Forecasts call for another 20 inches of snow in Washington DC with snow spreading to NYC this time.
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — Storm systems barreling across the country may bring as much as 20 inches (50 centimeters) of new snow to Washington and Baltimore starting late tomorrow, while New York may receive a foot, forecasters said.
With the Washington-Baltimore area still digging out from a weekend storm that left record snowfalls in some areas, the latest blast of winter “is going to be accompanied by heavy winds, which will make it feel worse, and across the Northeast that wind is going to last through the weekend,” said Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.
A winter storm watch was posted today by the National Weather Service for New York, Long Island, southern Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts. A winter storm warning was posted for Washington starting at noon tomorrow, and 10 to 20 more inches may fall, the agency said.
more here
It has been pointed out before that these frozen wind turbines are not the ones dotting the prairies in their thousands, but some old, used ones designed for California. The new ones hereabouts keep on turning.
Ric, that is true. One of my great-aunt’s tenants disappeared in the Christmas storm and hasn’t been seen since. He was heading “up nort’ from Iowa.
Another thing you ought to have in your car survival kit is a coffee can with a lid. Think about it. One woman had to use her purse a year or two ago.
-pump- the breaks, so that you don’t spin out. Gently pump them. Front-wheel drive is diferent. You may actually want to accelerate.
Kay (06:24:40) :
I kept a warm sleeping bag in my car.
In the winter, I always, always keep extra blankets, sweatshirts, gloves, a 24-pack of bottled water, granola bars, protein bars, an extra cell phone charger, a shovel, kitty litter, and a broom in my trunk.
I keep the same, plus flashlight, toilet paper, and the most important necessity. A fifth of whiskey. Nothing beats a whiskey slushy when you’re in the ditch, even if it does cool you down.
25% of DC “snow plow fleet is down and they’re having trouble getting replacement parts…..Crews have been working non-stop since the blizzard on Friday…..also working to get Bobcats and other front loaders to help with snow removal.”
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1884422
Is this the Green Police?
RFK Jr. said snow storms like this couldn’t happen there anymore in Virginia because of global warming. If that was true this unbelievable incident couldn’t have happened:
Felony snowball throwing charges have been leveled against two Virginia college students for allegedly pelting a city plow and an undercover police car during Saturday’s blizzard.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0209101snow1.html
When I was a kid everyone threw snowballs at the snowplows! And they are slapping these kids with felonies no less!
AccuWeather.com
is now projecting that Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Wilmington (DE), Baltimore, Atlantic City and others will break their records for snowiest season in recorded history, after tomorrow’s storm
(in inches, current/record/expected after tomorrow):
Philly: 56.4 / 65.5 / 71.0
Atlantic City: 42.8 / 46.9 / 53.7
Wilmington: 53.9 / 55.9 / 67.3
Washington D.C.: 63.1 / 61.9 / 72.3
Baltimore: 60.4 / 62.5 / 74.6
http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?blog=Weathermatrix
Washington only had officially “only” 17.8 inches. The Washington Post article tries to explain why, while everybody else in the area got much more:
link
Urbanization doesn’t just affect the temperature.
Pamela Gray (05:55:48) :
You guys need to get a Jeep Commander with 4-wheel drive, a low-4 tow package, studs, and chains if ya need em.
Funny-the suvs are all the ones that see off the road in norhtern Vt. My Corolla-never once in 25 years of a 30 mile commute. It’s not what you drive-it’s how
That being said-crummiest snow year that I can remember since maybe the late 70’s here in VT.
Really, don’t forget the liquid – that’s what you need first nutritionally, not food per se. Overdo everything, especially sleeping bags and blankets, too. You won’t regret it. Take the whiskey if there’s any chance you’ll get caught outside of the Antarctic compound you’ve just had to completely burn down in order to destroy The Thing, like Kurt Russell did.
