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.
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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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Gordon Brown, UK PM, describes regulars at this site as ‘flat earthers’!
LOL
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100018945/gordon-brown-says-james-delingpole-and-the-climate-change-sceptics-are-flat-earthers/
This is the death blow for AGW – the curse of Jonah
Eric Berger’s blog, ‘sciguy blog’, is an excellent source for good science journalism in general.
He has lifted the quality of science journalism in Houston greatly.
He is open about his views on climate issues, but is honest enough to let the facts and the issue be properly represented.
Our office is being shut down for this trifle of weather. and we are a New England based company!
With your cranky attitude, Noel, I think you may have been an eyewitness to the 20 inch event.
You need to produce data — unaltered, observable, and verifiable data — in support of your thesis. “Consensus” science is over. It’s back to the Karl Popper kind of science.
Hide the snow!
noel,
Please- polar bears starving?
Maybe from population pressure, since there are many more today than just 30 years ago.
Glaciers? Are you actually saying they are all melting?
Arctic ice? The ice is well within 30 year norms, and we know from history Arctic ice is highly variable.
And Antarctic ice is up.
So chill, and enjoy our wee bit of snow.
‘Your chance to question Ed Milliband (UK env minister) live over the phone this Saturday’:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/ConferenceCallGG?gclid=CKr_jqa7vZ4CFZQA4wodcERCmg#petition
On second thoughts I would recommend this week’s Spectator which has devoted quite a bit of space to authors questioning the dogma (Nils-Axel Morner, Bjorn Lomborg , Pual Reitter on Malaria amongst others) and a piece on the CIA’s global cooling fears in the mid 1970’s.
Pay no attention to the snowman in Houston.
An update on the situation in Canada. The National Post passes Rex Murphy’s commentary along in a major headline so I think the press is finally moving on this in Canada, but there is still a ways to go.
Still, we face a problem of the federal government being caught between a Rock and a hard place. Three of our largest provinces, BC, Ont, and Que, have passed cap and trade legislation that is entirely based on Copenhagen targets. The US president seems determined to do the same and to keep the federal plan from being squeezed economically the feds have had to switch from an emphasis on soft targets to 2020 to hard and fast targets which it intends to establish at Copenhagen. This is not over by a long shot. Trains with a full head of steam cannot stop on a dime. Hope we are not to late on climategate. The President needs to back down to take the pressure off Canada. Not likely at this point. Canadians need to pressure MP’s, and MPP’s.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/04/canada-s-public-television-commentary-says-climategate-spells-end-of-global-warming.aspx
This whole “weather not climate” thing is confusing. Isn’t climate the sum total of all local weather? Thinking in a Calculus sense…if you had an infinite number of perfect thermometers on the entire surface area of the Earth, and an infinite number of perfect weather balloons at all points in the volumetric space between Earth and outer atmosphere, and infinite number of [measuring device(n)] …wouldn’t that “weather summation” be Climate?
Global Warming causes Global Cooling observers in Houston to disavow any knowledge of Al Gore, Mann, Jones, Briffa, IPCC and all their minions.
But rest assured there are the faithful who would stand there and defend AGW until they froze to the ground.
Ain’t got the sense God gave a crowbar.
It looks like things are starting to tip. Here’s someone writing for Discover Magazine saying that scientists need to be better PR lobbyists:
“It’s up to us in the scientific community to figure out how to stay on message.”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/12/04/no-escape-from-climategate/
It gets worse as people jump on that saying that scientists shouldn’t be acting like politicians in the first place and the author tries to explain it away, but only buries herself deeper not realize how out of touch she is (I guess Shell supplied her blinders).
Now irony of ironies someone from CRU appears to have been woken up by climategate and says the exact opposite thing – scientists shouldn’t be playing politics at all and they also must be very transparent and willing to provide data to citizens as a whole:
http://invw.org/2009/12/scientist-whose-e-mails-were-stolen-in-climategate-calls-for-new-view-of-science-public/
Didn’t we just get a posting in here a few days ago about excessive snow in Mexico?
