Here’s the national snow depth, Chicago has between 20-30 inches of snow by this map:
Source: http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/nsa/
Dr. Richard Keen writes in an email:
I was a college student in Chicago for the 1967 Big Snow, so here’s a couple of photos I took back then. There will be lots of comparing of yesterday’s storm with the ’67 snow, so I’ve thrown in some current pictures from the Chicago Tribune of the two storms to compare with my ’67 photos. Kind of looks the same!
After the storm, I looked under the hoods of a few cars and it was solid packed snow.
Here’s Chicago yesterday:
And another from yesterday:
Now let’s have a look at 1967:
Well heavy snowfall in the past was a sign of virgin, unspoiled climate. Today, heavy snowfall is just a sign of warm air holding a lot of moisture, direct result of GW. All models predicted exactly this.
Great pictures. Google New York blizzard 1888 shows pictures indicating it was just as bad and maybe worse.
And, the nice weather here in the Inland Pac NW is aso caused by AGW, along with
my male pattern baldness, arthritis, and cavities….
Greetings from sunny Tucson, Arizona. No global warming snow here. The outside temp is a balmy 19 deg F (8:30AM) and the high for today is projected at 39. Hard to imagine this is because of my driving my SUV.
They take us for fools.
In Gail Collins column in NYT”s today, she quotes Al G. blaming extra water vapor in the atmosphere because of warmer oceans and air. Of course no mention of La Nina, cold PDO, or the below normal average global temps for Jan. What a shocker.
I like Gail Collins and I know she means well, but these people just don’t know any better. Al Gore of course is another matter. I
Actually Juraj, the models DID NOT predict this. They predicted a slow and steady increase for certain areas. They WERE NOT predicting the change in the PDO (funny that..after all, the models use physics, right???) and a SUDDEN change in the climate regime to one of bitterly cold and snowey winters. Nope, it was the supposed “deniers” that predicted this change…pure and simple.
Ah Juraj, interesting. You’re saying that AGW will change the climate, but the weather will stay the same?
Well, I just shoveled another two inches here in western New Hampshire this morning! That brings my snow total to about 18″ from snowzilla. And they are now predicting yet another snow storm for this Saturday (another 6″ – 10″)! Sigh…
Only the Warmists know when snow is natural or caused by AGW. But they always know with certainty.
In 1967 we were well into Catastrophic Global Cooling. We just didn’t know it as Al Gore hadn’t told us.
Great pictures! Living here, it’s gorgeous and exhilarating. Sometimes, nature isn’t boring.
Everything that used to happen was predicted by the AGW models.
Everything that is happening now is also predicted by the AGW models.
Especially male pattern baldness.
Al Gore came out from under his rock the other day and started his “It’s all because of Global Warming ” mantra. Just confirms why he got a “D” in science. And yet, way smarter people than him in science are putting their entire careers on the line going to his camp, the real question should be “WHY”???
Simply AWESOME to have these photos! Thanks! We must show them to those alarmist newspapers that have been calling doom for such a long time. The IPCC nonsense “satanic co2” theory may fall into full discredit much sooner than what I tought.
The answer to the title: yes. I find it very difficult to argue with global warming believers because everything is consistent with their theory; that’s right, even snow on the ground is proof of global warming. There’s no winning when you’re arguing with these people.
Seriously, Juraj needed to add a /sarc ???
Honestly, that was so obvious I can’t imagine taking it seriously!
Anyway, we’ve had huge dumps of snow in the past, and will in the future. Anyone who thinks otherwise should be consulting a medical doctor to help them deal with their memory problem.
Juraj. The models decidedly did not predict colder and wetter winters. As recently as last year CRU, NOAA, and Met were predicting mild dryer winters. In spite of the record cold and snow cover Europe had in 2010. Your revisionist history show either extraordinary ignorance or the type of deceit we are now seeing on display at crackpot Warmists blogs, the MSM, and at Met. It was the skeptics who modeled wetter SUMMERS if the world were warmer. Further, the present cold and snow is hemispheric not regional thus indicating that the world is a bit cooler. Lastly atmospheric water storage is down a dramatic 10% over recent years indicating, again, cooling. Did your modellers predict that also?
My prediction for the next grasp at straws:
Hard winters inadvertently cause global warming! Big snow & ice storms mean lots of people are stuck at home. Taking the opportunity to enjoy a little wintry ambiance, the planet-killing moron masses turn to their woodburning fireplaces. CARBON! DEAD TREES! FIRE! EXCLAMATION POINTS!
I do suspect that Juraj V. is being sarcastic.
The pictures from 1967 are clearly the nascent stages of global warming.
In their Dantesque circle, AGW hysterics time-and-again face Groundhog Day as if all that matters were their self-perpetuating asininities. Alas for the Green Gang, nature takes her course… as Earth’s long summer fades, as our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch subsides to Ice Time via a Grand Solar Minimum, greenies’ Luddite psychopathology will have a lot to answer for.
So the same type of major Chicago Blizzard happened in 1967 and 2011. Though it is a bad storm, It’s happened before. Except now the AGW advocates will blame this storm on global warming, forgetting that a similiar storm happened 44 years earlier
I was a young’un living in Chicago for the 1967 blizzard. I thought the pictures in the newspapers for this storm looked familiar. Thank you Dr. Keen for the memories.
I also lived Florida in 1971 when it snowed in Tampa. It hasn’t done so since, but it sure got close these past two winter seasons. Up until recently, it has been brutally cold – by Florida standards at least 🙂
Poitsplace and Ryan, I think you need to turn on your sarcasm detector.
