Chilly weather and some sun today in Northeast Ohio will give way to warmer and wetter conditions

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Today will have more of a seasonal feel in Northeast Ohio ... not freezing, but definitely brisk, and there will be some wind for an added chill.

Tuesday saw temperatures reach 63 degrees and about a half-inch of rain in the afternoon and early evening. Today's high is not expected to go much above 40 degrees, with most of the day expected to be in the high 30s.

The good news is there should be at least some sunshine, and it might be the last significant sun sighting in a while. Temperatures will move into the upper 40s and might surpass 50 later in the week, but there will be strong chances of rain every day through Sunday.

Nationally, it's been a mild December for much of the nation. The Weather Channel reports that Chicago's latest "first measurable snow of the season" is on record as Dec. 16, 1965. Des Moines, Iowa, also is challenging its record for longest amount of days between a measurable snow (277 days), set in 1889.

The Weather Channel says this could soon change. It says cold air currently is trapped in Canada, but some of it is expected to move down into into the Rockies, Plains and Upper Midwest starting Friday. It's expected to expand into the Northern Great Lakes by this weekend. However, as of now, forecasts do not show this cold-air mass reaching Northeast Ohio.

"Wacky Weather" here to stay

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Jordan Nichols

The amount of additional heat that entered the Arctic Ocean during the the summer of 2012 due to the decrease in sea ice was approximately enough to power the United States for about 26 years.  The trillion-dollar question is: how will this affect the weather?  Is our warming planet the driving force behind the unusual weather patterns witnessed recently all around the United States?  A webinar ("Our Wacky Weather and Disappearing Sea Ice: Are They Connected?") hosted by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment & Policy attempted to analyze this challenging question, with a focus on weather in Alaska.
Jennifer Francis, a Research Professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the Rutgers University, was the keynote speaker on this issue, providing her expertise on weather and the atmosphere.
According to Mark Twain, “climate lasts all the time, weather lasts only a few days.”  If Mark Twain could differentiate between weather and climate all those years ago, why do individuals continually get it wrong today?
People, mostly those who deny climate change in the first place, have always exploited cold weather events to argue that global warming doesn’t exist and isn’t a problem worth addressing.  This sort of fallacious reasoning is what makes weather and climate change so difficult for many people to connect.  A warming climate affects the weather, but we must consider long-term trends, not just one particular cold spell in Florida over the winter.  This logic also applies to the flip side of the coin; no one particularly warm weather event can be attributed solely to climate change.  Credible climate scientists use trend lines of weather over long periods of time in projecting where the climate is headed.
“The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere," according to Francis.  "In 2011 alone there were 3000 maximum temperature records broken in the United States -- 3000 of them.  And 2012 is already on track to be the hottest year ever recorded in the United States.”
The melting of Arctic sea ice is another measurement that can be attributed to climate change:  “This past summer the sea ice was half as big as it should be and this change has only happened in the last 30 years.  And the volume [of the Arctic sea ice] has absolutely decreased by about 80 perent in just the last 30 years, which is really quite remarkable.”

What Role Did Climate Change Play in Superstorm Sandy?

Superstorm Sandy, a “perfect storm” that was caused by an unusual combination of seasonal weather phenomena converging above the Northeast, has stirred some conversation in the media about whether the storm was caused, or made worse, by climate change.
Scientists have long warned about the risk of a deadly hurricane over the Tri-State area, which would suggest Sandy could be an expected weather event. But recent studies, including a report co-authored by MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel in February 2012, note that climate change could combine with the  effects of storm surge to cause 100-year-flooding to occur every two decades in New York, suggesting that an event like Sandy may be more than just a long-expected storm.  

http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2012/11/27/what-role-did-climate-change-play-in-superstorm-sa?t=loss-control

UN climate scientist: Sandy no coincidence

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Though it's tricky to link a single weather event to climate change, Hurricane Sandy was "probably not a coincidence" but an example of the extreme weather events that are likely to strike the U.S. more often as the world gets warmer, the U.N. climate panel's No. 2 scientist said Tuesday.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicted that as stronger and more frequent heat waves and storms become part of life, people will stop asking whether global warming played a role.

"The new question should probably progressively become: Is it possible that climate warming has not influenced this particular event?" he told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of U.N. climate negotiations in Qatar.

Ypersele's remarks come as global warming has re-emerged as an issue in Washington following the devastating superstorm — a rarity for the U.S. Northeast — and an election that led to Democratic gains.

After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.

