November 9: Alaskan Superstorm, Tropical Storm Sean, Wisconsin Snow

"This will be extremely dangerous and life threatening stsorm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced. All people in the area should take precautions to safeguard their lives and property." - National Weather Service discussion out of Fairbanks, tracking what may Alaska's most dangerous storm since 1974. Details below.


2011 Storm Facts: 7th hurricane season to have 18 or more storms. Also 1st time we’ve had 18 or more storms in consecutive seasons, with 2010 having 19 storms.

Year # of Storms:

2011 18*
2010 19
2005 28
1995 19
1969 18
1933 21
1887 19

*Number could still go up


No Snow as of November 8 - how unusual is that? I asked Pete Boulay at the Minnesota State Climate Office. Here is his response: "It is fairly unusual. The median date for the first trace of snow in the Twin Cities is October 16. Since 1948 the Twin Cities has gone as late as November 21 (1953) when 1.5" of snow fell. There have been 4 other years since 1948 when the "first trace" of snow has been November 9 to the 12th.

Near Miss. A plowable snowfall is still possible across much of central Wisconsin, at least 4-8" from near Black River Falls and the Wisconsin Dells to nera Oshkosh and Appleton.



Winter Weather Advisories. 2-6" of snow is expected from near Des Moines to Waterloo, the Wisconsin Dells, Oshkosh and Green Bay. The latest watches and warnings for the USA are here.

Correction: in the October 24 (print) weather column I mentioned U.S. traffic accident statistics, claiming 7,400 deaths and 670,000 injuries. It turns out those numbers were inaccurate - much too low. As recently as 2009 there were 33,808 accident-related fatalities and 2,217,000 injuries, according tot he U.S. Department of Transportation. Thanks to Glenn Breitag from Northfield for passing on the correct numbers. Sorry for the mistake.

Alaska Faces One Of Its Worst Storms Ever, Forecasters Say. This storm is deeper/stronger than some major hurricanes. CNN has a good overview of the threat: "Alaska is facing a life threatening winter storm with near hurricane force winds, more than a foot of snow and severe coastal flooding, the National Weather Service says. "This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm which will be one of the worst on record over the Bering Sea and the west coast," NWS forecasters said in a bulletin Monday afternoon. Winds near hurricane force of 74 mph were expected to generate seas as high as 25 feet in the northern Bering Sea, forecasters said. The winds were expected to raise sea levels as much as 9 feet in the Norton Sound. Those levels combined with the high waves were expected to cause significant coastal erosion and major flooding. The winds may also push sea ice on shore, adding to the dangers, NWS forecasters said."


Unlike Anything I've Ever Seen Before. Check out this verbage from the Fairbanks office of the National Weather Service:

THIS WILL BE AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING STORM...
THE WORST ON RECORD SINCE THE BERING SEA STORM OF NOVEMBER 10 TO
11 IN 1974. ALL RESIDENTS SHOULD TAKE ACTION NOW TO PREPARE FOR
THE STRONG WINDS AND COASTAL FLOODING.

THE STORM WILL GENERATE SOUTHEAST WINDS 50 TO 70 MPH OVER MUCH OF
THE WEST COAST STARTING TUESDAY EVENING AND CONTINUING INTO
WEDNESDAY NIGHT. THERE WILL BE PEAK GUSTS TO 90 MPH WHERE THE WIND
IS CHANNELED BY HILLS. THE STRONGEST WINDS WILL BE ON TUESDAY
NIGHT AND EARLY WEDNESDAY. ON WEDNESDAY...THE WINDS WILL TURN
SOUTHWEST AND BEGIN TO DIMINISH IN THE AFTERNOON AS THE STORM
MOVES PAST BERING STRAIT.