Funny, I thought we couldn’t blame weather events on climate change?
(This is the pro-AGW mantra for when it’s unbelievably cold outside and people start to question the theory.)
I thought too that global warming would result in less and less snow. (This is what global warming proponents say whenever snowfall for a season falls below mean.)
I thought the models showed Actual Global Warming. (This was before the globe stopped warming and the pro-AGW set was forced to fall back to ‘climate change’ and now ‘climate disruption’.) This last term is of course entirely correct and accurate; the climate has created a huge disruption in their plans to implement Cap and Tax and force the U.S. and U.K. to acquiesce to the demands of the leftist, communists and the U.N. through the IPCC.
However, I am quite certain that huge amounts of global warming are on the way; in 90 days the northern hemisphere mean surface temp will have increased by at least 30 F! At that rate it’ll be some 1200 F in 10 years!! Run for your lives! Oh wait . . . it’s called spring. And thank God; just in time too. (My thermometer read -13F on the way in to the office this morning . . . but spring is coming!)
Anyway; always love it when Al Gore opens his mouth. He hasn’t a clue how little he understands about any of this. He is a good and constant reminder of how little anyone really knows for certain about our climate and our planet really. And for that we should thank him!
I was a young TV meteorologist in Milwaukee in 1967. After plotting surface and upper air teletype reports on an acetate covered US map I predicted three inches of snow in Milwaukee and monstrous snow storm in Chicago. The Chicago NWS had predicted a chance of light snow. When the storm hit, I immediately was hired by a Chicago TV station. I was simply a lucky kid.
As this storm was predicted, I got calls from Chicago, “tell me this is not going to happen again.” This time I had the excellent computer model and agreed with the NWS which was issuing perfect forecasts. The science of weather forecasting has come a very long way.
As for the science behind climate disruption; it is a pathetic joke.
In any case, this weeks event was full of big time deja vu for me.
Juraj V. says:
February 3, 2011 at 7:28 am
Well heavy snowfall in the past was a sign of virgin, unspoiled climate. Today, heavy snowfall is just a sign of warm air holding a lot of moisture, direct result of GW. All models predicted exactly this.
Poitsplace says:
February 3, 2011 at 7:38 am
Actually Juraj, the models DID NOT predict this. They predicted a slow and steady increase for certain areas. They WERE NOT predicting the change in the PDO (funny that..after all, the models use physics, right???) and a SUDDEN change in the climate regime to one of bitterly cold and snowey winters. Nope, it was the supposed “deniers” that predicted this change…pure and simple.
Poitsplace, I hope Juraj meant to use the /sarc after his post, otherwise… 🙁 Well it’s worse then we thought!
Interesting images from NASA about the storm too
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/snowstorm_feb2011.html
[Snip. Calling other commentators “deniers” gets your post deleted. Read the Policy page. ~dbs, mod.]
I finally got it. Warm makes cold! Sorta like night makes day! Pass me some more of that kool aid. /sarc
Musings while waiting for CPC to publish the ONI NDJ number.
I really like the shot of the 66/67 Bronco tooling along next to all the other disabled cars.
(I own a 1970)
I see that there is a winter storm warming from Brownsville, TX to Baton Rouge, LA clearly Global warming is going to freeze us all unless we let the progressives and watermelons and little dictators have their way… /sarc
Is it just me or does Al Gore and Co. sound like a bunch of mafia goons running a protection racket?
Oops
“The pictures from 1967 are clearly the nascent stages of global warming.” /sarc
(Just caught a glimpse of the rules)
I have just about had it with the climate change/global warming knotheads who continue to say that their models predicted more snow due to global warming. Horse hockey. It takes cold temperatures to cause snow, and when we are getting snow/sleet/ice as far south as Houston, you can bet it’s due to the cold, which is not caused by global warming, at least not yet. I’m sure the next big thing for these global warming folks will be that global warming causes cold.
Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that these same people claimed that snow would be a thing of the past due to global warming? These people change the narrative to fit the facts. And they call themselves scientists. Pathetic.
If it were just increased snowfall then Al Gore might make sense. But how does he explain the record cold temps? It will be intewresting to see how Hansen “adjusts” the January temp data.
Global temperatures have huge day-night, season-to-season and day-of-year-to-day-of-year differences. Rainfall and wind the same. Solar radiation is not a steady thing, but varies AROUND the average by 20W/m2 (40W/2 if you consider that only half the world is in sunlight at any time), plus each hemisphere is lighted from 76% to 126% of its average area because the world axis is tilted. I haven’t mentioned that the albedos of the hemispheres is signficantly different, so that when the North should be cooler, it is actually (by average) 2.2K warmer. Nor have I mentioned that cloud cover varies on all sorts of time scales and has a different effect during the night (no sun) than during the day, and during the winter with snow on the ground than during the summer with green, brown and blue (different ground albedos).
All these averages! Each gets an “error” bar individually. As a planet and for happy calculations, these averages mean something. But for individuals, and for specific places where individuals live, the reality is not variation around the planetaruy averages, but variations of the spot, far greater than the “average”.
None of us experience a planetary average. We assume or calculate that all the variations disappear within a certain time period. The mathematical work requires it. Individually, locally, this is clearly not true. So we rage against a summer of heat and a winter of cold. It is what we experience. Not the “average” temperature going up 0.18K/decade.
