Warm weather skates in, then will exit quickly

It was 63 degrees, the warmest ever for a Jan. 29 in Chicago, as Kevin Price stepped off the ice rink at Millennium Park.

"I've never skated when it's 60 degrees out before, so this is a new one for me," said Price, a clinical research associate at a nearby pharmaceutical advertising firm who was unseasonably dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.

The brief warm spell was the latest record-breaking weather in a winter that has produced unusually high temperatures and remarkably little snowfall in the Chicago area. The previous record for Jan. 29 — 59 degrees in 1914 — was broken before the sun had even come up Tuesday, when the temperature at O'Hare International Airport reached 60 degrees at 6:51 a.m.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-warm-weather-record-20130130,0,2376605.story

Waste Heat from Cities Altering Weather

The carbon dioxide that belches from tailpipes and smokestacks is a proven greenhouse gas that has been driving global temperatures more or less steadily upward over the past century. But the heat that leaks directly into the environment from hot exhaust pipes, boilers and chimneys has also contributed to temperature increases in some places, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Climate Change, especially in winter— not directly, but rather because the waste heat may be altering the flow of the jet stream, and thus the way warm and cold air move around the globe.

If the ridges and troughs are disrupted by heat rising from coastal cities, that could plausibly limit the amount of Arctic air that moves southward and tropical air that moves northward, affecting temperatures across the northern part of the hemisphere. It’s more of a rearrangement of heat than an overall increase, they say. While parts of the northern hemisphere are warmer in winter than they would otherwise be, parts — notably Northern Europe — end up cooler in summer and autumn.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/waste-heat-from-cities-may-be-altering-weather-patterns-says-new-study-15522

East Coast Tornado

RALEIGH -- A weather system in North Carolina on Wednesday spawned storms and conditions conducive to tornadoes. A tornado watch for eastern parts of the state expired at 2 a.m. Thursday and a wind advisory was in effect through 4 a.m. as a weather system rolled through the state.

The National Weather Service said a high-pressure area off the coast and a cold front moving in from the west created a wind tunnel of sorts to suck warm air from the southwest on Wednesday. The tornado watch, which went into effect around 8:30 p.m., indicates the right mix of conditions exists to produce the severe weather.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/30/2643074/showers-may-blow-in-wednesday.html?tab=gallery&gallery=/2013/01/30/2644454/severe-weather-slams-southeast.html&gid_index=1

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/30/2643074/showers-may-blow-in-wednesday.html?tab=gallery&gallery=/2013/01/30/2644454/severe-weather-slams-southeast.html&gid_index=1#storylink=cpy

Hoarfrost - Channelle Oleski

Home and Garden

Hoarfrost: Frost on Steroids 

 http://www.weather.com/home-garden/home/hoarfrost-photos-explained-20130128

Jon Erdman Published: Jan 29, 2013, 0:02 PM EST weather.com

Goldendale, Wash.

Unless you've spent your life in Hawaii, you've likely seen frost covering grass, car tops, and maybe adding a few minutes to your morning commute.
But have you seen frost like the photos above?  Is this frost on performance-enhancing drugs?
What you're seeing is a phenomenon called "hoarfrost".  Let's dive into the "Met 101" explanation below.

Play Video

What is Hoar Frost?

Science Behind "Hoarfrost"

First, to produce frost, you need water vapor (gaseous form of water) in the air over cold ground with a surface dew point at least as cold as 32 degrees.
When water vapor molecules contact a cold surface, such as a blade of grass, they jump directly from the gas state to solid state (known as "deposition"), leading to a coating of tiny ice crystals.
What conditions produce the incredible scenes depicted in the photos above?
Generally speaking, you want a much more moist air mass in place.  In the winter, one or more days in a row of freezing fog (fog with surface temperatures of 32 degrees or colder) is a perfect scenario.
With more moisture in the air, the interlocking crystal patterns of frost become more intricate and much larger, known as hoarfrost.  
Perhaps the single best example I've seen of hoarfrost occurred in January 2013 in Washington state.
IWitnessWeather contributor gardnertoo sent us incredible photos, some of which are in the slideshow above.  According to our contributor, six day's worth of sub-freezing temperatures, along with a light breeze, produced the impressive hoarfrost.

Are Tornado Alleys a Myth?

Somewhere in the 20th century tornadoes got lost up an alley. Several alleys, in fact. The first was the infamous prototype, Tornado Alley. Then there was Dixie Alley, Hoosier Alley and even a little byway called Carolina Alley. But are these alleys really backed up by science or are they quasi-accidental outgrowths of the history of tornado science? This is not exactly the sort of question meteorologists have a lot of time to ponder when tornadoes are touching down and tearing through cities and towns. So really, meteorologists mostly work with the alleys they have, and occasionally invent new ones.

