on the few berries that have survived the winter. Things are indeed
looking up… The big storm has interfered with my business however, shipments, mail
etc. all slowed to a crawl….
Now we really get to see how well the politicians have spent our billions and billions of tax dollars in preparation of such inevitable weather events, lulled asleep by AGW “scientists” harping that such events were only of the past. Now they lie and say they knew it all along.
It don’t look pretty. Vote the guilty out of office and ask your new representatives to defund them all. Now!
LA Times Video blurb: “Drivers were left stranded for more than 10 hours waiting for help.”
During the Chicago storm of 1967, I lived in Chicago and worked in a suburb. The office having closed early, I bought some galoshes. I drove over the expressway leading into the city and noted stuck cars. So I drove to a commuter train station, parked the car and rode the train into the city. Put on the galoshes, walked to a bus stop and got on a bus. A couple miles from home, the bus got stuck. Left the bus, walked to a street going my way. Got hungry, ordered a hamburger in a restaurant. When the hamburger was served, the plate glass window blew in on it. Paid for the burger and walked home. All told, three hours.
The point of the story? Be informed, be prepared, use your head, and don’t rely on others to be available to help. To me, the best part of the story is this: about a half mile from home I met my wife walking toward me, looking for me. We still look to each other every day. 🙂
Pooh, you are a lucky man. Kiss her tonight!
April E. Coggins says:
February 2, 2011 at 8:07 pm
According to Piers Corbyn, the fair weather in the PNW and the foul weather in the rest of the country is due to the Jet Streams freezing in place (locked in), very similar to what happened in Russia/Pakistan last summer. It will end when there’s a fortuitous Solar/Lunar driven event that dislodges the locked Jets. When that will be I cannot say.
Note the La Nina years that followed the strong El Nino years coincide with 1967, 1999&2011, 2 years after the El Nino’s 1965, 1997&2009.
Click Here
Re: Baa Humbug says: February 2, 2011 at 7:39 pm
I know, yes I agree, but what I usually see is someone dead other than the stupid one that caused the accident. The last 7 months have been the deadliest I believe I’ve ever witnessed. People running over each other, racing to make up for lost cash because of the recession, I suspect. Or trying to do the work of two or three because of hiring freeze. Whatever, its like deja vu the last one, but noticeably worse this time.
it is good news for all those ice crean lovers we dont need refrigerators any more also half of the wind farms are either burnt out or have been struck by lightning
Chicago politics is the slimmy-est worstest in the nation and now that half the heard is in DC it’s gone national (it’s a Union kind’a thing, only half can be away at any one time;-) Should’a known this would happen. Dang it!!!! Guess we miscalculated something. Hummmmm… Oh! Aaaaaaa.. who owns the LAT now? Hummmmm… you know that simulating national politics on a supercomputer is about as hard as predicting the future global climate next week? You do don’t ya? Now, let’s see…. punch.. punch.. click… click.. ding.. ding… boing.. OK that should do it!!!!!! We’re going to run another simulation with a little more snow and ice and see what we get for a headline. See ya in a bit.
Warmer air holds more water? What about volcanoes that blast steam and ash into the air for a few weeks? I still havent found any mention of the effects on climate of that.
Given all the hoopla about the arctic’s way above average temperatures, it is refreshing to see the headlines about arctic chill rushing south. Real warmth and real cold are quite different from media headlines.
Looks bad. No mention of this on the BBC. They are consumed by reports of the non-event that was the Australian typhoon. I suppose typhoons play to the AGW agenda so much better than snow.
The Kalamazoo Gazette set up a camera to take a series of time lapse photos during the blizzard which can be seen here.
http://bcove.me/bt33wv33
Original Article if it doesn’t show up.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/02/time_lapse_video_of_downtown_k.html
How are those deaths blamed on the weather? Looks to me more like normal human stupidity. The homeless are definitely going to light fires to stay warm in the winter, and they’re not always going to be aware of safety concerns. And young people are going to try to find something to do besides sit inside all day and it’s not always going to be smart.
Carl Chapman says:
February 2, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Cyclones and hurricanes need warm water plus a temperature difference. Warming increases the temperature at the poles, causing less variation from tropics to poles.
Now that the temperature is falling we can expect more cyclones and hurricanes.
My prediction for the next few years: cold + windy (storms, cyclones, hurricanes). The exact opposite of what Global Warming predicts.
Look around the world now: A huge cyclone in Qld that fizzes out due to lack of warm water
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fizzer?
wiped out a lot of houses, and managed to travel over 1,000km inland, follow up rains causing fllods inland and in states some 1,000km away today. and thats not counting the cane, fruit and livestock killed or maimed..280km winds.
This morning I had to clear our birdbath with an icepick. It had a 1/4 inch (.6 cm)crust of ice. I live in northern San Diego, 4.5 miles (7.25 km) from the beach at an altitude of 87 feet (26 meters). It might have been wind combined with the cold that caused the freeze. There as crusting last night too, but only 1/8 of an inch. I’ve lived in Southern California for over half a century, and I’ve never seen this here or even heard of it.
call me evil and cold-hearted, but i find both those deaths to be comical. Thats the way id wanna go, sledding behind a truck into a pole…
If this storm had gone a few hundred miles further north most folks would never know it existed. It could have stretched through the Dakotas into northern Minnesota and then Canada like many have done in the past. It’s more about the where than the what.
@Theo Goodwin February 2, 2011 at 5:46 pm:
“Sorry, but I have seen worse on many occasions. The endless nightmare was ’76 through ’79.”
Amen.
’76-’77 was -10F to -20F several days in the Chicago area with wind chills in the -75F range. I moved at the end of JAN (-25F, 40mph winds, gusts to who knows how bad), and my destination small town was socked in by 20-foot drifts on both ends of town. I saw so many really big drifts and whiteouts I lost count. Dangerous cold and wind, drifts over cars, snow filling up engine compartments – you name it. The wind blew snow till the snow found a hole or culvert or cut-through road to fall into. I joked that most of the snow on the ground had originally fallen in Minnesota. If not for snow fences (where are they anymore?), far more roads would have been impassable. I have many tales to tell of that winter.
The New Year’s Eve snow of ’78-’79 was the worst snow I’ve seen, though it officially broke no records at met stations. It took 2 days to get our complex’s parking lot cleared – all of us pitching in by hand: the plows were busy elsewhere.
PLEASE, let us not lose global warming! Warmer is GOOD.