So what is global warming? The complex interaction of the three stable variables, orbital eccentricity, axial tilt and hemispheric albedo (excluding cloud cover) give a non-unique input through the year. Anywhere. Cloud cover and circulation patterns are not random but patterned and interactive. Heat is accepted or denied and moved around in a time and location sensitive manner. It is an assumption that all of this, at a planetary scale, averages out so that we can detect a difference in the heating of the world that means something to an accuracy and precision of .18K over a decade. Is this true?
Clearly the world warms and cools by 4 – 10K, and sometimes over very short periods of time. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores show that this happens, at least on a local scale. Glaciers melt. Savannas become deserts. And deserts become savannas and glaciers advance. These changes are not in question. And that we humans had nothing to do with the pre-1945 goings on, except locally (deforestation, agriculture). Right now, though, we are told that the 0.18K/decade has the human “fingerprint” of fossil fuel CO2 on it. But can we say that all the natural variation in input and output of heat can be averaged out so cleanly and over such a short time period that a 0.18K/decade global temperature “average” has any meaning outside of the non-perfect union of variables? And since we see the Arctic heating up more than elsewhere, but agree the global average is high because of this regional anomaly, can we say that this regional warmth is not just the unexpected result of the complex variables interacting as described above?
We – warmist and skeptics alike – are forced to use merged, homogenized and detrended data, adjusted and averaged out at a planetary scale. We are told that, mathematically/statistically we know “reality” to within 0.05K or better. We assume or are told that local events of larger than average magnitude do not distort the averages (and make them meaningless globally) or that they are random and cancelled out by equally large but local events of the other type. Perhaps. But do we know this to the 0.05K level of a decadal time-frame?
Weather is nature’s way of evening out the heat flow. Weather, not climate, is what moves heat around. So on what basis do we have for certainty that 0.18K/decade is not the result of imperfect balancing of input/output, in which local variations do not distort the apparent group behaviour?
The calculations of single numbers with an accuracy magnitudes less than the local variation over the planet in which regional changes are known to be perhaps a magnitude or more different one from the other, strikes me as open to much bigger uncertainty of interpretation than of calculation. Ultimately we work with what something “means”, not what it is. If the global population was stable to the extent that the global climate parameters are, we would look to its local cause to effect change. We would wonder if there was something special about where the increase was coming about, not suggest that globally people were reproducing more. And population change is a very, very simple issue.
What change is actually a global change and not local? What level of change globally is detectable as an expression of something outside the complex mix of variables?
Taking 10 people of 5 foot in height and averaging their height with 10 people of 7 foot in height does not tell you anything meaningful about the height of people. Add in someone of 6 foot in height, average their heights again, and you still know nothing meaningful from the average about what their height is, but now you can say the height of the group is getting greater.
Obviously the moisture is not coming down from the Arctic, below freezing….
Then the moisture has to be coming up from the gulf and Caribbean…
which is way below normal SST…..
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif
So exactly where is this warming causing all this moisture?
in 1967 blamed to GC and now blame to GW
“Vinny says: February 3, 2011 at 7:54 amAl Gore came out from under his rock the other day and started his “It’s all because of Global Warming ” mantra. Just confirms why he got a “D” in science. And yet, way smarter people than him in science are putting their entire careers on the line going to his camp, the real question should be “WHY”???”
Follow the money. When there are grants out there for NON-AGW religious fanatic researchers then there will be some honest research. There are billions of dollars at stake here. Just ask Jeff Immelt, CEO GE. Don’t they own NBC as well? What a surprise that they distribute the AGW propaganda so much.
OMG it snowed during winter, we’re all gonna dieeeee!!!!
I just finished reading Edward P Kohn’s “Hot Time In The Old Town – The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making Of Theodore Roosevelt.”
Nothing too “Great” about the book as far as climate change or historical development of today’s business, political, social-illogical socialism goes. But it does go into good detail about how the heat wave in New York City influenced two politicians of the era: Theodore Roosevelt (who used his position on the Police Board to influence ice handouts, and Bryon, who lost political momentum trying to read his speech to a very hot, very over-crowded jammed-in non-air-conditioned Madison Square Garden.
1896 was at the tail end of the 66-year short term climate cycle that had peaked in the 1880’s, and temperatures were heading “down” into the low point between 1910-1920. (The next 66-year high point was to be the 1935-1940 Dust Bowl hot period that NASA’s Hansen is still trying to “edit” away.) The author explains well the “urban heat island” effect of concrete and brick and stone reflecting the heat, low vegetation available for cooling, low water for evaporation, and greater density of people and energy. (1896 was pre-electricity, no A/C and little energy production in the streets except horse and wagon, coal for heating (not in August of course!) and manufacturing – even in Manhattan and Brooklyn.) Relief from the heat was only by ice. No fans, but no indoor heat producers by electric appliances or lights or TV’s or telephones or refrigerators either.
The heat wave itself was explained well, but the author spends great time on details of individuals he found in the records who had died or were injured – some 700 extra deaths in just under two weeks. Temp’s were only over 90’s “officially in Manhattan, but were locally measured at over 120 in the streets and tenements and apartments. Interesting that one of the most severe impacts was on horses – over 1500 carcasses had to be pulled from the streets as they decayed in place over the two weeks of August. Normally, there would be fewer than 1200 in an entire year.
The writer concludes by noting additional heat waves in New York City 1899, 1900, 1905.
He also uses the World Health Organization predicting worldwide heat deaths could double in twenty years from now (if their assumed global warming continues.)