I guess the logic of paying thousands of dollars extra in taxes on fuel and energy bills is not so tempting now is it? I wonder how many believers are regretting dumping their 4X4 gas guzzler(US built) and buying an eco car right now?
Mr Obama and his plan to rescue the USA by drowning its people in debt and taxes and red tape and laws and regulations and federal busybodies is starting to look a little iffy right now eh? BUT……
Watch out and beware, it may appear to be snowing but that is just a carefully crafted ilusion by the denialist fox news loving republicans funded by big oil to lull you all into a false sense of freezing your ass off, they have fitted snow makers to their private jets in order to fool the masses into demanding lower taxes,higher domestic oil production and lower energy bills and more real industrial jobs(how dare they?). That noise above you now is Sen Inhoffe laughing, the real temperature has never been higher with record highs everywhere and polar bears drowning in record numbers.
So ignore the evidence and believe and repent and pay and obey your democratic high priests or hell fire and damnation will fall on you. Salvation through slavery is your only option.
The above was a party political communication brought to you by the democrats in association with acorn inc.
noel (11:04:06) :
“What are you guys going to say when the arctic sea is clear? It was always like that?”
Actually Noel, it was, IN 1954!
Bastardi used this photograph of a U.S. submarine at the North Pole on March 17, 1954 to illustrate his point that Arctic ice can be highly variable. See picture in this news atricle.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/5053-accuweathers-joe-bastardi-presses-case-against-global-warming-theory
John G. Bell (10:06:11) :
The Sabb 16 hp 2 cylinder diesel (fishing) boat engine has a freeze plug, perhaps that’s what ShrNfr was thinking of.
“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.”
Looks pretty white to me …
http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/cctv/transtar/by_roadway.html?mnu=freeway&rd=IH-610_West_Loop
Think WUWT just found Al’s hiding place ☺
@hunter (or anyone else)… I am on my phone so i can’t quote but, how much does soot from China and/or other countries come into play wrt Artic ice? I never see it discussed, but it seems to me to make a lot of sense…… Soot absorbing more energy and melting ice and snow. 1 + 1 = ?
Study: Slowdown in warming last year not permanent
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CCLC8O0&show_article=1
——–
…North America wasn’t as warm as expected because of cooler water in the North Pacific—a condition called La Nina—but the rest of the world continued to warm, researchers said Friday. The overall warming trend is expected to continue worldwide. ..
It is interesting that this article is co-written by Eric Berger. He is the Chronicle’s science reporter and was a full-blown AGW doomsayer. However, back in September he seemed to have a “road to Damascus” moment when he wrote:
“Earth seems to have, at least temporarily, stopped warming,” Berger wrote on September 6, 2009. “If we can’t have confidence in short-term prognosis for climate change, how can we have full confidence in long-term?”
Along with this:
“Do not misunderstand me. I am not a climate change skeptic. I do not deny that the planet warmed 0.6°C in the 20th century. I do not deny that humans played some part in that significant warming. But I am confused. Four years ago this all seemed like a fait accompli. Humans were unquestionably warming the climate and changing the planet forever through their emissions of carbon dioxide. The problem is that some climate scientists and environmentalists have been so determined to see something done about carbon dioxide emissions — now — that they have glossed over the uncertainties.”
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/09/the_more_i_study_climate_science_the_more_confused.html
Now he’s the co-writer on a news story regarding the earliest snowfall in Houston’s history. I think we’ve reached a tipping point.
I just double-checked my code. It’s actually sunny and unseasonably warm in Houston today.
I live in Houston and we have two inches so far. Global warming.
People have noticed the MSM’s lies of omission.
Hacked climate emails ‘ignored’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/hacked-climate-emails-ignored/story-e6frg6nf-1225807128478
We had a bit of snow here too this morning in the Fraser Valley, BC, Canada. The mountains have been snowcapped for more than a month now but I am pretty sure that in any case it is also earlier than last year. Last year, winter came in around Dec. 15th.
At least Noel knows that the main players of the “team” are numbskulls!