It is not correct to say Sandy was caused by global warming, but "the damage caused by Sandy was worse because of sea level rise," said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. He said the sea level in New York City is a foot higher than a century ago because of man-made climate change.

http://news.yahoo.com/un-climate-scientist-sandy-no-coincidence-190309871.html;_ylt=ArGy6i8jf9_r72YTftg3j7doWrEF;_ylu=X3oDMTRiZ25qOTd0BG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBTY2llbmNlU0YgV2VhdGhlck5ld3NTU0YEcGtnAzFlMzExNzUxLWRhMjQtMzE4Ny04Y2Y2LTllZTg4ZjNhNDk3NgRwb3MDMgRzZWMDdG9wX3N0b3J5BHZlcgM3ZmM5MmU2MS0zOGM1LTExZTItYjllNy04ZWIzOTcwMDU4MjE-;_ylg=X3oDMTIxbzRzY2llBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANzY2llbmNlfHdlYXRoZXJuZXdzBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

Experts argue global warming's impact on Sandy's unusual path to N.J.

An Oct. 29 map of Sandy swirling over the Northeast.Getty Images via NASA

By Amy Ellis Nutt andStephen Stirling/The Star-Ledge

It wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s what the weather experts kept saying immediately before, during and after Sandy smacked New Jersey in the face. Not this far north, they said, not in autumn, and certainly not this bad.


Which is why the global warming finger-pointing that usually begins after a natural disaster, preceded this one. But six weeks before Sandy was even a specter threatening the Caribbean, Rutgers scientist Jennifer Francis — not your normal climate change Cassandra — issued a warning during a teleconference call on global warming.
The melting ice caps, she said, appeared to be tied to recent extreme weather events, especially those occurring in the fall.
"It’s probably going to be a very interesting winter," she said.
She was off by just a few weeks.
Sandy destroyed lives, wrecked homes and savaged the landscape, but it may also have pushed climate change back into the political discourse. Although questions about global warming were never asked during the presidential debates and rarely mentioned on the campaign trail, Sandy’s timing, severity and longevity suddenly raised climate change’s public profile.
The day after Sandy struck, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, "After what happened, what has been happening in the last few years, I don’t think anyone can sit back anymore and say ‘Well, I’m shocked at that weather pattern.’"
Two days after the storm, New York City’s mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama primarily because he believed he’d do a better job addressing global warming than former governor Mitt Romney.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/11/experts_argue_global_warmings.html

Sandy, ‘fiscal cliff’ and election revive global warming talk; even carbon tax reconsidered

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, November 13, 7:32 PM

WASHINGTON — Climate change is suddenly a hot topic again. The issue is resurfacing in talks about a once radical idea: a possible carbon tax.

On Tuesday, a conservative think tank held discussions about it while a more liberal think tank released a paper on it. And the Congressional Budget Office issued a 19-page report on the different ways to make a carbon tax less burdensome on lower income people.

A carbon tax works by making people pay more for using fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas that produce heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

 The idea was considered so radical that in 2009, when President Barack Obama tried to pass a bill on global warming, that he instead opted for the more moderate approach of capping power plant emissions and trading credits that allowed utilities to pollute more. That idea, after passing the House, stalled in the Senate in 2010 and has been considered dead since.

Even so, the Obama administration has no plans to push for a carbon tax now, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because there are no discussions about the issue.

The whole issue of climate change was virtually absent during the presidential campaign until Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. The devastating superstorm — a rarity for the Northeast — and an election that led to Democratic gains have shoved global warming back into the conversation. So has the hunt for answers to a looming budget crisis.

So the carbon tax idea has been revived by some on both the right and left and is suddenly appearing in newspaper and magazine opinion pieces and in quiet discussions.

“I think the impossible may be moving to the inevitable without ever passing through the probable,” said former Rep. Bob Inglis. The South Carolina Republican lost his seat in 2010 in a primary fight, partly because he acknowledged that global warming exists and needs to be dealt with. Now he heads a new group that advocates a carbon tax and the idea is endorsed by former Ronald Reagan economic adviser Arthur Laffer.

The right-leaning American Enterprise Institute held an all-day discussion of it Tuesday. At the same time, the more liberal Brookings Institution released a “modest carbon tax” proposal that would raise $150 billion a year, with $30 billion annually earmarked for clean energy investments. Brookings senior policy fellow Mark Muro called it a “perfect storm” of science and politics.

The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute is so concerned about a carbon tax that on Tuesday it filed a lawsuit seeking access to Treasury Department emails discussing the idea.