—
Separately, I read that the Indian villages and the original Roanoke and Jamestown and St Augustine and Jacksonville settlers before 1620 suffered from periodic droughts and famines. Long before today’s cars and trucks permitted crops to be exchanged alleviating the impact of local weather across whole regions and countries.
…. So, heat waves happened in the past, and will happen again. Cold waves – remember the blizzards of 1888 that destroyed the free-range cattle industry – will happen again.
Weather you like it or not, climate changes. 8<)
please, everyone, stop being so earnest and literal! Sarcasm like Juraj V’s should be blindingly obvious to everyone here.
From now on, just recognize that the phrase “All models predicted exactly this!” has the exact same meaning and intent as “It’s Bush’s Fault!” In other words, it’s a phrase that no one can even attempt to use seriously anymore, since it has been misused so often and so blatantly.
p.s. it always sucks to have to explain a joke
So based on the last few posts Global warming causes it to be both hotter and snowier all at the same time? Well increased snowfall clearly makes things colder so does that mean global warming caused the previous ice ages? Imagine how hot it must have been to get enough snow to cause the ice ages.
Obviously there are chrono-teleconnections between AGW and blizzards.
/sarc
One wonders why, if the AGW models called for more moisture and snow, was it predicted that snow would become rare to non-existent by the likes of Charles Onians, Robert Byrd and Barbara Boxer?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/global-warming-causes-more-snow-except-when-it-causes-less-snow
p.p.s. – if I was an artist I would come up with a cartoon of a scientist rowing away from the Titanic, saying “all Models predicted exactly this!!!”
1967???
C’mon – that’s sooo …old!!!
Most AGW warriors weren’t even out of diapers then, and haven’t we been told repeatedly by our younger and therefore betters that nothing counts that happened before the age of the mighty internet?
😉
I remember the storm of ’67 when I lived in the mountains in Virginia. We had 3 weeks off from school that winter and some of the roads drifted over higher than my head! And this was in a place that was “used” to the the snow.
Nice artic weather for POLAR BEARS´endangered species.
To sum up: it’s happened before, therefore the cause is the same.
Nameless Cynic says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:21 am: [ … ]
———————————————————————————————————
Hi Cynic, since you are an expert on basic stuff could you clear up a couple of things for me?
1. When you deny “global warming” and call it “climate change” does that make you a denier as well?
2. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this article about how all this seems to have happened many times in the past, even before I got my SUV?
3. Your whole warm air holds more moisture argument is an epic fail in the face of snow and ice in regions where it normally falls as rain. Why don’t you take a mulligan and try again, I could use a good laugh.
4. Before you get all snippy with people you might want to check global temperatures again. Wow looky, the temperature anomaly is negative. I know that supporters of AGW have a problem with signs and everything, but you usually wait to change the sign in an obscure paper and lose the homework before claiming that cooling is warming.
5. After a century of supposed Anthropogenic Global Warming. Three decades of temperature “adjustments” that almost always support the warming position. It is still no warmer then usual, perhaps a bit colder, and unless you are hiding the missing heat in your pants, I doubt it will show up anytime soon.
Are you still with me? No? How sad is that.
To Douglas DC (#3)
You laugh now, ha ha! Have you seen this list? http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
One of the bigger laugh’s Jay Leno got last night was when he told the audience Al Gore was claiming the snow was due to global warming. And that was before he even got to the punch line.
Great post by John Coleman.
I was an undergrad at Northwestern and was in Evanston for the ’67 storm. As Coleman said, I remember the “light snow” forecasts in Chicago. Being from Milwaukee, I already knew Coleman from TV there but I didn’t know he had predicted the massive storm.
I didn’t take any pictures but I remember the pictures in the newspapers. The new storm was like deja vu all over again (thanks, Yogi).
But science was in an abysmal state back then. I don’t recall even one scientist blaming the ’67 storm on global warming. Thank goodness we are so much smarter now.
Yes, in case anyone’s sarcasm detector is on the blink, that last paragraph was sarcasm.
Chicago was also hit with a 20 inch snowstorm in January 1979 to add to Mayor Bilandic’s problems. Nothing too unusual about a big blizzard in Chicago.
“In Gail Collins column in NYT”s today”
So your the one who reads it? I was wondering.
John Coleman says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:17 am
“I was a young TV meteorologist in Milwaukee in 1967. After plotting surface and upper air reports on an acetate covered US map I predicted three inches of snow in Milwaukee and monstrous snow storm in Chicago. The Chicago NWS had predicted a chance of light snow. When the storm hit, I immediately was hired by a Chicago TV station. I was simply a lucky kid.”
Hi John, good to hear from you! I bet there’s lots of us still around who were immersed in the 67 storm. I got my info from Harry Volkman, and I recall that he had a pretty good forecast and gave a good wrap-up when it was over. He walked me through the Palm Sunday tornadoes, the April 67 tornado outbreak, hundreds of cold fronts and thunderstorms, some pretty good hail storms, my first dry line, lake breezes, lake effect snow bursts, an 88-hour subzero spell, numerous other weather events, and a couple of just nice days during my college years in Chicago. I learned more meteorology from him than from any college class!
“As for the science behind climate disruption; it is a pathetic joke.
In any case, this weeks event was full of big time deja vu for me.”
…all over again!
I measured 18.6 inches on the north side (Evanston) from the 67 storm, while Midway got 23.0. Since O’Hare got 20.2 inches this week, it looks like 67 was bigger on the South Side, and 2011 bigger on the North Side. Soon we’ll have comparitive NESIS ratings.
