And that’s not all, for the week ending Dec 13th, there were 815 new snowfall records set. December 2009 is shaping up to be quite the snowmaker. Here’s a map showing continental USA records:
Here is the daily count data from NCDC, with links to tabular reports and source for the snowfall records:
Dec 20th 124
Dec 21st 50
Dec 22nd 75
Dec 23rd 71
Dec 24th 170
Dec 25th 235
Dec 26th 152
Total 877 (CONUS and Alaska)
Many of the records have been bested significantly, and there were a number of all time records broken as well.
For example, December 24th and 25th all time records:
Click tables for original source reports from NCDC.
Note that we saw the majority of records from the most recent snowstorm in places that are fairly far south of the major USA snow belt.
| 24 December 2009 | Lat | Lon | ASOS/
COOP |
COOP/
WBAN ID* |
Record
New (4) Tied (0) |
Previous
Record |
Previous
Date |
Period
of Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIV OF MINN ST PAUL, MN | 44.98 | -93.18 | COOP | 218450 | 6.7 in | 4.0 in | 9 Dec 2009 | 31 |
| SHERBURN 3 WSW, MN | 43.63 | -94.77 | COOP | 217602 | 4.0 in | 3.0 in | 22 Dec 2009 | 62 |
| OK CITY WILL ROGERS AP, OK (KOKC) | 35.39 | -97.60 | ASOS | 346661 | 14.1 in | 8.4 in | 10 Mar 1948 | 69 |
| POST, TX | 33.20 | -101.37 | COOP | 417206 | 9.2 in | 9.0 in | 15 Mar 1969 | 100 |
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Once again, it is more useful to discuss research and relevant data than political opinion. So I offer the following:
http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/SPARC/News14/14_Baldwin.html
In what way does this article on the Arctic Oscillation help explain the record snowfall?
Question:
Is there a source to show the records set per week or month over time? I want to understand how unusual this number of new records is.
Just returned from wildfowling in the north of Scotland and although I didn’t quite reach the northern extremity I travelled back to the Solway on the English border through fields heavily covered in snow and with difficult driving conditions for most of the journey. It seems to me that the whole country is blanketed in snow. These conditions have prevailed for over a week with temperatures down to -16C in places at times and they are forecast to continue for several days yet.
But it’s just weather…………extreme weather……………….again?
I hope this whimsical observation touches no raw nerves, and that Pamela, whose erudite thoughtful contributions I have enjoyed immensely this year, doesn’t get tetchy with me and ask for empirical evidence to back it up!
Pamela,
As an admirer of your contributions here, and I understand your position as a teacher, I have to ask, are you saying you have no knowledge of widespread classroom AGW peddling?
IMO that would be remarkable given that it is so widespread.
As widespread as our newspaper and most goverment agencies advocacy of AGW has been.
I lost track of how many times I was told of lessons and/or shown curriculum material. It isn’t a secret. Far from it.
It sounds like your own school system is doing a good job, however, so a hat tip for that.
From Boston, my 2 cents.
Today, it was 55 Deg. and raining. Melted the foot of snow we got a week ago.
From what I hear, there’s an El Nino coming down the pike. My understanding is it’ll warm up the world but drop a bucket load of snow on the Northeast. Oh, well.
The AGW’ers will crow about the temperature increase. But I would use Lubos Motl’s analysis (on another WUWT thread) to counter that that means we’re back on track on the global warming trend. But I don’t think we’ll know that for about a year from now. In the interim, let Climategate rule on the basic data!
About the AO index NOAA’s stating the AO index is to stay largely below -3.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml
The NAO is also slated to go through a 2nd drop before even having the chance to hit positive values
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.shtml
Could this mean, combined with ENSO, more mega snow storms for the Northern Hemisphere?
Recent lows in the daily SOI gave the ENSO SST’s a kick upwards, but like any good rollercoaster it’s on its way up again for about the 3rd time, this Nino being a Modoki
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/30DaySOIValues/
You can take the teacher out of the school for the holidays, but you can’t take “school” out of the teacher for the holidays. I’ll stand by my remark. If you want to debate the larger issue of whether or not AGW hype is a teacher’s fault, you had better be ready to back it up as studied fact, not anecdotal opinion.