There’s no question a carbon tax would stir huge opposition. A tax of $20 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions would add up to 9 to 10 percent to the price of gasoline and electric power, said Muro of Brookings.

Experts on all sides of the issue have watched climate proposals fail in the past. Congress is still split and many in the Republican party deny the existence of man-made climate change, despite what scientists say. Congress also on Tuesday blocked the European Union from imposing a tax on American airliners flying to the continent as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gases.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/sandy-fiscal-cliff-and-election-revive-global-warming-talk-even-carbon-tax-reconsidered/2012/11/13/2bd56944-2df4-11e2-b631-2aad9d9c73ac_story.html

Weather Channel names nor'easter, National Weather Service says not so fast

In an article on Fox News weather it gives an update on the weather channel's first storm name.

What's in a name? For the folks who forecast the weather, apparently a lot.
The National Weather Service said Wednesday it would not recognize The Weather Channel’s name for the nor’easter that is expected to hit the East Coast, which is still trying to recover from last week’s hurricane.
The Weather Channel, which decided to name winter storms, dubbed this one ‘Athena,’ perhaps after the Greek goddess of wisdom. Winds could already be felt kicking up along the coast Wednesday morning, but the storm is not considered to be nearly the threat of Sandy.
The National Weather Service released a statement that it does not use the name of winter storms in its products. An email and phone call from FoxNews.com to the channel and agency were not immediately returned.
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to use their patrol car loudspeakers to warn vulnerable residents about evacuating, one of a number of measures that the beleaguered city was taking even as weather experts said Wednesday's nor'easter could be weaker than expected.
"Even though it's not anywhere near as strong as Sandy -- nor strong enough, in normal times, for us to evacuate anybody -- out of precaution and because of the changing physical circumstances, we are going to go to some small areas and ask those people to go to higher ground," Bloomberg said Tuesday.


http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2012/11/07/weather-channel-names-noreaster-national-weather-service-says-not-so-fast/

Weather-weary NJ, NY residents bracing for nor'easter

Wednesday, November 7, 2012 Last updated: Wednesday November 7, 2012, 8:52 AM

BY RICHARD COWEN

STAFF WRITER

The Record

 

A nor'easter carrying a nasty mix of high wind, rain and wet snow is due to arrive today and deliver another punch to an area still reeling from Hurricane Sandy.
Although this storm isn't packing the power of Sandy, it will bring sustained winds of 25 mph beginning around 1 p.m. today, with wind gusts as high as 60 mph that will last well into Thursday, the National Weather Service says. Those high winds could be enough to take down power lines — again.
“The peak winds will be tonight and stay strong through Thursday," said Lauren Nash, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Rain will gradually change over to a wintry mix later today, and higher elevations in western Passaic County and Rockland and Putnam counties can expect 1 to 3 inches of wet snow overnight.
Along the coast, the snowfall totals should be less, as little as an inch or so in eastern portions of Bergen County and New York City.
The high winds are expected to wreak havoc on power lines already weakened by the hurricane, and will stall efforts to restore power to the estimated 566,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey that as of Tuesday night were still without electricity. How much more damage will be done by the nor'easter remains to be seen.
Storm surges along the coasts of New Jersey and New York are expected to reach perhaps 3 feet, only half to a third of what Hurricane Sandy caused last week. While that should produce only minor flooding, it will still likely cause some erosion problems along the Jersey coast and the shores of Long Island, where Sandy destroyed some protective dunes.
A coastal flood watch is in effect along the Jersey shore, as well as portions of Essex County and in Manhattan. As a precaution, mandatory evacuations have been ordered of the barrier islands of Toms River in Ocean County, Middletwon Township in Monmouth County, and from Keansburg to the Atlantic Highlands from Route 36 to the Raritan Bay.
For commuters, mass transit options have been limited by the hurricane. The NJ Transit Main/Port Jervis line is operating on a modified schedule with trains originating and terminating at Hoboken Terminal, bypassing Secaucus. The Bergen, Pascack Valley, Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines remain suspended.
Bus passengers are advised to allow for extra travel time due to overcrowding, and air travelers are advised to call ahead to determine flight status. The good news is that once the nor'easter clears out, warmer, drier weather is on the way for the weekend.

pg 2 available on line.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/Weather-weary_NJ_residents_bracing_for_noreaster.html

Blood rain predicted to fall in Britain for Halloween

 

BLOOD rain is expected to fall from the sky just in time for Halloween in the UK.
No, it’s not a trick. It's a serious weather prediction.
Forecasters say hot air is blowing red dust from the Sahara desert towards Europe. Much like the dust storm that engulfed Sydney last year.
But in Europe it’s predicted to rain, so the dust will settle into the raindrops and fall towards land as red rain. Blood rain.