It’s fortunate that both the oceanic cycles and the solar Grand Minimum are lining up for a Big Chill that will be too in-your-face for the alarmists to ‘adjust’ away. All their billions of dollars of subsidized thumb-on-the-scales post-modernist ‘science’ is for naught.
Soon, winter storms won’t just be third-worst, but will surpass everything in history, running back-to-back from October to March, with snow on the ground into May. Agricultural output drops, in spite of all the help the elevated CO2 is giving plants.
Can the nearest alarmist tell me if five years of that would falsify AGW?
How about fifty years, with permanent snow cover in Labrador?
How about every glacier in the world advancing at a brisk walk?
When the CO2 stops at 450 and starts going down, due to the cooling oceans?
You just know that nothing would make them abandon their wretched faith.
“To sum up: it’s happened before, therefore the cause is the same.”
That sounds a bit better than “it’s happened before, our models predicted it would never happen again, but we’ll squeeze it into our narrative somehow anyway.”
wws says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:52 am
please, everyone, stop being so earnest and literal! Sarcasm like Juraj V’s should be blindingly obvious to everyone here[–].
p.s. it always sucks to have to explain a joke
———————————————————————–
WWS. I couldn’t agree more with your p.s. point – But is seems that it helps the moderators with their work to add the /sarc bit and since they do such a great job on this site I guess we need to play ball here.
Cheers
Douglas
Bush’s fault?
He was only 20 in 1967. And Al hadn’t even thought of the internet. LBJ was busy with places where it never snowed. Truman was retired, and Roosevelt was dead.
Mayor Richard the First? Possibly.
But in 1967, who’s really to blame?
Listen up!
Aaahhhhh, it seems like only yesterday I was arguing w/ my father-in-law about Global Warming. It was not pleasant. But since then we have learned to avoid topics like this, as well as anything even vaguely political. Thank Jah for sports!
Chicago is still a mess but what kills me is the MANIA to get back in the car. I mean COME ON. Don’t drive if you don’t absolutely have to (wife having a baby, someone’s sick, etc.)
On a lighter note I had to laugh when I saw this billboard for a new mini countryman … today you could just about drive the car down and onto 90/94. http://bssp.com/2011/news/mini-countryman-goes-well-over-ice/
Nameless Cynic, maybe you should try a little logic youself. Even if I assume for the sake of the argument, that there is more moisture in the warmer atmosphere now than let´s say last year (do you have any facts to proof this statement?), then simple logic tells me that this moisture in a warmer atmosphere could reasonably be expected to fall as rain – if the warming theories were true. Given the vast amount of facts that have been presented here in WUWT – both in articles and in replys – I think you could try a bit harder to catch up with the facts and the logic yourself – before you attempt to lecture “slower students”.
Just a few replys below yours you will find an interesting and logical reply from Doug Proctor. It is well worth to think about it.
Climatism/AGW presents biased science fiction and claims it to be science. Whenever scientists (or people who follow the scientific principles in their work) take a closer look at the basics, claims, models, predictions, whenever somebody cares to check the facts – it is found that the facts do not support the claims of climatism/AGW. Given the fact that plenty of money has been spent on this pathetic and pessimistic fiction, that the funds have been used to hire people who now make a living of this “theory” it comes as no surprise that there is no end of claims, adjustments, 360° turns (the famous snowless winters come to mind). The ancient Greek Hydra was a fairly tame beast in comparison with climatism/AGW.
How do you explain the fact that there have been blizzards of similar or even worse size in the past? Why was there no similar blizzard in that record breaking year of global warming, 1998? Or any other year where “global temperatures” were high, even higher than 2010?
Oh boy, I really am tired of all this warmist “reasoning” and “logic”. If only the stakes were not so high, I could and would happily take a back-seat and enjoy the show.
@ charles the mod: I like that too!
Tonus says: “our models predicted it would never happen again”
Link?
CodeTech says:
February 3, 2011 at 7:57 am
Seriously, Juraj needed to add a /sarc ???
Honestly, that was so obvious I can’t imagine taking it seriously!
————————
It was recommended to do so in the pet peevs post.
The subject of Al Gore saying that this snowstorm was “consistent with” global warming is the topic of today’s discussion on the Politico Arena (http://www.politico.com/arena/), Joe Romm even makes an appearance.
[Note: Commenters there should link to WUWT, if possible. ~ dbs, mod.]
John Coleman says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:17 am
And I remember when I was a thirteen year old boy living in Milwaukee watching you do weather on WISN-TV in Milwaukee, too, John. I didn’t realize your story is why you left us. For bigger and better pastures, yet. Chicago was always stealing our good talent. Lol!
John Coleman says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:17 am
P.S. He had a little bit more schtick doing the weather in those days, too. Pretty funny.
I was there in 67 as well. It was different because it was very warm ~65 before the storm. Kids on campus in t-shirts playing Frisbee. The storm hit, and it snowed a lot, but I don’t remember that much wind. No stories I recall of people stuck on buses for 8 hours. After the snow. The temperature dropped into single digits and it was real cold.
NOAA has a web page devoted to a history of Chicago snowstorms with 10 or more inches of snow. It does not include the series of November and December snowstorms in 1951 which piled up snow in Chicago. One of these snowstorms on 6-7 November 1951 was accompanied by winds of 65 mph, much like the latest 2011 storm. Some of our friends had to walk some twenty blocks through the snow drifts in the empty Chicago streets because the trains, buses, and cabs were not running. Even the Chicago police were missing from the streets.