Anecdotal observations are one thing, conclusions are another. Not even Evil Knievel could jump the chasm necessary to go directly from one to the other, from teachers to AGW blame.
Pamela Gray says:December 27, 2009 at 9:31 am
If (for argument sake)) many cold weather events do not make a cooling climate then in a similar logic it appears you would agree that any parent/teacher individual experiences about AGW indoctrination do not make any case that there is a general agenda by AGW leaders in education?
I am ineterested in how one goes from many specifics to a more general statement.
John
Roger (13:58:10) :
The simplicity of it being much the same way the year before lays fresh on the memory. Before too long, it will sweep away the layers of brainwashing as the cold reality sets in.
Just like it did the last time, what was it, in the late 40’s?
The 6 part “The Cloud Mystery” starting at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA&feature=related is good.
JerryM (14:15:54) :
According to Piers Corbyn, we have only to wait 24 to 48 hours for an answer as to what lies ahead.
Eventually, Earth’s orbit takes us to NH summer where warming is to be found, but I doubt that is comfort to AGW which would have us wiping the sweat from our foreheads in the dead of winter.
A little humor from The Onion
“Despite its negligible impact on the population at large, the sudden dearth of experts is expected to be devastating for the American media, particularly TV newsmagazines, which have come to heavily rely on experts for their incisive, time-filling punditry.”
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_experts_give_up?utm_source=onion_rss_daily
” photon without a Higgs (12:37:53) :
Slioch (10:29:59) :
There’s always a small number of cold and warm records broken like the ones you point out in your comment. What is noteworthy is the large number of snowfall records. These were not predicted to happen in global warming.”
The snowfall events may be noteworthy of themselves, but they are not necessarily indicative of cooler conditions. In this particular case, in the USA for this week, there are actually more warm records than cool records. This is consistent with the expectation that a generally warmer atmosphere contains more moisture and will therefore produce more precipitation. In winter that commonly falls as snow.
Where you are being misled is by the unstated impression that snow indicates colder conditions: it does not.
“MrPete (13:54:16) :
Question:
Is there a source to show the records set per week or month over time? I want to understand how unusual this number of new records is.”
see: http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,lowmax,highmin&s=20090211&e=20090211
and put in the date and period. As far as I can see, the longest period available is one week. So you would have to gather the data one week at a time. I have looked in occasionally and do not recall a week without many record events. Warm records generally exceed cold records, as has occurred this last week.
In thinking about all the wonderful, white snow most people are having I started thinking about AGW scientists and there supposed ability to say what the weather is going to be like 50 or 100 years from now but not able to say what it will be like in 5-10 yrs.
Scientists claiming they can predict with 90+% certainty what the climate will be 50 or 100 years from now but really have no way of predicting what it will be 5 or ten years from now defies logic.
For arguments sake, lets assume what they claim is true. That would mean if they take all their data up to the year 1965 (no data after 1965 can be used because for the purposes of this calculation it “doesn’t exist yet”) and run it thru their models they should easily be able to predict with better than 90% probability what the weather will be like in 2010.
Or expressed another way, they claim they can now predict what the weather will be like in 2060 based on what they know now, but by the time 2055 rolls around, they will now have no clue what 2060 will be like.
Bottom line, if your model is no good for 5 years from now, its worthless for 50 years from now too.
Garacka (12:22:31) :
P Gosselin (11:33:22) :
I was going to suggest putting the UEA CRU whistle blower at the top of the list as that event was a singular tipping point, but there would likely have been another event in the future if this one didn’t happen, and it was McIntyre’s tireless and brilliant due diligence that “allowed” many of these e-mails to have to have been written, so, I agree with McIntyre being #1. Regarding #2, I would suggest it is Anthony and Company, and the whistle blower is 3rd.
I would have thought that the inventor of the internet would have gotten a mention for providing the technology to enable all the dissent from the dominant AGW paradigm – wouldn’t that be – as self proclaimed – Mr Al Gore.
Hey Midwesterners and East Coasters,
We in the Golden State will gladly take your excess precipitation off your hands. Just send it our way and we can make good use of it.