London’s Met office said the red rain could stain cars. It could even be blood snow, with snow predicted in England’s southeast. 

“The warm air has been drawn from a long way south down in north Africa and is spreading north,” Met Office forecaster Emma Sharples said.
"But there is going to be a sharp contrast in weather as a cold snap sweeps across the country from Friday which is likely to bring snow to Scotland and the north of England.”
Even if the red rain doesn’t happen - let’s face it, weather forecasters don’t often get it right - there will still be a fantastic sight in the sky. The Earth is passing through the debris of Hayley’s comet sending as cascade of shooting stars across the night sky.
The spectacular show will even be visible from Australia. Just look towards Orion or “the saucepan”.

Hurricane Sandy: Canada Hit By Storm; 145,000 Without Power

 


By Rod Nickel

Oct 30 (Reuters) - More than 100,000 Canadians were still without power on Tuesday after the huge storm Sandy toppled trees and power lines in Canada's most populous provinces, killed one person, and halted units at an Ontario refinery.

But Canada was far from the center of the storm and the impact was tiny compared to the vast outages and widespread flooding seen in the U.S. East Coast on Monday and Tuesday. The weakened storm is expected bring rain to Eastern Canada and Quebec on Tuesday and into Wednesday.

One woman was killed when she was struck by a sign in a Toronto shopping mall parking lot on Monday night, when Ontario officials had warned people to stay inside.

By late morning on Tuesday, power had been restored to nearly half of the 60,000 Toronto residents who lost electricity. But the local utility said some people might be without power until Thursday evening.

At least 150,000 Canadians lost power during the worst of the storm.

The Toronto Stock Exchange was open for trading on Tuesday, making it a North American island of equity trading for the second successive day, with U.S. stock markets again closed.

Air Canada, WestJet Airlines, Porter Airlines canceled dozens of flights, most of them to cities in the east of the United States.

"It's been a long night," said Mike Bradley, mayor of the Lake Huron border city of Sarnia, Ontario, where winds are expected to gust to 100 km/h (60 mph) on Tuesday.

"Waves were running from six to nine meters, which people around here cannot remember for at least a generation," he told CBC.

Several units at Imperial Oil Ltd's 121,000 barrel a day refinery at Sarnia were shut down in the outage. Power was later restored and the company said it planned to restart some of the units.

On the St Lawrence Seaway, a critical freight waterway shared by Canada and the United States, some vessels chose to anchor due to high winds, and 12 were delayed as of Tuesday morning, said Andrew Bogora, spokesman for the St Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. The Seaway remained open.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-canada_n_2043478.html?ir=World

Severe weather takes a swipe at South Africa

South Africa has been pounded by some hazardous weather over the past few days.

The weather first turned severe on Thursday in the southwest of the country. 32 hikers had to be rescued after being trapped by heavy rain on the Whale Trail near Bredasdorp.

The worst of the weather struck in the southeast of the country. According to provincial disaster jmanagement officials, eight people, including a five-year-old boy, died in the severe weather in the Eastern Cape.

The deaths occurred whilst people were attempting to cross streams or when their vehicles were washed away.

The flooding was so severe, that it even washed away a section of the main N2 highway, which links Grahamstown to Port Elizabeth.

As well as torrential rain, the weather system also delivered large hailstones. Some reports say that the hail was as big as tennis balls in some parts of Johannesburg.

The ice smashed into cars and broke windows of many homes and businesses, and caused a number of traffic accidents.

The severe weather is due to a low pressure which is still delivering widespread thunderstorms across many parts of the country. The treacherous conditions are expected to continue across southern parts of the Western and Eastern Cape during Monday, before clearing away from the southern regions on Tuesday. 

http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/2012/10/2012102284341144733.html

Live Early Warning Doppler 9 detects severe weather first and fast

I thought this article was interesting. It kind of connected with the topic in class about how in the old times weather warnings weren't pointed out to public fast.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — 

When severe weather strikes, there is little time to prepare. Many people have lost everything in a matter of moments and now the National Weather Service has new technology that they hope will help them give better warning. 

Damoryiia Bryant and his mother, Tania Harris-Streater, are relaxed, but when clouds build, so do their nerves. 


"If it rains, I get terrified," said Harris-Streater.