After the 1967 storm, their son walked across the snow to step on the garage’s roof peak. The automobiles and garage were buried underneath the snow.
See the NOAA web page at:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lot/winter/chi_sno_hist.php
History of 10 inch or greater Snow storms in Chicago
——————————————————————————–
Since snow records began in 1886 in Chicago, there have been 41 winter storms that produced 10 inches or more of snow. A 10 inch snow occurs about once every 3 years. A 15 inch snow occurs only once about every 19 years. The closest back to back 10 inch snows were March 25-26 and April 1-2, 1970 (6 days apart). The longest period of time without a 10 inch snow or greater was February 12, 1981 to January 1, 1999 (almost 18 years). The earliest 10 inch snow was November 25-26, 1895 and the latest 10 inch snow was April 1-2, 1970. The most recent 10 inch snow was January 21-23, 2005.
Chicago’s 10 biggest Snowstorms:
23.0 inches Jan 26-27, 1967
21.6 inches Jan 1-3, 1999
19.2 inches Mar 25-26, 1930
18.8 inches Jan 13-14, 1979
16.2 inches Mar 7-8, 1931
15.0 inches Dec 17-20, 1929
14.9 inches Jan 30, 1939
14.9 inches Jan 6-7, 1918
14.3 inches Mar 25-26, 1970
14.0 inches Jan 18-20, 1886
Snowfall of 10 Inches or More for the Calendar Day January 2, 1999 18.6 inches December 12, 1903 11.3 inches
January 13, 1979 16.5 inches February 18, 2000 11.1 inches
January 26, 1967 16.4 inches February 3, 1896 11.0 inches
January 30, 1939 14.9 inches December 20, 1960 11.0 inches
January 6, 1918 14.4 inches December 10, 1934 10.9 inches
March 25, 1930 13.6 inches March 7, 1931 10.9 inches
March 2, 1954 11.5 inches February 3, 1901 10.8 inches
February 18, 1908 11.5 inches December 23, 1961 10.2 inches
February 28, 1900 11.3 inches December 27, 1894 10.1 inches
Deember 14, 1951 10.0 inches
Snowfall of 10 Inches or More – Storm Total January 21-23, 2005 11.2 inches
January 30-31, 2002 12.0 inches
February 18, 2000 11.1 inches
January 1-3, 1999 21.6 inches
February 10-11, 1981 11.2 inches
January 13-14, 1979 18.8 inches
February 6-7, 1978 10.3 inches
January 25-27, 1978 12.4 inches
January 9-10, 1977 10.9 inches
April 1-2, 1970 10.7 inches
March 25-26, 1970 14.3 inches
December 22-23, 1969 11.3 inches
January 26-27, 1967 23.0 inches
February 23-25, 1965 11.5 inches
December 22-23, 1961 11.7 inches
December 19-20, 1960 12.5 inches
March 2-3, 1954 11.8 inches
December 14, 1951 10.0 inches
December 5-8, 1950 13.3 inches
December 10-11, 1944 10.9 inches
January 30, 1939 14.9 inches
December 9-10, 1934 11.3 inches
February 6-7, 1933 12.7 inches
March 7-8, 1931 16.2 inches
March 25-26, 1930 19.2 inches
December 17-20, 1929 15.0 inches
March 30-31, 1926 12.6 inches
January 6-7, 1918 14.9 inches
January 12-14, 1910 10.2 inches
February 18-19, 1908 12.8 inches
December 12-13, 1903 11.6 inches
February 3-5, 1901 12.7 inches
February 28, 1900 11.3 inches
March 23-24, 1897 10.0 inches
February 12-13, 1896 12.0 inches
February 3-4, 1896 12.5 inches
November 25-26, 1895 12.0 inches
February 6-7, 1895 13.4 inches
December 27, 1894 10.1 inches
February 12-14, 1894 11.0 inches
January 18-20, 1886 14.0 inches
Great Post John Coleman!
I was a kid in the Chicago area in the 70’s. I was a weather nerd and always watched your nightly forecast on ABC channel 7, and Harry Volkman’s on WGN channel 9, and the CBS & NBC forecasts. I seem to recall another time where your forecast called for a huge amount of snow while the others’ didn’t. Your forecast turned out to be the correct one. This was in the early 70’s sometime.
Another Illinois snow event to take note of is the Winter of the Deep Snow. Travelers were trapped for long periods of time where they were when the snow came. Some travelers died along the road when the blizzard conditions struck. Men on horseback became trapped in the snowfall. The bodies of the fallen were not found until the snows melted long afterwards.
See:
http://www.illinoishistory.com/deepsnow.htm
First time/ long time and I just love this site and really appreciate all that Anthony and the moderators do to make this site informative and entertaining and civil too!
Charles the moderator says:
I really like the shot of the 66/67 Bronco tooling along next to all the other disabled cars.
(I own a 1970)
Growing up in Montana my older brother owned a Bronco and my uncle owned an International Harvester Scout. By looking at the rounded windows behind the door I believe it is a Scout and not a Bronco FWIW.