Jennifer Henderson is no meteorologist. She’s a social scientist from Virginia Tech who took a deep breath and dove into the meteorological deep end: the recent annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Austin, Texas. She exhibited a poster there that sort of questioned the scientific basis of tornado alleys, as well as kept her eyes open as the very human endeavor of studying, reporting on, and preparing others for the weather unfolded around her.

Crazy warm weather after bitter freezing, normal? I think not.

COLUMBIA, Mo. –  Midwesterners who had briefly swapped puffy coats for sandals and shorts switched back Tuesday as balmy conditions gave way to severe storms that carried a risk of tornadoes, freezing rain and, later, snow.

Record high temperatures across a swath of the central U.S. were being followed by thunderstorms and strong winds from Texas to Alabama and as far north as Michigan.

The temperature in the central Missouri college town of Columbia reached 77 degrees on Monday, a record for January, and students exchanged their winter coats for shorts and flip-flops as freezing rain gave way to spring-like conditions. Foul weather made a quick return, however, with a Tuesday downpour that flooded some streets near the University of Missouri campus. Early morning snow was expected Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/01/29/tornado-risk-follows-record-warmth-in-midwest/#ixzz2JWGcDpKD

Poor Georgia, who are experiencing some tornado weather

1 dead as storm system packing high winds, at least 1 tornado rakes across the Southeast

Published January 30, 2013

Associated Press

ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. –  Powerful winds, rain and hail battered parts of the South on Wednesday, killing at least one person as the large storm system damaged homes, overturned cars on an interstate and knocked out electricity to thousands.

At least one tornado was confirmed and several more suspected, and conditions remained ripe for more. Since Tuesday, the system had caused damage across a swath from Missouri to Georgia.

In recent days, people in the South and Midwest had enjoyed unseasonably balmy temperatures in the 60s and 70s. A system pulling warm weather from the Gulf of Mexico was colliding with a cold front moving in from the west, creating volatility.

Police said high winds toppled a tree onto a shed in Nashville, Tenn., where a man had taken shelter, killing him. As the storm crept eastward, officials reported a possible tornado in Adairsville, Ga., about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. At least 10 cars were overturned on Interstate 75, and emergency crews were trying to get to people reported trapped in homes and buildings, said Bartow County Fire Chief Crag Millsap.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/01/30/1-dead-as-storm-system-packing-high-winds-at-least-1-tornado-rakes-across/#ixzz2JW9qkdKu

Georgia Tornado Signature Revealed in Radar

A powerful tornado bore down on the town of Adairsville in northwest Georgia earlier today (Jan. 30), as part of a long line of severe weather stretching from Pittsburgh, Pa., to the Gulf Coast. The signature of the tornado's rotating winds can be seen in a newly released radar image.


Yahoo Article Link

Tornadoes rip central, southeast U.S., at least two dead

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tornadoes ripped through four states on Tuesday night and Wednesday, killing at least two people, as an Arctic cold front clashed with warm air to produce severe weather over a wide swath of the nation.

 

Tornadoes were reported in Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana and Tennessee, an unusual development in January when the focus is more likely to be on snow and ice.       

 

The National Weather Service said twisters touched down in Sardis, Mississippi, and heavily damaged homes in Solsberry, Indiana, wiping out power in the surrounding areas. Three twisters were confirmed in Tennessee and a possible tornado hit southeastern Arkansas.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-weatherbre90t0wg-20130130,0,4340300.story

Severe Weather Moves East; Tornado Overturns Vehicles In Georgia

  

"The intense storm system that brought severe weather to the Mississippi Valley on Tuesday will move eastward on Wednesday, bringing a risk of severe weather from the upper Ohio Valley southward to the central Gulf Coast and eastward to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast coast," the National Weather Service warns this hours. "The main threat will be damaging wind along with the possibility of tornadoes, especially across eastern Ala. into western Ga."


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/30/170662612/severe-weather-moves-east-tornado-overturns-vehicles-in-georgia

Snowpocalypse in Russia

Imagine having to shovel your driveway and car out of a mountain of snow in freezing temperatures. Many people in Russia are having to do just that.

Unrelenting snowfalls have caused unprecedented chaos in Russia. Over the past week, the country has seen scores of traffic accidents, flight delays and, in some cases, the complete isolation of some remote settlements and towns.

On Friday, Moscow was on a verge of traffic collapse as more than 10 inches of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January’s average.

