The nation is rather abuzz over the huge snowstorm (which I dubbed Snowzilla) this week, and I thought I’d put together a collection of loosley related news items. In light of Krauthammer’s recent comment, I’m glad I chose Snowzilla for the name.
Refreshing sanity — It’s La Niña, obviously: Dr. Louis Uccellini, head of NCEP, winter storm textbook expert: “We are linking the storm tracks to the La Nina pattern which dominates the flow coming off the Pacific,” Uccellini explained to AP in a telephone interview. “This follows the pattern we would expect through the Ohio Valley and with heavy precipitation to the Great Lakes…You can’t relate climate change to individual storm systems. Clearly, there have been similar storms in previous decades. As intense as this storm is, it’s equivalent to other major storms that they’ve seen in past decades”
First the satellite image:
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The animation: showing Snowzilla forming, and stomping all over the nation east of the Mississippi:
From NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory:
Intense Blizzard Rolls Across the U.S.
A massive winter storm system is rolling across the Plains and Midwest U.S., headed for the New England Region. Snow amounts of up to three feet have been dumped in some parts of Illinois and Indiana, and more is on its way. Whereas the Midwest is plagued with snow, ice will be the danger in Pennsylvania. Temperatures are warming from Maryland south, which will bring only rain to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
This animation shows GOES-East satellite infrared water vapor imagery from January 29 -February 1, 2011. The GOES satellites provide visible and infrared imagery of the U.S. every 15 minutes. The blue colored areas show the most intense, moist areas of the atmosphere that are responsible for these major precipitation events. Also included, at the end, is the snow precipitation amounts from Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2011.
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The snow cover map:
Source: http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/nsa/
The snow and cold records:
The northern hemisphere snow:
The graph from Rutgers snow lab, and 2011 isn’t even on the books yet:
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The photos – Chicago on February 2nd:
Dallas: Fountain Place Fountains Frozen
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The Superbowl – now more about the weather than football:
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The there was the rolling blackouts: wind power shoulders some blame
More here
Plus, the embarrassing revelation that Texas had to get electricity from Mexico:
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Gore and the pundits:
Gore’s pronouncement about the “snow being caused by global warming”, so stupid even Jay Leno made fun of it.
The Goreacle: Snowstorms caused by global warming
Snow job: Gore channels liberal columnist as proof of global warming fueled blizzards
Here’s Leno:
And then there’s this Godzilla/Snowzilla moment:
Charles Krauthammer: ‘If Godzilla Appeared on National Mall Gore Would Say It’s Global Warming’
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And finally, the word on Gore’s imagined water vapor increase:
From Dr. Roger Peilke:
“Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000.
From NOAA ESRL:
Click for a larger image
Note the second graph, precipitable water. How is it with global warming that in 1950’s we had so much more precipitable water than in the present? Notice the spike in 1998 – that’s the big El Niño that did that. If anything, if there’s a claim to more water vapor in 2010, it would be to the large El Niño that year. It will be interesting to plot this again in a few months to see if there’s a spike just like 1998
Only problem is, that we have a strong La Niña in the middle of Snowzilla now:
UPDATE: The original preciptable water plot from NCEP has been updated to be more current. Thanks to commenter “c james”. NCEP also provides a map of preciptable water in the near term. Here’s what it looks like during the Snowzilla event:
and here’s the zoom on the USA:
27 and 1/2 cold winters left.
Downward average winter temperature trend until 2023.
Bump up for two years and then back to flat line.
Pop the double pair of socks around 2039.
Yo Al, You whas sayen?
Snow cover is now gone in Scotland, England & Ireland? The above NH map doesn’t show any?
This map does ( http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/datukgfshires.aspx?display=snow )
Can any of our friends in the British Isles confirm or deny this?
Thanks for the absolutely first rate postmortem. The “animation” of Snowzilla is, well, awesome. Such features are a big part of what makes Wattsupwiththat the best of all sites on the web. Finally, I was thrilled to see the picture of Lee Roy Jordan. He is the all time best college and professional linebacker.
Nothing like shoveling snow in the Chicago suburbs during a blizzard 🙂
Shoveled every 2 hours or so, after the 3rd or 4th time realized I was creating a depression for 40-50 MPH winds to blow the snow into.
Thunder and lightning, wind gusts that had me watching for branches falling off the trees.
Thinking about buying a snow blower, after all, global warming portents more snow.
Reminds me of the late 70’s global cooling weather.
Robb876 says:
February 5, 2011 at 2:24 pm
You are confusing temperature of the air with High and Low Pressure systems, which can vary in temperature according to location and season, and move about carrying warm or cold air masses with them. A Polar High can be just as dry as a Temperate Zone High, but is far colder than the latter.
Girma says:
February 5, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Where is Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, who said in year 2000 within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”?
—
Here he is!
This UEA TV special is from 2006. He appears at around the 13 minute mark. Check out all of the CAGW doomsday scenarios he proffers in the panel discussion. He even attributes Hurricane Katrina to climate change (at 23:10) [LOL!].
Today, maybe he’s keeping a low profile…
The death toll in Mexico from the cold wave is up to 23. (My Spanish isn’t strong but here is a link-includes fotos)
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/742628.html
Some good charts in this thread. Here are some more.
“Gore’s pronouncement about the “snow being caused by global warming”, so stupid even Jay Leno made fun of it.”
