I don’t know if this is a record or not for Christmas coverage, but it is certainly reminiscent of the winter of 1977-78 where we had similar bouts of cold and snow. About 99% of Canada has snow cover also, with some parts of the Pacific Coast excepted, and it appears that all of Canada’s Lakes are frozen as indicated by the “yellow ice” in the photo. Here is the latest (Updated for 12/25/09) from NOAA:
From the National Operational Hyrdologic Remote Sensing Center here is the satellite snow depth map and the hard data on coverage:
December 25, 2009
| Area Covered By Snow: | 63.0% |
| Area Covered Last Month: | 10.4% |
| Snow Depth | |
|---|---|
| Average: | 5.0 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 889.2 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 7.0 in |
| Snow Water Equivalent | |
| Average: | 0.9 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 437.5 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 1.5 in |
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Ryan C (14:48:44) :
“Hmm, I live in Nova Scotia, East coast of Canada and we had a bunch of snow about a week ago, but it has since rained and mostly melted. There is a bit of frozen snow here and there, and some snowbanks from where the plows pushed it all, but definately not a “White Christmas”. Don’t know why it shows it as white on that map… but it is chilly that’s for sure.”
It appears most of Nova Scotia’s reporting stations are showing current snow. The exception being along the middle east coast, an area too small to be significant on the large map. It’d be on the black outline.
Dec 19th did kill a low temp record from Dec 19th 1963, by 5.8 °C
(1963, -7.1, 2009, -12.9)
Dec 20th did kill another one.
Inbetween we got the rather warm phase before/after XMas.
The real cold here will start on 28th/29th, as usual.
Fair chance, it won’t end before Feb 20th, and it will be colder
than ’05, colder than ’06, colder than ’07, colder than ’08,
number five in the row.
Last time the winters here got colder year by year, more than
3 years in a row, was in the 190x-192x years, and then it was
poor-freaking-[snip]-damm-cold. Compared to that, the
winters of the end-fifties and early seventies were a warm spell.
As a kid, they did still seem cold to me.
Thanks to Santa, I now have a basic weather kit. The BA is 29.92, the humidity 56%, outside temp is 60 degrees, with 0 mph wind.
It is blue sky’s on the Southern part of the Oregon Coast, at about 1/4 mile from the beach at 300 ft of elevation. Its been shorts weather for the last few days, after a week of wind and non stop rain.
Merry Christmas to one and all,
Jack
Where did all the yellow ice in the great lakes go? None in the photo now… Are they messin’ wid us?
Yeah, but it’s Global Warming Snow. Not real snow.
rbateman (14:53:24) :
u.k.(us) (14:38:56) :
the glorious thing about this weather, is that you/we all saw it coming! quiet sun, etc.
We saw this coming, the literature says this is what we should be expecting, and here it is, quiet sun and all.
The real question is:
What exactly is “Their” problem?
“They” have the no less access to the literature than we do.
“They” had to know what was coming.
Yet, for all that, they stand there and watch as Rome freezes over.
They should ask thier doctor if Reality is right for them
===================================
you are absolutely right, never thought of it that way.
Still wondering what happend to our summer. Usually our temps are between 30-35degC. Only have had a couple of days that just made 30. Nights are chilly, still have a blanket on the bed !!
I guess I’ll have to use the boat more often, warming the planet 8 cylinders at a time !!!
We had snow on the ground, but in northern Indianan, we had rain almost all day today (Christmas) so we now have green lawns and muddy fields. I understand that the rain has been widespread in the American Midwest.
“Andrew (14:59:40) :
Spare a thought for all the climate modellers in 2010.”
Imagine how much worse it’ll get for them in the following years, assuming the PDO cool phase picks up steam and/or the solar minimum worsens. They’ll be removing themselves from reality more and more.
Has anybody thought this through: Given that CO2 is absorbing and re-emitting infrared rays and it occurs with 270 to 388 ppm in the atmosphere, doesn’t really matter how much, how big is the chance of any one infrared ray (in the affected absorption band of CO2) emitted from earth’s surface to reach space without being absorbed by a CO2 molecule?
According to Svante Arrhenius, the inventor of CO2’s greenhouse effect, a doubling of CO2 increases the radiative forcing by a constant like
ΔF = α ln(C/C0)
but does this make sense? Shouldn’t earths atmosphere not be entirely opaque with 270 ppm already, given that our infrared ray has to travel through 80 km of atmosphere? (Granted, it gets thinner the higher you go,
so the first 10km make the biggest difference) Has anybody tried to compute this? I would like to know the probability of a ray to get through all this CO2 containing atmosphere unscattered.