Thousands of passengers were stranded overnight in the capital’s major airports, as several dozen flights were delayed.

Muscovites woke up and found their cars, driveways and houses buried under a thick layer of snow, with city workers unable to get to smaller streets.

Moscow’s Yandex app showed traffic at level 10, the highest possible, as strong winds created blizzard conditions and built imposing snow drifts.Falling snow and ice caused many accidents due to poor visibility and bad road conditions. Moscow witnessed a 13-kilometer jam on MKAD, one of the city’s main highways, reducing speeds to 10 to 25 kph in the capital.

However, meteorologists have promised some good news for Moscow: The stormy conditions are expected to recede over the weekend.

Link to this Information

W. Antarctic warming among world's fastest

The western portion of Antarctica is warming twice as fast as previously thought and triple the world’s average temperature rise, U.S. scientists say. The temperature in the center of western Antarctica, about 700 miles from the South Pole, has risen 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958, making that area one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, the researchers wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience. 

A 2009 measurement considered authoritative had indicated that part of the continent, which resembles a giant peninsula stretching roughly from the South Pole toward the southern tip of South America, had warmed just 2.2 degrees since 1957. Eric J. Steig, a University of Washington researcher who led the 2009 work, told The New York Times the new research supersedes his efforts. “I think their results are better than ours, and should be adopted as the best estimate,” he said. Surface temperatures at the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which covers the land, remain well below freezing most of the year, but increasingly rise above freezing during the December-through-February summer months, said the researchers from Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Our record suggests that continued summer warming in West Antarctica could upset the surface mass balance of the ice sheet, so that the region could make an even bigger contribution to sea level rise than it already does,” Ohio State geography Professor David Bromwich said. 

Some scientists fear the ice sheet could collapse like the Larsen B Ice Shelf did in February 2002. “We’ve already seen enhanced surface melting contribute to the breakup of the Antarctic’s Larsen B Ice Shelf, where glaciers at the edge discharged massive sections of ice into the ocean that contributed to sea level rise,” study co-author and NCAR scientist Andrew Monaghan said. “The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous WAIS glaciers,” he said. The ice-sheet breakup could take centuries, but could raise global sea levels 10 feet or more, the researchers said.The base of the ice sheet sits below sea level in a configuration that makes it especially vulnerable, they said. 

Link to this information

Massive Dust Storm hits Onslow

Tropical Cyclone Narelle is spinning out to sea west of Western Australia as it reached Category 3 status with wind gusts near center at 285 km/h (177 mph). Narelle is moving slightly southwestward and will maintain that bearing for the next few days before heading due south and rounding the continent’s southwest in the coming days. The storm’s bands to the southeast are drawing desert sand off land out into the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, Australia is battering with catastrophic bushfires after unprecedented record-high temperatures. The high temperatures and dryness of the region create prime conditions for fires.
According to latest Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), TC Narelle is located approximately 335 nm north-northwest of Learmonth, Australia and is moving west-southwestward at speed of 6 knots. Narelle is tracking along the northwestern periphery of a deep-layered subtropical ridge anchored over south-central Australia. Narelle has peaked in intensity and should gradually weaken mainly due to increasing vertical wind shear and cooling sea surface temperatures.
Link to this Information

Freezing rain and ice across the South

We’ve got a busy weather day across the country with a  dangerous, icy situation for the south.  With sub-freezing air in place at the surface, freezing rain is expected from Arkansas through the Tennessee Valley and into northern Alabama, North Georgia and the Carolinas.  Accumulations of up to 1/4″ are possible and roads, especially bridges will become particularly hazardous.
As the system pushes eastward, light snow will bring a few inches of snow to the Mid-Atlantic with even lighter accumulations into the Northeast.  Higher snowfall amounts are expected in the Appalachians.
Meanwhile, a fast-moving system that brought snow to the Midwest overnight is diving through the Great Lakes and spreading snow into the Ohio Valley.  Lake-effect prone regions in Michigan will see enhanced snowfall on the backside of the system.
As far as the cold temperatures, the arctic air that has gripped the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast will moderate a bit over the weekend, bringing above average temperatures for a brief time.  Don’t get used to it, because another frigid airmass is expected to move back into the region next week!

 http://weather.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/01/25/freezing-rain-and-ice-across-the-south/

Tornado injures at least 15 in North Carolina

Weather officials confirm there was a tornado in the storm system that swept through parts of western North Carolina this week, flinging mobile homes into valleys, damaging dozens of buildings and injuring nearly 20 people.
The storm system struck Rutherford and Burke counties on Wednesday, as a cold front moved through the western Carolinas. A National Weather Service survey team reported the system produced a tornado of EF2 strength, with winds of roughly 115 miles an hour.
"The trailer started shaking and we were gone," said Samantha Owens of Ellenboro, in Rutherford County. "It just picked and we just started rolling."
The mobile home where Owens lived with her mother and four children was thrown off its foundation, she said Thursday. Her mother was taken to a hospital in Charlotte with a concussion, but Owens and her children escaped with minor scrapes and bruises.