Also I haven’t seen anyone mention the article by Stephanie Pappas @ Live Science where she gets Michael Mann to say that this storm is the result of global warming and that we should expect more like this. See the article here on MSNBC. It is full of wonderful quotes for Michael Mann.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41393090/ns/technology_and_science-science/
I wonder how Rahm is taking advantage of this “crisis”?/only sort of sarc
Meanwhile in Del Rio, Texas right on the Mexican border (I was there for a wedding on 1/1/11) a record was set yesterday:
That’s quite a low maximum record. I expect a buttload of them will be set today as it’s barely 24 degrees in Austin right now. Not sure what the record is but it hasn’t been below 34 degrees on this date in at least 16 years. It is rare to get any daytime maximum in Austin that isn’t above freezing. I can only recall a couple of times in the past 18 years and it wasn’t this far below freezing on those occasions. The AGW faithful are going to be using the “weather isn’t climate” meme like crazy.
Doug Proctor says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:41 am
Fine summary of data significance, etc. I’ve saved the entire thing for future reference.
Thanks.
___
As for Juraj V.’s opening shot, it was an IQ test. Those who appreciate the obvious sarcasm get a pass. Everyone else … I extend my sympathy. But will henceforth ignore your opinions.
TC in the OC says:
February 3, 2011 at 11:42 am
“Also I haven’t seen anyone mention the article by Stephanie Pappas @ Live Science where she gets Michael Mann to say that this storm is the result of global warming and that we should expect more like this.”
Thanks for that link. This first sentence plus pretty much sums up the talking points:
“No single weather event can be directly attributed to climate change. But…”
P.S. I once had a 1970 Bronco too, and I think you are right about the identity of the vehicle in the photo.
The photo’s of Chicago now and then are great documentary evidence.
And I loved the old Movietone footage of winter 62/63 in the UK (I was born that year) posted on an earlier thread.
This whole “cold is the new warm” thing is getting a bit silly really. Talk about contortions! Orwell warned us all about all of this years ago; he knew what he was talking about.
“Cold is warm”, “war is peace”. Two and two make four but they can also make five. Easy when you sit in front of the TV for 3-4 hours per day, getting brainwashed to Falkirk.
The idea that there is an imminent victory for the skeptics is – I believe – optimistic at best.
Orwell said “if you want an image of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, for ever”.
But, as an individual human being with no political of religious affiliation, I would say that people can, working together, change things for the better on a large scale.
If Orwell’s warnings are heeded, then his prediction above can be avoided.
In ’67 I was a little boy living in a Chicago suburb. Our house was mostly buried. My dad lifted my brother and I out the top of the only clear window so that we could clear the front door. My dad, brother and I then spent the morning helping neighbors dig out. It was great fun. We moved to Phoenix that summer for some reason.
I’ve got 12 inches here in Central Illinois. There’s also a lot of snow on the ground 🙂
Olen said:
“Great pictures. Google New York blizzard 1888 shows pictures indicating it was just as bad and maybe worse.”
Warning! Entering sarcasm zone…
But clearly global warming has made things vastly worse since then–just compare the number of automobiles stuck in snowdrifts in 1888 vs 2011!
Did any of the models predict the change from global warming to climate change?
We’re told these (in)famous Global Circulation Models hindcast global climate very very well. This was their validation I believe.
In the spirit of challenges being thrown down (Hi Roy) I challenge anyone to produce a GCM that hindcast the 1967 snow storms, or the 1974 Brisbane floods and TC Tracey.
Jimmy Haigh says:
“Did any of the models predict the change from global warming to climate change?”
No, but they nailed the “global climate disruption”.
Al Gore saying that this snowstorm was “consistent with” global warming
Of course it is !!! EVERYTHING is consistent with global warming !!! You know what you are if you think otherwise !!!
/sarc
PG-13: Contains shouting and repeated bangs. May contain traces of nuts.
…Just love it when Earth climate sits up and clouts the useless IPCC climate cabal across the face :-))
This winter and the doctored ‘warmest year ever’ data will be the final nail in the coffin of the CAGW scam and the more they try to deny the truth, the less even their die-hard hard ‘green’ supporters will believe them!
Americans are suffering from some serious memory problems. Maybe most of us are recently arrived illegal immigrants. Who knows?
Anyway, the blizzard of 2011 and that of 1967 are not that big a deal. I won’t take the time to remind you of ’76-79. Let me take 1982 in St. Louis. On February 28, 1982, I arrived home in a heavy snowfall. To get home, I had to park in what remained of a municipal parking lot about three blocks from my fashionably downtown apartment. In the parking lot, I was parking on top of maybe two inches of snow and next to a mountain of snow that filled the central lanes of the parking lot. In other words, a mountain of snow about 12 feet tall extended from one end of the rectangular public to the other, a distance of about 65 yards. That night another 18 inches was added. (The mountain of snow was created by city workers using front-end loaders over the preceding two months.) None of us thought any of this was extraordinary. And it wasn’t. What we have today is not extraordinary. No one would think it is except for the constant drumming of the media shouting that each weather event is UNPRECEDENTED. If this continues much longer, our children are going to be idiots, having no true beliefs about nature. Most people will tell you that annual summer heat is extraordinary. It is not. It is just the constant media drumbeat. What slime they are. (Maybe Trenberth and those guys who are trying to reverse the burden of proof are just victims of the media, thinking that all weather is now extraordinary.)
Speaking here as a survivor of the ’67 Blizzard, where just outside Battle Creek I witnessed first hand _their_ recorded 28 inches of the ‘white stuff’ … I had never before seen whole cars buried in drifts nor drifts extending up to rooftops …
.
Also – RADAR in Central Texas is now showing the snow prog’d to dump 1 to 3 inches on Texas again …
.
Global Warming causes unpreparedness for the advent of reality.
