It's Safe
Everywhere
I go people come up and ask me the same pained question. Is it safe?
"Can I remove my driveway stakes? No more snow, right Paul?" Nervous
laughter. "Is it safe to plant my annuals? Can I put my boat in without
ice forming on my engine block? Is it safe to finally come out of my
weather bunker?"
Yes.
Although I may have said something similar in late March.
Son
Of Polar Vortex shows signs of (finally!) retreating north. The jet
stream buckles northward over the next 72 hours, sending a well-timed
warm front surging across the Great Plains.
We should hit 70F
later today; mid-70s are likely Tuesday, another string of 70s as we
sail into Memorial Day weekend. Long-range ECMWF models prints out 82F
on Memorial Day, which made me want to give my laptop a hug.
Don't do it. People will stare.
"But
will there be complications, gangs of thunderstorms to spoil our
lukewarm fun?" T-storms are likely Monday, some heavy, but a puff of
slightly drier Canadian air keeps most of the action south of Minnesota
Tuesday into Sunday. A few storms may pop by Memorial Day, especially up
north, after daytime highs nudge 80 degrees.
Frost and jackets to shorts in 48 hours?
Only in Minnesota.
Warming Trend.
Sweet Mana from Heaven! Warm air finally surges north in the coming
week; highs near 70F today with 70s Tuesday - a longer run of continuous
70s the end of the week and next weekend. Lukewarm for a holiday
weekend? Right now it sure looks that way. T-storms are likely Monday,
most of the showers and T-storms pushed south/west of Minnesota Tuesday
PM into much of Sunday.
7-Day Predicted Rainfall Amounts.
NOAA model ensembles show some .5" rains for drought-stricken Texas, as
much as 1" from Des Moines and the Twin Cities to Pittsburgh and
Albany. Lake Tahoe and far northern California will see significant
rain, but none is predicted from the Bay Area to San Diego.
A Jet Stream Correction.
500 mb forecast winds (above) show a ridge of high pressure expanding
warm air across the central USA over the next 84 hours, a storm
pinwheeling into the west coast, but precious little rain is forecast to
fall from California to Texas. New England gets off to a chilly start
to the week, but moderation is likely by late week. Winds aloft and 500
mb vorticity: NOAA NAM model and HAMweather.
Developing Omega Block?
In the coming 7-10 days upper level winds over North America may
vaguely resemble the Greek letter omega, cool and stormy weather
persisting over New England and the Pacific Northwest, a ridge of warm
high pressure sandwiched (and temporarily stalled) in-between. Surface
temperatures courtesy of NOAA's NAM model and HAMweather.
Moore Tornado Victims Rebuild With New Rules.
Yes, strengthening building codes in the heart of Tornado Alley sounds
like a very good idea; here's an excerpt of a story and video at
NBC 5 in Dallas: "...
Burkhart's home was one of nearly 1,200 that were damaged or destroyed.
The storm generated enough debris to cover the basketball court at the
American Airlines Center in Dallas in a stack nearly two miles high.
Parts of Moore now look like a new housing development in North Texas.
But with the new homes, come new rules. In April, Moore became the first city in the country to require all new homes to stand up to 130 mph winds with stronger frames, additional bracing and sturdier garage doors..."
Shelter From The Storm: Cannon Blasts Test Walls for Tornado Safe Rooms. I had no idea this was going on in Madison, Wisconsin. Here's an excerpt from a story at
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "
Shooting
two-by-fours out of a cannon seems like a waste of perfectly good wood,
but a lot can be learned from splinters that might one day save people
from a tornado's deadly debris. And to frightened folks freaking out in
the middle of a tornado, it doesn't matter what researchers do to ensure
their safety, they just want to survive. In a large building at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison,
researchers are trying to simulate the effects of debris whipped by
twisters. To do that, they are re-creating 250-mph winds that suck up
everything in a tornado's path and fling it in all directions..."
Photo credit above: Gary Porter. "
A
two-by-four is shot out of a cannon to simulate debris being whipped
about by 250-mph winds, during testing at Forest Products Laboratory in
Madison."
Climate Stories...
Climate Change Lawsuits Filed Against Some 200 U.S. Communities.
This is the legal tip of the iceberg. Yes, there will be plenty of
billable hours for aggressive lawyers uncovering liability related to
more extreme waether events sparked by a changing, morphing, more
volatile climate in the years to come. Here's an excerpt from
The Christian Science Monitor: "
Climate
change lawsuits: Farmers Insurance filed class action lawsuit last
month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area for failing to
prepare for flooding. The suits argue towns should have known climate
change would produce more flooding..."
Photo credit above: Chicago Tribune, which has a slightly different perspective on the suit
here.
An Illustrated Guide To Our Collapsing Antarctic Glaciers.