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2012/01/12/tornado-injures-at-least-15-in-north-carolina/

Extraordinary rainfalls in Western Australia

               

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology just released (December 17th) a special statement concerning recent extraordinary rainfalls that occurred in the southwestern portion of Western Australia on December 10-13 (last week). All-time 24-hour precipitation records were broken at several locations when more than 8” (200 mm) of rain fell in less than 24 hours.

The area most impacted was the Bunbury to Collie region located about 80 miles south of Perth. Collie measured 157.2 mm (6.19”) on December 13th(126 mm/4.96” of which fell in just 12 hours). The town not only smashed its previous December daily rainfall record of 42 mm/1.65” (set on December 24, 1987) but also broke its greatest 24-hour rainfall for any month in a 106-year long period of record. The amount also broke its December monthly record of 80.6 mm (3.17”) set in 1913. This portion of Australia has a pleasant Mediterranean climate similar to the California south coast. Perth is Australia’s 4th largest city with a population of 1.8 million and is often cited as one of the world’s best places to live. It has an annual average rainfall of about 850 mm (33.5”) but December is normally one of its driest months with an average of just 13 mm (0.5”). So one can see how extraordinary this event is for the time of year. Ironically, the 2nd greatest rainstorm to occur in the region over the past 100 years happened almost exactly one year ago on December 11, 2011. The article I information from was http://ascendingstarseed.wordpress.com/category/earth-changes/hurricanes-and-severe-weather/ by Susan Rennison.

Link to the Information

2012: The Year of Extreme Weather

The weather reports are in. 2012 was the hottest and the most extreme year on record in many places.

While parts of China are enduring the harshest winter in 30 years, the Antarctic is warming at an alarming rate. In Australia, out-of-control bushfires are partially the result of record-breaking weather (new colors were added to weather forecast maps, to account for the new kind of heat). In the United States, where Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey and New York and where extreme drought still lingers in the Midwest, the average temperature in 2012 was more than a whole degree Fahrenheit (or 5/9 of a degree Celsius) higher than average – shattering the record. 

On Friday a long-term weather forecast for the United States was released, when the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee published a draft of the third Climate Assessment Report. Like last year’s weather, the assessment does not pull its punches.

“Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases transmitted by insects, food, and water, and threats to mental health,” write the authors as part of their key findings.

Link To Article

Severe Storms, Tornadoes Blasting South

An outbreak of severe storms began to lash the South on Tuesday, and will continue overnight, when tornadoes are forecast.

"Severe thunderstorms, with widespread damaging winds and several tornadoes, are expected," according to an online bulletin from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Okla.

The states at greatest risk for tornadoes are Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. The greatest threat were expected Tuesday night. Shrouded in darkness, nighttime tornadoes can be deadly, especially during the winter season when people are not accustomed to such severe weather, the National Weather Service warns.

Warm air is pushing north ahead of the storms: Chicago set a record high temperature of 62 degrees, which is about 30 degrees above average. Corpus Christi, Texas, reached 90 degrees on Tuesday, only the fourth time that city has reached the 90s in January since records began in 1887.

Link To Article

Hoarfrost: Frost on Steriods!

First, to produce frost, you need water vapor (gaseous form of water) in the air over cold ground.

When water vapor molecules contact a cold surface, such as a blade of grass, they jump directly from the gas state to solid state (known as "deposition"), leading to a coating of tiny ice crystals.

The central question related to this interesting phenomenon is what kind of weather (meaning, how cold does it really need to be) to have this kind of mass frost actually form? The answer is actually quite complicated: you need a large air mass and surface dew point temperature of at least 32 degrees Fahrenheit or colder to have the "perfect scenario".

With more moisture in the air, the interlocking crystal patterns of frost become more intricate and much larger, known as hoarfrost.