The reality is that the heat of the Planet is escaping out the poles.
Man has nothing at all to do with Global Warming, which has passed, except to prepare for the fall of Global temps.
And no, AGW did NOT predict these falling global temps until reality hit them in the face too.
And you can say that Global Cooling caused AGW to remake it’s sales pitch.
It’s still a highly backpeddled Lemon.
@ D Patterson. Thanks for the list. I lived in Chicago from ’98 to ’02, and I vividly remember the New Year’s day snow in ’99. I don’t know what the fuss is about. Snow, in Chicago, in winter? Hell yes!
The Weather Channel is talking about ‘historic’ snowfall. And they wonder why people stop hearing them.
Back in the day, “global warming” meant…warming. It is amazing what people believed back then. Luckily, our science has progressed to the point that we now understand that global warming is actually the cause of cooling. Isn’t science great!
Jurag’s post was accurately summed up by maggieblanco (if that is your real name).
And I don’t get the Bush thing. It was his fault.
Gore to Clinton “yes I did smoke pot but I never exhaled”.
Never mind. It’s a CO2 joke.
Sarc $@?
Crap I hate these ipads
… and then, there were six more inches of snow on our ground; that’s the report out of McKinney, Texas just to my north ….
BTW, they have brought in snow plows from Amarillo to help keep the highways clear in the DFW and Arlington Texas area … witnessed them in action via CBS11 video feed off a TXDOT (Texas Dept. of Transportation) highway camera not 15 mins ago.
.
From 2001 through Dec, 2010 the atmospheric CO2 increased by 21.8% of the total increase from 1800 to 2001 while the average global temperature has not increased significantly and the average of the five reporting agencies has been declining rapidly since the peak of the last El Nino in March 2010. The 21.8% CO2 increase is the significant measurement, not the comparatively brief time period.
THE FACTORS THAT RESULTED IN THE 20th CENTURY GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RUN-UP HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED.
The contribution of added atmospheric carbon dioxide is between small and insignificant. The time-integral of sunspot numbers (which correlates with the average altitude and thus average temperature of clouds) and effective sea surface temperature are the main contributors.
A simple equation, with inputs of accepted measurements from government agencies, calculates the average global temperatures since 1895 with 88% accuracy (87.6% if CO2 is assumed to have no influence). See the equation, links to the source data, an eye-opening graph of the results and how they are derived in the pdfs at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true (see especially the pdfs made public on 4/10/10 and 6/27/10).
The future average global temperature trend that this equation calculates is down.
Maybe the beginning of an ice age (or “little ice age”, 1650 to 1750) starts with the warming of the equatorial oceans. This might make since because to have significant ice and snow pile up in the northern hemisphere (Chicago and Great Lakes) requires large quantities of water vapor to be transported to the Polar Regions where it falls as snow. In this way global warming or equitorial warming occurs at the same time that the poles cool down.
Increased snowfall is NOT a consequence of man made global warming. It is a consequence of a natural increase in warm moist air hitting cold dry air to form snow as the dew point drops at or below the freezing point. Just as there is natural warming to put the moisture in the air, there has to be a counter balancing natural cooling event to take it out. All of this is withing the natural variability of changing global temperatures. Check out this site:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/01/noaa-confirms-recent-global-temperature-change-is-historically-small-warming-is-decelerating.html
The first chart depicts NOAA/NCDC dataset of the annual global temperature changes from 1880 to 2010 vs rising levels of CO2. It is obvious that these rising levels of ppm CO2 have had little to no impact on the annual global temperatures. Look at the 3d chart. Those who claim unprecedented global temperature increases in the last decade due to CO2 must be reading a page from the book of scientific stupidity.
CodeTech
Seriously, Juraj needed to add a /sarc ???
Honestly, that was so obvious I can’t imagine taking it seriously!
What’s so frightening is that so many do.
Tonus
“To sum up: it’s happened before, therefore the cause is the same.”
We’re supposed to accept that it’s happened before, but this time the cause is different.
Makes me tired…
In logic it is well known that a false antecedent implies any conclusion. That is, if A is false, then
For any statement B, whatsoever!
Obviously, the converse is true: the only kind of statement A with this property is false.
Therefore it is natural that, the more outcomes are understood to be “consistent with the predictions of Anthropogenic global warming” the more likely it is that the AGW hypothesis is false.
I think we’ve got ample evidence from the hundreds of stories like this that AGW is a fairy tale.
I come from south western part of India, a place called Udupi. We have seen all the
three weather, Summer, Winter and Rainy; But only until 1989. Later, after 1989, I never felt winter season. Udupi is at the sea level and throughout the year the warm
sea wind keeps the coastal Udupi region humid and hot. But this gets worst around 2001 onwards, the heat here in summer from December to August is intolerable and
then from August to December the Monsoon season we observe heavy rainfall and there is no sign of winter season. Now in 2011 its still the same condition here.
Heavy snow in places where its suppose to be hot climate and Hot climate where its suppose to be snowfall. This is the situation now. Unpredictable climate. Of course this has happened many times from ages. Now in Bangalore India, the garden city of India, we see only concrete forest and rising traffic and untimely rainfall. Bangalore
used to observe a dry and a pleasant weather even in summer, but now in February 2011 we observed hot weather for a week followed by untimely rain and cold weather.
Of course the emission made by vehicles and industries contributes to GW is negligible when compared to the radiation from a Nuclear test and CO2 and SO2 emitted from a Volcanic Eruption.