In line with
“Larry Hamlin says:
February 5, 2011 at 12:40 pm”
At http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2011/02/02/17129376.html
Lorrie Goldstein says: “As for Gore, if, as he argues, climate scientists have predicted for decades that global warming would make “snowstorms more severe” and lead to “colder winters,” why was there no mention of this in his “documentary,” An Inconvenient Truth?”
35 animal froze to death at a zoo in Mexico.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lt-mexico-frigid-weather-animals,0,4552281.story
And in an Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA) Zoo–They had to break out the space heaters for the polar bears.
http://www.koat.com/r/26721791/detail.html
I wonder if Al works on “An Inconvenient Truth Part Too” will he include a picture of Snowzilla on the cover?
Dave Dodd says February 5, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Rommulan Fleet peddling doom and gloom in the UK recently : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/04/extreme-weather-global-food-crisis
The Snowzilla animation shows it really exploding at 10-11 seconds, when it starts pulling in the Gulf moisture.
That snow depth map is right, there was 6″ to 7″ of snow on the rooftop. Got about 80% of it off. I’m exhausted.
DD More says:
February 5, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Snow cover is now gone in Scotland, England & Ireland? The above NH map doesn’t show any?
This map does ( http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/datukgfshires.aspx?display=snow )
Can any of our friends in the British Isles confirm or deny this?
The bend in the jet stream has favored the UK over the past few weeks. Warmer air from the Atlantic has been funneled across which is also stopping the southward flow of cold air from the Arctic. This is the reverse of the USA situation, but their turn will come.
Robb876 says:
February 5, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Richard Keen says:
February 5, 2011 at 12:18 pm
….
9. There is no mechanism by which overall warming can increases the maximum snow storm.
…
“Based on your previous bullets, it appears that you assume the moisture is supplied by the cold air mass… Have you considered that a warmer mass (warmed by GW) provides the moisture, moves into a cold air mass and condenses? Surely you have and I have just lost your point there…”
Read bullets 5, 6, and 7 again. If the available moisture occurs at temperatures above 0C, it rains. So the max dew point for snow is 0C, and warming cannot change the max moisture available for snow. If AGW raises this to 10C, guess what – rain!
“c james says:
February 5, 2011 at 1:47 pm
The precipitable water graph in this post is not current. You can get the current one here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=1&var=Precipitable+Water&level=2000&lat1=90&lat2=-90&lon1=0&lon2=360&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&iarea=0&typeout=2&Submit=Create+Timeseries
It shows a continued spike up through the end of 2010 to almost as high as in 1952.
REPLY: Thanks, I’ll update to the more current one- Anthony”
Do note that this link has “mon2=11”, i.e. November, so that link shows yearly values for the first 11 months of each year. That could change the shape of the graph slightly. Better wait a few weeks until the whole year is available.
From “An Interview With the CEO of the Texas Grid,”
“I’m not aware of any specific issues with wind turbines having to shut down due to icing. I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this time frame. Wind was blowing, and we had often 3,500 megawatts of wind generation during that morning peak, which certainly helped us in this situation.”
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-energy/energy/an-interview-with-the-ceo-of-the-texas-grid/
The British Isles have been in a generally mild run of strong Southwesterly winds for about a week already, with temperatures around 50F / 10C day & night. Snow and ice are not the weather issue here any longer – people are starting to worry more about flooding, since those winds are dumping plenty of rain, especially over the northern & western mountains.
The forecasts indicate that this type of weather will dominate for at least another week – so it’s a green rather than a white February here.
‘If Godzilla Appeared on National Mall Gore Would Say It’s Global Warming’
It’s NOT Godzilla! It’s ManBearPig…..
Just saw this:
35 Zoo Animals Freeze to Death in Northern Mexico
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/05/35-zoo-animals-freeze-to-death-in-northern-mexico/
Only 2-3 inches of snow fell during “Snowzilla” in western New York, the “Southern Tier” to be more specific, where I’m staying and shoveling right now. I expected a lot more. The forecast was calling for 12+ inches. Just a brief blizzard blew through leaving about two inches of fluffy snow followed by some sleet which added another inch of sand-like snow. Temperatures haven’t been particularly low either. This is my first northern winter in 35 years. It’s a good cold one with lots of snow and reminds me of those from my early childhood in the 1950’s and 1960’s before the modern warm period started. The locals don’t care for it but I’m loving it. I’d probably not care for it so much after the novelty wears off. I brought a couple of my dogs with me on the trip north. They’re shepherds with huge paws and lots of dense fur well suited to this weather and they love it. The first thing my Anatolian shepherd did on arrival was to dive into a snowbank, roll around a bit, and then make a snow angel. My German shepherd (a real shepherd not the AKC German police dog) isn’t into rolling around in the snow but she has really long legs and loves bounding through the deep stuff like a deer. Precious.
For North America IPCC 2007 Report predicted the following:
Snow season length and snow depth are very likely to decrease in most of North America, except in the northernmost part of Canada where maximum snow depth is likely to increase.
Looks to me that the opposite has been happening for the last 5 winters as the snow has been increasing instead since 2006 . Another IPCC science turns out to be another myth instead.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1
http://www.helium.com/items/2083868-magnetic-polar-shifts-causing-massive-global-superstorms
Speaking of superstorms…
Anthony, this link is to an article that compiles several studies regarding current changes in the movement of the earth’s magnetic poles acclerating in the last few years and possible climatic effects. I found it interesting that it reports: “The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months). But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion.”
October 2005, of course, is the period of the “step change” in solar activity that you have commented on numerous times.
(just posted to the Tips and Notes also)