Or just don’t travel if things are shaping up too ominously. You can get stopped out there for days pretty easily, not only on the highwway. Around here where we’re fairly well prepared, once the Freeway froze up with a lot of cars stopped. But my neighbor jumped on his evil snowmobile and drove 70-100 miles up to rescue his stranded wife anyway. I think it was something about “sleeping on the couch” or something.
Hehe, try running around in three feet of snow with a “smart” car. You will be lucky to be able to see over the snowbanks at the intersections.
Dodged the bullet again here in southern Illinois. The storm that’s set to dump all kinds of more snow on the mid-Atlantic, once again, just gave us a dusting. It’s still cold as hell here, though. I know, I know, AGW-faithful…weather isn’t climate, and North America is sitting in an “anomaly.” Climate is a measure of, oh, I don’t know, average numbers of orgies, or something.
Glad we dodged the bullet again, because I’m not sure my Insight will handle much more snow 😛
John Innes (08:20:27)
Any bets on how long it will be before the AGW crowd agree that it is not getting hotter, and they start claiming the credit for saving the planet?
Interesting goad there
But what about the NASA claims that the “aughts” are still the hottest decade on record, with 2005 being the hottest year of all time since reliable records have been kept, and 2009 coming in second now?
Heavy snow or not, 2009 is not that darn long ago. Oh, and heavy snow is well within the predictions of AGW. More warming means more vapor is in the air now, and in winter (yes, it will be around for some time to come!) means that vapor is turned to snow under the right conditions.
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=249
Wakefield Tolbert (16:08:22):
“…heavy snow is well within the predictions of AGW.”
1. Everything is well within the predictions of AGW. You surely must have gotten the memo by now.
2. NASA is no longer credible. They just aren’t. They can not be trusted. Sorry ’bout that, they used to be my heroes, too. But they’ve fudged the numbers once too often.
3. Relax, the warmest year always comes back to trend: click. They said 1997-8 was the warmest. See? There’s nothing to get all upset about. CO2 isn’t gonna getcha.
Yeah–I saw the first one before. Thanks.
So…I’m imagining that it would do no good to post the thoughts of a physicist/aquaintence of sorts of mine who made the following observation in friendly jest with some of us over on MacClean’s online the other day to the effect of:
The polar ice cap is vanishing at a rate far faster than the worst IPCC predictions. Agriculture is suffering due to changes in climatological patterns, seen most profoundly at first in grain farming in Australia, precisely where predicted. 2009 saw the driest spring that Canadian agriculture has seen in the 70 years we’ve kept records of:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/canadas-p…
Low lying island nations such as Tuvalu are already being forced to begin relocating due to rising sea levels. An overwhelming majority of scientists globally concur on the basic facts. The so-called ‘climategate’ is climate change denial’s last gasp. Hackers stole ten years worth of emails, and they were scoured for anything that might appear damning, finding only two that have been endlessly paraphrased since. The term ‘trick’ is commonly used in science journals as an accepted clever methodology rather than an intent to deceive, and the study mentioned in the email that includes the word ‘trick’ plays no part in official IPCC findings. The ‘can’t explain the decline’ email refers to a study of tree ring formation, and rather than being a secret, the scientist who wrote the email also wrote a public article about his inability to explain his findings. Clearly we don’t know everything we might about tree ring formation, but AGW is happening. The science is unassailable, so now taking a couple of private emails out of context is the worst that denialism has left in its arsenal.
And thank fate for that, because the longer we linger in the first of five stages of grief, the deeper the knife will cut when we realize we have no other choice. Even if climate change were not real (it is) and we didn’t have anything to do with it (we do), the shift to more sustainable methodologies would be infinitely valuable in human health improvements and long term resource availability.”