Great site! Short-wavelength disturbances travel very slowly to the west, but since the general flow of air is west to east they appear to us stationary folks as moving rapidly east (think Alberta Clippers). Long wavelength disturbances move far faster westward, and adding the general flow of the atmosphere, end up looking like they flow very slowly east. This wave is quite large, and it is embedded in a slow west to east general flow; so, it ends up drifting west. It is heading straight back toward me. I wish I could just experinece winter on the net, rather than sit here in a blizzard.
I’m in Michigan at the Indiana/Michigan line. It rained all day, now it’s starting to snow. We’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, Australian climatologists are noting that tropical Pacific water temperatures are the hottest since the extreme el nino of 1998, suggesting that 2010 may become the warmest year for global mean temperature in the instrumental record.
Jim (15:15:18) :
The Sun is blank again.
… oh, now I have to go look 🙁 Merry Christmas to you too!
Maunder? or Dalton?
“Bill D (16:04:31) :
In the meantime, Australian climatologists are noting that tropical Pacific water temperatures are the hottest since the extreme el nino of 1998, suggesting that 2010 may become the warmest year for global mean temperature in the instrumental record.
”
Yes but poster #4 on this thread (ATTN! link to the EVIL side!) notices something strange going on in Peru:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/25/australia-weather-bureau-pacific-ocean-surface-temperatures-el-nino-science/#more-16655
No power for us last night in SW Minnesota. Finally came on at 7AM today after 18 hrs. Whoever got it running was a real hero in some aspects. Couldn’t be worse weather to work in — snow, blowing, roads impassable, etc.
Bill D (16:04:31) :
Please qualify that with some numbers.
The hottest day the past 2 months here was 73 degrees. The 2nd warmest was 60 degrees. If tomorrow the thermometer hits 61, and I say “This is the 2nd hottest day sine November, does it mean a December heat wave has struck the likes of which are the most profound since the instrument was invented?
What numbers do you have that suggest 2010 is going to be an El Nino Barn Burner?
the “rbateman” is baiting us. do we take the bait??
Here’s the worm on the end of the hook:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Read the table at the end of the pdf for the definition of how long and under what circumstances a positive anomaly has to persist and be forecasted to continue to qualify for El Nino Status.
Then compare 1982, 1988 and 1998 to the present 3 month running figures.
If you think this storm and the one that occurred five days ago is something, just wait until New Year’s Day or just after. A big one may becoming to the Eastern USA again. Oh the inhumanity that the AGW crowd suffers at the hands of Mother Nature.
Ah yes, 1978. I remember it well. My snowblower was able to go about 15 feet before it blew a chain link to the auger in the “Blizard of 78” in Boston. Better prepared this time. Better snow blower and my son has a off road F-150 equipped with a plow. None the less it shut Newton, MA down for a week. Break out the old sled from the garage and walk to the grocery store.
Worst case, I can exist off the grid. Can I send any bills for damages to Al Gore?
@ur momisugly DirkH Please remember that we are now in the downslope of the AMO. It is simply not going to get any warmer than it is now in the northern hemisphere all else equal. It is not for nothing that I have equipped myself to exist off the grid if necessary.
the thing that really scares me is that obama et,al are still defending this crap. i think they will need to back off slowly, because the brainwashed masses will have a hard time with the new “world view”. maybe they will teach science in the schools again. (there was no agenda when i was in school,just science as we knew it). a 10 year loss of some of our best minds, criminal.
Speaking of forecasts and El Ninos,
“Expected El Niño impacts during December 2009-February 2010 include…
Below-average snowfall and above-average temperatures are most likely across the northern tier of states (excluding New England), while below-average temperatures are favored for the southeastern states.”
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
Kind of bassackwards at the moment.
“ShrNfr (17:13:37) :
@ur momisugly DirkH Please remember that we are now in the downslope of the AMO. It is simply not going to get any warmer than it is now in the northern hemisphere all else equal. It is not for nothing that I have equipped myself to exist off the grid if necessary.”
I was thinking of the PDO cool phase wrecking the proposed Super El Nino. We’ll see. But you’re right about the AMO as well. I wonder how long my beloved german politicans (all having embraced Kyoto heartily) will be able to ignore reality.
As for the grid here in Germany: At least not one evil CO2 emitting power plant got shut off. We need them all in standby to kick in when the wind doesn’t blow. So we will still be able to cope. BTW all our emissions reductions compared to 1990 we achieved by shutting down communist-era plants in the ex-GDR. So kyoto wasn’t all that difficult for us. We simply de-industrialized the part of the country that wasn’t so economic anyway.
I notice the satellite Daily Arctic Sea Ice Map shows only the Northern Shore of Hudson Bay covered with ice. While NOAAH’s map shows it 100% covered with ice. WUWT?