Quartz has a very good, visual explanation of what's really going on - here's an excerpt: "...
But
scientists think that rising sea temperatures are now eroding the ice
shelf faster than the snow can rebuild it. Intensifying southern sea
wind forces—likely a product of climate change—also exacerbate ice erosion (pdf,
p.1,141). The lighter the ice shelf becomes, the more of it starts
floating, exposing more ice to water. That process pushes the “grounding
line”—the point where the ice separates from land and begins to
float—further inland..."
Screenshot from presentation: "Recent Changes in Greenland & Antarctica," Joughin & Poinar.
Inaction on Climate Change Risks Global Chaos. Here's a clip from a story at
Forbes that made me do a double-take: "...
What
a growing chorus of top generals and admirals and senior business
executives is saying is this: The proliferation of renewable energy
sources, the spread of energy efficiency and conservation measures, and
the reduction of reliance on fossil fuel imports from volatile (or
hostile) states aren’t just feel-good green policies; they’re critical
strategic responses to the harsh realities of climate change and growing
resource conflicts. The world leaders who would resist a price on
carbon include Vladimir Putin, whose expansionist tendencies and
contempt for the censure of Western democracies is based on his
country’s energy might..."
Global Warming Behind Loss in Area of Glaciers in Himalayas.
NDTV.com has the story; here's the introduction: "
The
area coverage of the glaciers in the Nepal Himalayas has decreased
nearly 12 times due to global warming, which raising serious concerns
for the environmental balance of the region, a study released in Nepal
said today. The area coverage has been reduced to 3,902 km in 2010 from
51,687 km in 1980 due to shrinkage and fragmentation as a result of
global warming. However, the number of glaciers in the Nepal Himalayas
has increased to 3,808 in 2010 from 3,430 glaciers in 1980, the report
said..."
Photo credit above: "
In this Oct. 27,
2011 file photo, the last light of the day sets on Mount Everest as it
rises behind Mount Nuptse as seen from Tengboche, in the Himalaya's
Khumbu region, Nepal." AP Photo.
World's Top Companies Already Feeling Impacts of Climate Change. Bloomberg Businessweek has the story; here's a clip: "
Drought,
hurricanes and rising seas are becoming more significant threats to the
world’s biggest companies and the risk is accelerating, according to
the Carbon Disclosure Project. Companies planning for various threats
related to climate change say they’re grappling now with about 45
percent of the potential risks, or will be within five years, according
to a report issued today by the London-based non-profit group. That’s up
from 2011, when members of the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index expected
26 percent of the potential risks to affect them within five years..." (File photo: Wikipedia).
8 Pseudoscientific Climate Claims Debunked By Real Climate Scientists.
Billmoyers.com has the complete list; here's an excerpt of the skeptical claim that "heating has stopped since 1998": "...
What’s
going on? “1998 was the warmest year in the last century,” explains
Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished senior scientist in the Climate
Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “There
was a big El Niño event in 1997 and 1998, and we have a lot of evidence
that there was a lot of heat coming out of the ocean at that time. So
that’s the real anomaly — the fact that we had what was perhaps the
biggest El Niño event on record.” “That’s one of the cherrypicking
points for deniers — they take the highest value and then compare it”
with lower points in the natural temperature fluctuation we know as
“weather...”
Warning Signs. Why The Struggle Over Climate Is Moving To The Executive Branch. National Journal has the article; here's the introduction: "
Miami
will likely be underwater before the Senate can muster enough votes to
meaningfully confront climate change. And probably Tampa and Charleston,
too—two other cities that last week's National Climate Assessment
placed at maximum risk from rising sea levels.
Even as studies proliferate on the dangers of a changing climate, the
issue's underlying politics virtually ensure that Congress will remain
paralyzed over it indefinitely. That means the U.S. response for the
foreseeable future is likely to come through executive-branch actions,
such as the regulations on carbon emissions from power plants that the
Environmental Protection Agency is due to propose next month. And that
means climate change will likely spike as a point of conflict in the
2016 presidential race..."
Climate, God and Marco Rubio. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
The Hill: "...
St.
Bonaventure, a Franciscan theologian, described the created universe as
the fountain fullness of God’s expressed being. As God is expressed in
creation, creation in turn expresses the creator. Rubio’s God must not
be one of endless love. What kind of a God would create such a
beautiful, wondrous creation filled with such awesome beauty only to
later change his mind and allow it to be destroyed? What it is about our
nature that allows us to believe it is okay to destroy our planet? Do
we not feel “the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement?”
Does Rubio not see the divine beauty in all of creation? Could it be
that we have become so isolated, so focused on the individual that we
have lost sight of our connectedness, our relationship to God, and all
that God has created?..."