Wakefield Tolbert (17:06:29) :
Yeah, it would be a waste of space to post that. Why? Because the base information on which it is based is dodgy at best. Just like the “115 year record hot” in the west of the USA “just as predicted”, only it wasn’t. It was a direct result of having only 4 thermometers left in the state being used in the GHCN data set. One at the airport in San Francisco and 3 near the beach in Southern California…
So, sea level rise? Nope. Pacific islands rise and fall with sea level. (There was an excellent posting here a ways back explaining island dynamics.) BTW, most of those Pacific islands are built on the tops of submerged mountains. Key words: “built” and “submerged”. Islands are an active process, not a static feature. FWIW, “The Big Island” of Hawaii is bigger than the others because it is still being built up over the hot spot. It will eventually join the chain of sinking ones (that used to be giants too) that ends about Midway where the submerge. Until you have a few feet of water in downtown New York, it’s mindless to talk about ‘sea level rise’. More so for Pacific Atolls and volcanic islands.
Similar issues apply to your other points. The polar ice cap, for example, is way within historic norms and is doing fine.
BTW, I’ve done a nice little “self to self” thermometer record analysis that shows the Pacific Ocean area has, since 1880 to 1995, warmed by exactly nil.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/dtdt-agw-ddt/
@Wakefield Tolbert (17:06:29) : Click on the “Categories” line in the sidebar, then click on “sea level” to find a list of relevant articles on the topic, with the most recent one by Willis E. on top. Reading that ought to take the air out of your faith in that and other warmist prognostications. Then check out other categories.
For instance, three years ago warmists like Lacis were sure they had their smoking gun in the supposed ice-melting in Greenland — which subsequently stopped.
@WT: Agriculture is always suffering somewhere or other. On the whole it’s doing well.
Certainly there are semi-innocent explanations for much of the Climategate material. But some of them won’t wash, when they’re really put in context, as for instance in the Mosher/Fuller Climategate book. Regardless, the leaders in the field of climatology come across as sharp-elbowed, narrow-minded zealots; hence their say-so on anything cannot be taken as authoritative enough to “bet the farm” on. Their findings and interpretations need to be reviewed by independent scientists from outside the snake pit of organized clime.
“An overwhelming majority of scientists globally concur on the basic facts.” It remains to be seen how many of them have reviewed and concurred with Hansen’s catastrophic/runaway scenario, as opposed to how many simply have accepted it without much thought, or who have accepted a non-catastrophic version of warming but not made a fuss about it in order to avoid rocking the boat. A very detailed questionnaire should be administered to a known and representative sample.
It should also be borne in mind that people who entered the field of climatology did so in many cases because they “wanted to make a difference” and/or because they were thoroughly indoctrinated in CAGWism in their training.
“AGW is happening. The science is unassailable,” — Care to make a bet? There are about ten available, under “Markets –> Climate & Weather,” here: https://www.intrade.com
Wakefield,
The numbers are “adjusted”, and always in a way to show higher temps. But that’s not all. Here’s a graph from CRU showing both hemispheres, and the global temperature: click. Notice that the global graph is higher than the total of the hemispheres.
And regarding Tuvalu, that story is so bogus. Here’s a John Daly graph of its supposedly rising sea levels: click
At nearby New Caledonia atoll, also no sea level rise: click
And finally, a decisive refutation of sea level rise: click
The rest of the comments from Treehugger are equally bad. They’ve all been deconstructed, every one of them.
I hope you get a chance to read John Daly’s paper. He covers the bases well.
Caleb (01:18:47) :
>I am always amazed by how poorly some people dress for winter driving.
For a while, especially when I’d often drive to Plymouth NH late at night, I kept a warm sleeping bag in my car. There are just too many stories about people sliding off the road in a snow storm and being found days later.
Once long ago…
Driving from a diving trip in Coos Bay Oregon back to Sacramento… the geniuses in charge decided to bring I-5 to a halt in the (just starting) blizzard to tell everyone the weather was bad. Of course, sit for an hour in falling snow and the road is not so good and moving again, not so easy. I had lost a chain (and learned about chain tensioners…) and ended up stuck in a drift by the side of the freeway in the Cascades near “Weed”. Very cold and snow falling.