@george E. Smith (12:59:51)
“So how about it ABC/channel 4; where did you come up with that insane story.”
Most likely they got it from here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091223133337.htm
EDITORIAL: Biased reporting on ClimategateRate this story
Associated Press coverage raises eyebrows
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/28/biased-reporting-on-climategate/
@Pamela Gray
When there are anomalous high temps in the Arctic, that is the time to look for dropping temps in the NH.
r (08:12:32) :
Forget the main stream media. The real roots of this movement, strangely enough, are in grade school and collage teachers.
You’re spot on and don’t let anyone, anyone, tell you that your wrong!
This AGW alarmism is now firmly entrenched in the UK ‘education’ system. From what I’ve read from others it’s not just the UK system either!
You’re worried about your kids being force-fed propoganda and that is precisely how you should be feeling.
Don’t worry about being lectured about how wrong you are by quoting your subjective experiences as being part of the general situation. Your kids education is at stake here. Your determination to get something done is admirable!
Keep fighting.
For all the talk about this El Nino ushering in a record 2010 temperature year, keep an eye on the SOI. It isn’t even close to 1997-1998 or even 2003 at this point. I just don’t see the numbers adding up.
The effects El Nino has on global temps appear to be directly tied to SOI, with the timing (start) and persistence of SOI being the lagging indicator of temperature.
The 30/90 day SOI average is currently at -10.82/-11.02 respectively, and may be waning. This is nowhere in the vicinity of a precursor for scorching temps in 2010 IMO. Unless SOI makes another turn back into negative territory, deepens and persists there, my suspicion is El Nino is getting way too much attention and just might end up being a 2007 redux with 2010 year end moving strongly into La Nina territory.
Watch SOI!
While it has been a while since I’ve been in the classroom (either as an instructor or student), last year my daughter was going to the University of Utah on a full-ride chemistry scholarship. She lamented to me about one of her chemistry teachers that was completely in love with Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. This same teacher was shocked when she discovered that out of all the class, the majority had not seen it. Yet she was completely in synch with the concepts. So much for indpendent thought by that professor.
I’m not saying teachers are easily brainwashed–I’m not in the position to do that study. However, the gospel of AGW is alive and well in our education system, where it should never appear at all!
Can you imagine how stupid these people are going to look 20 years from now when all the industrial nations have taken up cap-and-trade and destroyed their economies while the Chinese, Brazilians and Indians have become the economic leaders of the world? Hey, China’s agriculture output has increased 25% in the last two decades because of additional CO2–why on earth would they want to reverse that benefit? And their per-capita income has increased way more than that since their electrical grid has expanded–in a way it’s a win-win scenario: Their coal-fired electrical plants indirectly feed their rice-generating plants.
I say let’s do a science experiment–let’s all jump on the AGW bandwagon and give it 100% for the next two decades. What? No takers? You’re not willing to live like your ancestors did circa 1880? You don’t want to drive a buggy and plow your fields with a horse? Burning kersoene lamps in the evenings isn’t a winning idea? Sounds like a lot of fun to me…
Ok. I’ll just file that last paragraph under “abject ridicule”.
Excuse me, am i insane or is the BBC insane?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/12/are_our_children_the_real_climate_criminals.html
King of Cool (12:58:58) : You wrote: “ What I cannot understand is why this is not reflected in Arctic Ice Extent?”
I looked at the ice extent graph Anthony links to along the upper right side (AMSR-E) and saw nothing out of line.
Ice on the Arctic Ocean has been discussed numerous times on WUWT. It is a complex subject but several things come to mind. When the ocean surface freezes it is first thin and can be broken up and moved by winds and currents. Or if the current is warm some might melt. It can pile up and become ridged and thick – unlikely to melt during the next summer unless it is flushed out of the Arctic bowl into lower latitude. But when it piles up there is less extent. Then more ocean surface shows, and now exposed to the cold gives off more energy than when it is covered by a few inches of ice. There is no sun input now so there is no energy input from above. Bottom line is that one should not expect a smooth upward curve in ice extent unless wind and currents cease.
Oh, one ought not take Nsidc’s word, or image in this case, as gospel.