Last year the Northern Hemispheric snowcover was the second highest in the NOAA snow history back to the mid 1960s. It trailed only the legendary 1977/78 winter. It fell just ahead of 2007/08, pushing it to third place. The winter of 2002/03 dropped to fourth place and the bitter winter of 1978/79 fifth.
All through last winter the snowfall was above normal from the end of the first week of December through the third week of March.
The pattern will continue cold across the western parts of Canada, much of United States and across Eurasia. A strong blocking high pressure will push back from the North Atlantic to the Davis Straits. Snow will be heavy along the edges of the cold air and near the unfrozen Great Lakes where many feet will accumulate. More bitter arctic air – perhaps coldest since 1894 is forecast for the UK.
Looks like a White Christmas in many areas much like last year.
See PDF here. White Christmas forecast coming.
Speaking of “Sol”–when I was a kid I picked up the notion that “11” was an important number.
Do the years 1956 (the year I graduated from high school and spent the winter (56-57 in Great Lakes , Illinois and near froze my butt off, and spent some time in the hospital with cold-related respiratory diseases), 1967-68, 1978 (mentioned here), 1989 (also mentioned here), 2000, and 2010 have any connecting notion?
R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 12:01 pm
“Except for the fact that the planet isn’t cooling.”
Obviously a wittism must now include actual data to backup their related humour.
Or maybe some people just don’t have a sense of humour?
wolfwalker says:
So, in a devious way, a more snowy winter might indicate climatic warming.
Is there any validity to this?
No. For the simple reason that it confounds temperatures with heat flow. As does most of “climate science”.
The show represents a boat load of heat lost in the upper atmosphere as the snow formed (the ‘heat of fusion’ dumped to space) so REGARDLESS OF TEMPERATURES snow means heat lost. And that means cooling.
balaciava
Is that the Greek desert thing with the walnuts….?
“Or maybe some people just don’t have a sense of humour?”
There is a real problem there. Some people with a dry humour get dumped on for not taking things seriously.
So I no longer have an anchor to attach my scale to for deciding what is meant to be taken seriously.
Maybe we can adopt some kind of signal to show that are trying to be funnyt?
+^_^+
Fit_Nick says:
December 12, 2010 at 4:33 pm
R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 12:01 pm
“Except for the fact that the planet isn’t cooling.”
Obviously a wittism must now include actual data to backup their related humour.
Or maybe some people just don’t have a sense of humour?
________
2000-2009 was the warmest decade on instrument record:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
If the decade of 2010-2019 is cooler, you can claim that the planet is cooling, but not until.
E.M.Smith says:
December 12, 2010 at 4:41 pm
wolfwalker says:
So, in a devious way, a more snowy winter might indicate climatic warming.
Is there any validity to this?
No. For the simple reason that it confounds temperatures with heat flow. As does most of “climate science”.
The show represents a boat load of heat lost in the upper atmosphere as the snow formed (the ‘heat of fusion’ dumped to space) so REGARDLESS OF TEMPERATURES snow means heat lost. And that means cooling.
_______
You don’t get snow without evaporation which is driven by heat. It takes heat to create a snowstorm as they (like a hurricane) represent incredible amounts of energy. The coolest periods of earth’s history are the driest, not the wettest as there is less energy available for evaporation and the hydrological cycle slows down. So, when you are shoveling 20 inches of snow from your driveway, think about how much energy you expending to move each shovel full, and the multiply that energy over the entire region that got dumped on by the snowstorm and you can get a feeling for the energy it takes to bring that moisture from the ocean to your happy little driveway.
“R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 5:28 pm”
/sarc on
And we all know how accurate, reliable and unadjusted the instrumental record is?
/sacr off
i love it.
just listen to rgates… we aren’t really experiencing cold….all that snow is produced by warming!!
it’s the warmest decade, and warmest year, EVAH!
R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 5:28 pm
[R. Gates quotes and comments on an argument I’ve not followed closely. Then R. Gates concludes with…]
“If the decade of 2010-2019 is cooler, you can claim that the planet is cooling, but not until.”
Well that’s a nice little meaningless truism. In my neck of the woods, I can remove a layer of glacial rubble and find some cool marine fossils from the Devonian. That’s climate change I can believe in. It would seem the Roman Optimum and the Little Ice Age are just weather when compared to really noticable global climate change.
As P. Wilson pointed out to you on another thread, 2010 temperatures are about the same as 1730 according to CET. We seem to be bouncing around in a relatively narrow temperature range right now while we’re waiting for the next advance of the glaciers, eh?
peterhodges says:
December 12, 2010 at 11:27 pm
i love it.
just listen to rgates… we aren’t really experiencing cold….all that snow is produced by warming!!
it’s the warmest decade, and warmest year, EVAH!
______
Try removing 20 inches of snow from your driveway without expending energy. It takes energy to move moisture from the ocean to your driveway. The coolest periods (and places) of the earth are the driest, not the wettest…but I know it makes great fodder for some simple-minded skeptics to think about snow and warming as they apparently can’t grasp the bigger picture.
I am getting more and more confused.
They said that the decline in snow-cover, decline in ice sheets, decline in glaciers, decline in snow caps were all proof positive of AGW (or what ever the prayer book says the Proper Label is this week).
Now we are getting more snow-cover, ice sheets are growing, glaciers are extending, and (where the forests have not be removed) snow caps are growing, and the folks are telling us that is proof-positive of AGW (or what ever the prayer book says the Proper Label is this week). because that all requires precipitation and that requires heat……
WTH?
Fit_Nick says:
December 12, 2010 at 4:33 pm
R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 12:01 pm
“Except for the fact that the planet isn’t cooling.”
Obviously a wittism must now include actual data to backup their related humour.
According to Anthony you should use a ‘sarc’ tag to indicate humorous remarks.
Phil. says:
December 13, 2010 at 9:49 am
“According to Anthony you should use a ‘sarc’ tag to indicate humorous remarks.”
I think the ‘Sarc’ tag should only be used for the benefit of warmist followers as they are the ones who never seem to have any sense of humour at all as they are just too quick in trying to put down any comment which goes against the doctrine, be it serious and by the looks of it ‘sarc’ones too…. and i thought the people on this wonderful site were open minded, intelligent individuals, which in my mind means they should have the simple ability to recognise a simple quip on a ‘seemingly’ cooling of our planet…
Hey ho… thats life..!!
“and i thought the people on this wonderful site were open minded, intelligent individuals, which in my mind means they should have the simple ability to recognise a simple quip on a ‘seemingly’ cooling of our planet…”
Speaking only for myself–because I am (apparently) abysmally [un|mis]informed it is not possible to tell side A is being sarcastic, because they sound like, exactly like side B when they are being deadly serious.
AND VICE VERSA.
“R. Gates says:
December 12, 2010 at 5:28 pm
If the decade of 2010-2019 is cooler, you can claim that the planet is cooling, but not until.”
According to the Hadcrut3 data, the average anomaly from 2001 to 2005 was 0.4554. The first 10 months of 2010 give 0.499 and this number is certain to go down when all 12 twelve months are counted. However even if we use 0.499 for 2010, the average anomaly for 2006 to 2010 is 0.4188. So the last half of the past decade was colder than the first half. See
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
So while this statement of yours is correct: “2000-2009 was the warmest decade on instrument record”, we have in fact been cooling over this past decade according to Hadcrut3.