Well, long story short, I bundled up in coat but it wasn’t enough. So I stripped, put on the wet suit from the dive, and re-dressed including coat. While my toes and nose were a bit cold, the rest of me was OK. About 4 am the snow stopped and I was able to clear enough of the snow to ‘rock’ the car back and forth enough to get out of the ‘divots’.
Freeway, now being closed behind me, was wide open. Stopped in Weed for coffee… wet suit and all. Only a few ‘funny looks’ in the cafe 😉
Once after a toll booth all the traffic wound up in the passing lane which had visible pavement. The right lane was well (not too well) packed snow and I had it all to myself for a few miles.
Same trip, after coffee, driving on clear ‘passing lane’ behind slug. About 4 inch ice / pack snow shelf in ‘slow lane’. Having grown up in farm country on mud and gravel, I ‘floaty boaty’ it over onto the ice and pass on the right. Look in the rear view mirror to see a “flatlander” in a Caddy try to power onto the ice… doing 180’s / 360’s down the freeway with flashers coming on…
All this in a 1960’s era Ford Fairlane IIRC with crummy cheap summer tires.
Drove uneventfully on home (past the ‘road closed’ signs at the OTHER end getting more looks of ‘you came out of where?’ ).
I, too, like to practice spin any given new car type on snow covered parking lots as available. I like to know the limits… But frankly, growing up on mud and gravel is really good training. You shift over to “boat mode; steering is only a suggestion” pretty quick…
Smith and Roger and then Smokey once again:
Thanks for the links. I’ll pour over them in more detail later, though I did take a look already.
thx.
–W
Yeah–I just saw some other info on Tuvalu as well elsewhere by some New Zealanders writing on the subject. Thanks.
Oh, btw, I now have a ‘snow box’ that goes in the car with a LOT of survival and preparedness gear. Including SPARE chains and a full chain repair / reconstruction kit with spare tensioners… The chain kit fits nicely in a military surplus ammo box. Pays for itself too. I’ve rebuilt a half dozen chains while in various hotel rooms waiting for the lifts to open or dinner to start. Just takes a few minutes and you’re up $50. Sometimes I make my own chains now. It’s easy and I like the product better. Also lets me cut out worn links before they risk the fender / wheel well…
The side chains and attachment gear lasts nearly forever, so it’s just cross links get replaced. One link spreader & vice grips and 10 minutes you can resize the chains for new tires or replace any worn cross links. (oh, and a chain cutter to cut the new cross links to size).
Haven’t bought a new set of chains since about 1980… just a length of standard chain at the hardware store.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/crisis-kits-and-preparedness-packs/
The snow stuff is a subset of the first two sizes plus the chains kit, heavier winter clothing, slicker for laying in the snow putting chains on, couple of towels for after that, and some “Snacks”…
E.M. Smith, the water in Coos Bay is way colder than a snowstorm. Snow is a treat after a dive in THAT ocean! Downright nipply.
Thanks for the thanks, WT.
I should have added justification for another “hmmm” reflection: Climatology isn’t yet a robust science. It’s immature. It doesn’t know enough yet to “have the problem surrounded,” as I like to put it. But it thinks it does. It’s juvenile and suffers from the “malady of the ignorant”: being ignorant of its ignorance.
There’s constantly new stuff coming out that makes its previous knowledge, models, and affectation-of-certainty look foolish or suspect. The recent paper on the cooling effect of dryness in the upper atmosphere, for instance. And the Canadian paper a few months ago making a plausible case that recent warming is due to CFCs. (And recent cooling to the lack of them.)
It also looks suspect when organized clime publishes and trumpets (front-pages) a dodgy study like Steig et al., which smears a warm spot over all Antarctica to create a phony warming trend. There’s been enough dodginess and hype (crying wolf about polar bears, etc.), and enough falsified model-predictions (someone should create a complete list), to tarnish the credibility of the field.
Chiefio: I urge you to go to the Cool Tools site and, under “submit a tool,” submit a write-up of your tire-chain technique. Here: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/index.php
Or go to a fix-it site like Instructables.