The memories of March 3 are still vivid. On that early morning, an EF-2 tornado with winds over 130 mph charged through their back yard in north Charlotte. In seconds, the right side of the house was destroyed, but thankfully she and Bryant were OK.

She wishes she would have had more time to prepare.

"It was already on top of us when I figured out what was going on," said Harris-Streater.

Anthony Sturey at the National Weather Service hopes he can give that time to Harris-Streater's family with their new upgrade to dual-pol technology.

Previously, the National Weather Service could only send a beam horizontally to scan for storms, but now, from their tower they can send out beams horizontally and vertically at the same time. That helps them to better determine exactly what is falling from the cloud, whether it be rain, snow or hail. 

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/live-early-warning-doppler-9-detects-severe-weathe/nSmwd/

Severe storms possible in Arkansas on Wednesday

In an article by the associated press the confrontation of two different temperatures will be the cause for a severe storm.

By The Associated Press
High humidity and an approaching cold front could combine to generate severe weather in parts of Arkansas on Wednesday.
The Storm Prediction Center says there is a 30% chance for severe storms in the area between Little Rock and Memphis, Tenn., as a cold front slices through humid air. Severe storms are also possible to a lesser degree into the lower Ohio Valley and the Missouri Bootheel.
Forecasters say wind shear within the atmosphere, where winds move in different directions at different heights, could interact with the moist air and lead to the development of supercells from parts of the Ozark Plateau to the mid-Mississippi Valley. Later Wednesday, a squall line could generate high winds and hail.

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/19835171/severe-storms-possible-in-arkansas-on-wednesday

Global temperatures matched record for hottest September

Global temperatures last month matched an all-time high for the hottest September on record, U.S. scientists say, with record warmth in parts of Canada.

Last month, the average combined land and ocean surface temperatures were 0.67 C higher than the 20th century average of 15.6 C, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.
That temperature average matched the one from September 2005, which was the warmest September on record since 1880, it added.
Higher-than-average monthly temperatures were most notable in western Canada, central Russia, Japan, western Australia, northern Argentina, Paraguay and southern Greenland, the NOAA said.
Year-to-date global land and ocean surface temperatures were the eighth-warmest January to September period, with record warmth "observed across the eastern two-thirds of the United States and south-central Canada," the NOAA said in its global analysis report.
Last month also marked the 36th consecutive September and the 331st consecutive month that the average global temperature was higher than the 20th-century average.
Some scientists point to human-caused global warming and the loss of Arctic sea ice as the possible reason.
"What's playing out is precisely what climate scientists said we should expect to see 20 to 30 years ago," University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver told The Associated Press.
Weaver and NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt said two weather factors may be at play.
The La Nina weather oscillation — which is the opposite of El Nino and tends to depress global temperatures slightly — ended. And the Arctic was unusually warm and had a record amount of sea ice melting — factors that alter weather throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, some regions saw below average temperatures, including far eastern Russia, western Alaska, southern Africa, parts of the upper midwest and southeast United States, and much of China, the NOAA said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/10/15/warm-september-weather-noaa.html

Most Americans link weather to global warming: survey

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters

4:33 pm, October 9, 2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly three-quarters of Americans say global warming influences U.S. weather and made this year's record-hot summer worse, a survey said on Tuesday.

Conducted by Yale and George Mason universities, the survey found 74 percent of Americans believe that global warming is affecting weather, up 5 percentage points since March 2012, the last time the two organizations asked these questions.
Seventy-three percent of Americans said global warming made the record-high temperatures of summer 2012 worse, and 61 percent said weather in the United States has been worsening over the past several years, an increase of 9 percentage points since March
"Extreme weather is clearly having a serious impact on millions of Americans, though the impacts are different in different parts of the country," survey co-investigator Edward Maibach of George Mason University said in a statement.

The survey found most Midwesterners -- 71 percent, up 21 points since March -- said extreme weather caused more harm to crops over the past few decades. Eighty-three percent said they personally experienced an extreme heat wave, while 81 percent said they had experienced drought in the past year. That was an increase of 55 percentage points from March.http://touch.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-72811971/




A smaller majority of Southerners -- 56 percent -- said the weather in their localities has been getting worse over the past few years. Only 40 percent of those in the Northeast said drought has become more common. In the West, 49 percent said extreme weather is causing more forest fires, up seven points since March.

