From the “it’s weather not climate department” – I never thought I’d see this today on the header of the Houston Chronicle:
The snow is the earliest on record. Of note is the fact that in 2008, it snowed in Houston on December 10th. Place your bets for next year.
Houston braces for about 2 inches of snow
Some in Houston area may even see half a foot of the white stuff
By ERIC BERGER and PEGGY O’HARE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Houston this morning broke a record with the earliest snowfall ever recorded in the city’s history.
Forecasters are still hedging their bets on the amount, but say the most likely scenario is 1 to 2 inches of widespread snowfall through the day. Some areas could get up to a half a foot.
Light snow already was falling downtown and in other areas before 8:30 a.m. Other forms of precipitation — such as rain, freezing, rain, sleet and hail — also have been reported. Houston’s main weather recording station at Bush Intercontinental Airport reported at trace of snow at 8 a.m., meaning Dec. 4 will go down as the new record.
But emergency management officials say snow isn’t the biggest concern — it’s icy roads. A 12-hour freeze period is expected to begin after sundown today, continuing into Saturday, which could cause hazardous driving conditions.
A freeze warning has been issued for more than 20 Texas counties, including the coastal counties of Chambers, Galveston, Brazoria, Matagorda and Jackson, extending northward through Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Wharton and Liberty counties, then stretching as far northwest as the cities of Bryan and College Station and as far northeast as Trinity and Polk counties.
“Even though we can’t say for sure this weather event is going to occur, we can definitely say our confidence has increased substantially compared to three or four days ago,” said Fred Schmude, a meteorologist with ImpactWeather, a private, Houston-based forecasting service.
==================
In other news:
Dr. James Hansen is coming to Houston to promote his new book Storms of my Grandchilden.
Is he thinking snowstorms?
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How many sheeple out there know that we have been in a solar minimum for more than two years? Who will tell them this information?
There’s more important climate “science” happening in Denmark. What’s a little snow in the deep south? Happens all the time.
Nothing to see, move along.
Correction:
Houston braces for about 2 inches of global warming.
Now how ever will the models explain this?
Oh, that’s right – this is weather and not climate.
Off topic, but I was looking at one of my favorite old Climate audit posts, and thought we should revisit it.
It starts:
Adjusting USHCN History
by Steve McIntyre on February 16th, 2007
Although the USHCN version used in Hansen’s 1999 press release seems to be expunged from official U.S. government records, it was fortunately preserved by John Daly.
and ends:
The effect of the adjustments since 2000 has been to bring the USHCN history more in line with the CRU version. One wonders exactly what adjustments have been performed by CRU and others
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1142
I remember the cold snap in Texas around 1980. Suddenly a whole bunch of people found out what freeze plugs in engines were.
Well I am about to cycle home some 4 miles. from the Medical center in Houston.
Wish me luck!
Snow, they call this snow. I was in East Lansing, Michiganfor 4 years; now that was SNOW.
Snowing? In Houston? Texas? On December 4th?
It’s a travesty!
So that’s why they changed the brand to Climate Change 🙂
Sorry for the people of Houston, but this is priceless.
I’m waiting for the headline: “Great global warming prophet unable to preach because of early snow in Texas.”
And at least you can relax in Houston because that’s the hurricane season (officially) over.
It may be colder in Houston, but globally, it’s getting warmer. There’s been a huge temperature increase just north of outer Mongolia. Trust me. I have the data here, somewhere, wait, no? Well, I have the adjusted data which is all you really need to see.
I’m in Grand Rapids, MI right now. It is SNOW outside! It’s good for the tow truck guys–lots of people sliding off the roads.
Off topic, but this has been on my mind. AGW faithful are not following a religion, but a cult. They’ve been up on a mountain waiting for the end, and a bit befuddled now that it isn’t coming.
I remember people skiing on an overpass on the Southwest Freeway in 1989, but I think that was closer to Christmas. A lot of palm trees got killed that year.
I rode my bike to work on snow packed roads at 6F in Colorado today. Yesterday the high was 16F, 30 degrees below normal.
The animated Hudson Bay low spins and pumps COLD air through the Canadian
plains, from the Dakota and Wyoming to points south:
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/us_comp/us_comp.html
Galveston with a FREEZE warning!
This local weather is enough to stunt your trees.
Shiver me timbers !
Sorry everyone I am skeptical (or a denier) of everything I read. I will believe it when I see it and so far I don’t see snow on the live Houston traffic cams. http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/cctv/transtar/
It might be snowing but nothing it on the ground yet according to the cams.
REPORT FROM HOUSTON 12 Noon CST
Snowing pretty hard west-to-east across the city. Surface temps are consistently around 32-33 deg F.
The wife reports accumulations already in Downtown (so much for the heat-island effect). Forecasted accumulations up to SIX INCHES east of downtown.
Many businesses are closing early today, as we really aren’t equipped for this in any way shape or form. PLOW? You want a PLOW? How many bottoms?
Temps overnight forecast in the low 20s F. (it would sound more impressive in Celcius, I admit) with horrific icy road conditions for Saturday.
I must say that Al Gore DID get something right: this Anthropogenic Global Warming is a real bitch.
Buy coal.
This explains it all. ☺ ☺
(Perhaps posted in another thread.)
R.S. Brown. You can blame us up here in the Frozen North. We are being attacked by a giant lizard here on the southern Canadian Plains. Ooops. Sorry..typo.. that’s a blizzard. (WKRP joke.)
Re: ShrNfr
Funny you should say that. In fact they are casting plugs and not freeze plugs. But they might save your engine all the same. And yes, that is exactly where and when I had mine popped out so we share some history.
‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. ‘
Trenberth, K, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37
Here in Houston,
Just walked through some of the white stuff to grab a sandwich. It’s not sticking though…..yet. Funny thing is the local radar isn’t showing it as snow.
The fun part will be tonight after the wet roads freeze.
You are watching the snow out of context! What does snow mean … … well, forget it!
Snow in Houston ANYTIME of the year is big news. I lived there for twenty years and saw it maybe once. Except for the air pollution, winters in Houston are usually pleasant.
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” Politicians and tyrants are more to be feared than climate changes.
Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the LORD for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” 2 Samuel 24:14
Snow expected tonight where I live too, on the MS Gulf Coast.
Southern France 15 miles from the Med.
First air frost in my garden
2009 16th Oct
2008 15th Nov
2007 30th Nov
Local (anecdotal) opinion for earliest frost is 15th Dec.
Yes it’s just weather, but if it had pointed the other way it would have been evidence of global warming.
RE:
“Denbo (10:02:18) :
Sorry everyone I am skeptical (or a denier) of everything I read. I will believe it when I see it and so far I don’t see snow on the live Houston traffic cams. http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/cctv/transtar/
It might be snowing but nothing it on the ground yet according to the cams.”
If you check
FRY(w)
MASON(w)
SH99
SH99(w)
PEDERSON(e)
traffic cams you will see both blowing snow and ground sticking snow in the images
Do people have furnaces in Houston?
Cold kills more people than heat. My parents live in Florida now but we’re from PA. Down South, particularly south Florida, a lot of people don’t have furnaces (or winter gear, for that matter) because they don’t need them so people freeze to death. Last year temps went down to 20 degrees for several days. (This in a place where people are cold if it drops below 65.) People were warned to stay indoors or if they had to go outside to stuff their coats. Crops were killed and so were fish–water temps went to the 40’s.
My dad installed a furnace and a generator. He worries more about cold than he does about hurricanes.
I hope the global warming people ARE right–give me warm any day. The alternative is too awful to think about.