The frost is typically compacted tightly and has very sharp (pointed) edges. See the picture below.

http://www.weather.com/home-garden/home/hoarfrost-photos-explained-20130128

Severe Weather Outbreak - Channelle Oleski

Severe Weather Outbreak Ahead
 http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/severe-weather-tracker


The threat of severe thunderstorms is about to return as a strong cold front emerges from the Rockies and intercepts milder air returning to the nation's midsection.
(LIVE UPDATES:  Severe Weather Outbreak)

Wednesday Forecast

This pattern will be favorable for thunderstorms to produce damaging winds and possible tornadoes Tuesday and Wednesday in parts of the South, lower Midwest, and eventually the Mid-Atlantic region.
The maps on this page show the latest timing forecast for these storms from The Weather Channel's Global Forecast Center.
(LIVE: Interactive Radar, Alerts for Threat Zone)

Key Ingredient: Powerful Winds

One of our biggest concerns is the amount of wind energy carried by this large-scale storm system.
Jet stream winds are forecast to easily exceed 150 miles per hour with this system. But more alarmingly, the winds in the lower atmosphere are also expected to be fierce - with the potential for southerly winds of 90 to 105 miles per hour just 5,000 feet above the ground in some areas just ahead of the cold front.
That combination of powerful wind energy and an unstable atmosphere - even an only weakly unstable one as we often see in January - may lead to widespread straight-line wind damage along with the potential for a few tornadoes.

Red State Blues: In 2012 Nebraska Saw Its Hottest, Driest Year On Record — And The Republican River Ran Dry!

Republican River at zero flow (via US Geological Survey)

Irony can be so ironic.

Last week, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) approved a revised route for the Keystone XL pipeline through his state. The math is simple: “Keystone XL Pipeline = Tar Sands Expansion = Accelerated Climate Change.” And that equals a hotter and drier Great Plains, especially in the summer and fall.

So if Obama were to actually defy my prediction and approve the pipeline, then Nebraska would be giving new meaning to the phrase “red state” — since its current brutal drought would be on track to become its normal climate in the coming decades:

On January 3, 2012, none of the state was in extreme or exceptional drought (and less than 1% was in moderate or severe drought).  By January 2013, over 96% of the state was experiencing extreme or exceptional drought – and most of that (over 77%) was exceptional drought.

What happened? Just the hottest and driest year in Nebraska’s recorded history.

link to article

From Midwest to East, Subzero Temperatures Turn Mild Winter Deadly

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A bracing wave of Arctic air swept across much of the nation on Wednesday, suddenly turning what had been a relatively mild winter into a shivering misery that has caused several deaths in the Midwest and prompted cities along the Eastern Seaboard to open emergency shelters.

The freezing weather, which arrived in the Midwest late last week, has plunged temperatures to record lows in portions of the northern tier of the country, chilling even those well adapted to frigid winters.

International Falls, Minn., the self-proclaimed Icebox of the Nation, reached a high of 5 degrees below zero on Wednesday before falling to an expected low of 32 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service. Factoring in wind chill, the low in International Falls, which is near the Canadian border, was expected to be 40 degrees below zero on Wednesday night.

Almost as cold were Duluth, Minn., on Lake Superior in the northeastern part of the state, where temperatures were forecast to drop to 17 below zero, and Minneapolis and St. Paul, in comparison, with an expected low of 7 degrees below.

Isaac Arreguin, 23, was waiting for a bus in St. Paul on Wednesday afternoon, having forgotten his scarf and gloves.

“I’m pretty O.K.,” he said, sniffing. “It’s the combination of the cold and the wind that’s getting me.”

Not far away, Terry Och, 47, a security guard, who was on duty near the Cathedral of Saint Paul, was putting on a braver face. His cold-weather armor? “Hat, hood, four coats, two long johns, four socks, gloves with the handwarmers inside.”

“I love the winter,” he said. “You got to like the cold to live in it and be out like this.”

In Grand Forks, N.D., the deep chill was brushed aside as child’s play, even as the forecast for the next three days predicted that temperatures would go no higher than 6 degrees on Thursday and fall to 16 degrees below zero on Friday.

link to article

CO2 Emissions Expected to Rise Significantly by 2030

Warnings that the world is headed for "peak oil" – when oil supplies decline after reaching the highest rates of extraction – appear "increasingly groundless," BP's chief executive said.
 
Bob Dudley's remarks came as the company published a study predicting oil production will increase substantially, and that unconventional and high-carbon oil will make up all of the increase in global oil supply to the end of this decade, with the explosive growth of shale oil in the U.S. behind much of the growth.
 
As a result, the oil and gas company forecasts that carbon dioxide emissions will rise by more than a quarter by 2030 – a disaster, according to scientists, because if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change then studies suggest emissions must peak in the next three years or so.



http://www.climatecentral.org/news/co2-emissions-expected-to-rise-significantly-by-2030-15477