Strong Storm Risk Tuesday Evening Ohio to East Coast

While a storm system moving up from the South will be past peak, the system may pack enough punch to bring locally severe thunderstorms and flash flooding part of the Ohio Valley and East Coast into Tuesday night.
**Flash flooding occurred in the Gaithersburg and Germantown, Md. area during the midday Tuesday. Flash flooding expanded to multiple areas north and west of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore during the afternoon. Thunderstorm winds damaged homes in the Anderson, S.C. area during the morning Tuesday.**
According to Severe Weather Expert Henry Margusity, "As an upper-level disturbance associated with the storms system lifts northward the right conditions could develop to produce a few thunderstorms with high wind gusts, hail and even a short-lived tornado."
The violent storm risk area extends from eastern Kentucky to much of West Virginia and central and southern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania during Tuesday.
Cities that could be impacted by the storms include Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio; Lexington and London, Ky.; Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown, W.Va.; and Pittsburgh, Pa.
Key to the potential of the storms is how much daytime warming occurs.
"If these areas remain cloudy much of the day, there may not be enough energy and rising air to get severe thunderstorms going," Margusity said. "Provided the storms do develop, atmospheric conditions indicate a fair amount of wind shear, which can lead to damaging wind gusts and perhaps a couple of tornadoes."

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/strong-storm-risk-cincinnati-to-pittsburgh-tuesday/82497

Naming the next ‘snowmageddon’

In addition to providing information about significant winter storms by referring to them by name, the name itself will make communication and information sharing in the constantly expanding world of social media much easier. As an example, hash tagging a storm based on its name will provide a one-stop shop to exchange all of the latest information on the impending high-impact weather system.

Calling the project “ambitious,” The Weather Channel’s Tom Niziol says that winter storms will only be named within three days of impact and only when there is “moderate to strong confidence” that they will affect populated areas. Additionally, he writes, meteorologists will take into consideration other factors, including when the storm is expected to hit. If a storm is strongly predicted to hit a city during rush hour on a weekday, for example, it’s more likely to get a name.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/post/naming-the-next-snowmageddon/2012/10/02/fba5c662-0ca9-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_blog.html

Extreme weather: Arctic ice at lowest point in a million years

Noted sea ice geophysicist and climatologist Professor John Yackel from the University of Calgary has delivered a bombshell: He recently declared after the latest Arctic ice melt that, "This is the smallest minimum ice extent we've ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years."
Although satellite records only go back to 1979, there has been a disturbing trend in the Arctic region: Satellite imagery is showing that the Arctic ice region is melting at an alarming rate, far faster than even climatologists expected.

http://www.examiner.com/article/extreme-weather-arctic-ice-at-lowest-point-a-million-years

September Storms Boost October Half Term Bookings

LONDON, September 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Holidaymakers book October half term breaks to escape severe weather warnings in the UK and take advantage of great deals

October half term bookings have seen a sharp increase due to the worst September storms for more than 30 years, according to the car hire comparison site http://www.comparecarhire.co.uk/
The company says that current bad weather in the UK has resulted in an increase in demand for locations such as Spain, Turkey and Portugal as families look to escape the weather in the UK. According to the comparison site, there are some great deals available on flights and accommodation as well as car hire even though there is high demand over half term week.
Andy Hemmington of Comparecarhire.co.uk, said: "For some families the September storms have dampened spirits and driven Brits to book a break in the sun for half term. The weather is still warm in Europe's most popular holiday destinations in October, particularly when compared with the weather in the UK, so it still remains a busy period for the travel industry. However, this doesn't mean prices need to be high - there are some great deals out there to be had by holidaymakers."
A week's half term car hire from both Malaga or Faro Airport starts from just £6* per day and exploring the Spanish island of Majorca by car starts from £9* per day, picking up a vehicle from Palma de Mallorca airport.
Comparecarhire.co.uk is one of the leading car hire comparison websites in the UK, comparing car hire prices for over 40 suppliers in 15,000 locations worldwide including Spain, Portugal and Greece, with pick up locations for car hire in Malaga and car hire in Murcia.

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/september-storms-boost-october-half-term-bookings-171502041.html

Earth Networks Featured at Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting for Commitment to Provide Severe Weather Warnings in Haiti

GERMANTOWN, Md. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Earth Networks^SM, the owner of WeatherBug®and operator of the largest weather, lightning and climate observation networks, announces it is making a formal Commitment to Action to deploy $1.5 million in state-of-the-art weather alerting infrastructure, including hardware and weather tracking technology, in Haiti in 2013. Commitments to Action are new, concrete plans with practical goals and measureable results made by members of the Clinton Global Initiative to address a global challenge. The announcement is being made today at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting in New York.

http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120924005438/en/Earth-Networks/WeatherBug/Clinton-Global