THE STORM SURGE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS STORM WILL CAUSE TIDES TO BE
8 TO 10 FEET ABOVE NORMAL ALONG THE WEST COAST FROM THE YUKON
DELTA UP TO BERING STRAIT. WEST AND SOUTH FACING COASTLINE WILL BE
THE MOST AFFECTED. MAJOR COASTAL FLOODING WILL BEGIN TUESDAY
NIGHT AND CONTINUE THROUGH EARLY THURSDAY. IN EASTERN NORTON
SOUND THE FLOODING WILL BEGIN EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING AND CONTINUE
THROUGH THURSDAY AFTERNOON. SEVERE BEACH EROSION IS EXPECTED WHERE
THE COAST IS FREE OF ICE. SEA ICE BORDERING THE SHORELINE MAY BE
PUSHED ONSHORE.

1 In 50 Year Storm For Alaska? More details on Alaska's pending super-storm from Fairbank's newsminer.com : "FAIRBANKS - A severe storm along Alaska’s western coastline could cause flooding in the northwest Alaska village of Kivalina, according to the National Weather Service. “A once in 30-50 year storm is due to arrive in the north Bering Sea late Tuesday,” said Ted Fathauer with the service’s Fairbanks office.  The region hasn’t seen a storm this severe since 1974. The early stages of the storm came into view late Saturday evening after a low-pressure system crossed over Japan into the Pacific Ocean, Fathauer said. Since then, it has gathered speed and strength. Winds could exceed 55 mph with gusts of 70 mph accompanied by a 3-foot storm surge. Waves of 20-25 feet are expected in the Chukchi and Bering seas. “Once a coastal flood watch is formulated, every coastal settlement in the area will be notified, whatever it takes,” said Fathauer. Kivalina, with about 400 residents, rests on a spit of land jutting into the Chukchi Sea." (Satellite image courtesy of the University of Wisconsin meteorology program).

* Reports late Tuesday night indicate mandatory evacuations underway for low-lying neighborhoods of Nome, Alaska.


Nome Webcam. Click here to see the latest conditions in Nome, Alaska.


NASA: Asteroid Video. Here are more details and a great video clip focusing on Tuesday's close enounter with an asteroid: “Using radar data, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created this six-frame movie of asteroid 2005 YU55. The data was obtained Nov. 7, 2011 using NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar (located at the Deep Space Network facility in Goldstone, Ca.) At the time, the space rock was approximately 860,000 miles (1.38 million kilometers) away from Earth. At its closest approach on Nov. 8, 2011, YU55 will be about 200,000 miles from Earth. It poses no threat. “


Tropical Storm Sean. Packing 50 mph sustained winds, "Sean" is churning up 10-15 foot seas between the Bahamas and Bermuda.


Projected Track. All the NHC computer models whisk "Sean" to the north/northeast, possibly impacting the Canadian Maritimes by Friday.


Tipton, Oklahoma Mesonet Destroyed. The tornado that touched down on Tipton, Oklahoma Monday destroyed the local, automated weather station. Here is a graph showing the last observations before the twister struck (click on 3 day observations). Image courtesy of the Oklahoma Mesonet.


Could Terrain Influence Tornado Formation? I've wondered the same thing over the years - people describe "favored tracks" for tornadoes up river valleys, etc. Al.com takes a look: "HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The idea first occurred to Kevin Knupp after the deadly 1989 tornado that hit Airport Road. Is it possible that an area's topography and surface characteristics can influence a tornado? More than 20 years later, Knupp - a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Alabama in Huntsville - is continuing to advance that theory. If true, it could give more insight into the phenomenon of tornadoes. But drawing firm conclusions on a tornado's influence is difficult because twisters are rare and, Knupp said, "the (scientific) process is slow."

Photo credit above: "An aerial photo of Anderson Hills subdivision following the April 27 tornadoes. The subdivision rests on a downslope, which UAH Professor Kevin Knupp said may cause tornadoes to intensify. (The Huntsville Times file photo)"

Cloud Appreciation Society. Cloud Lovers Unite! If you're a weather enthusiast you may get a charge out of checking out this site, the Cloud Appreciation Society: "At The Cloud Appreciation Society we love clouds, we’re not ashamed to say it and we’ve had enough of people moaning about them. Read our manifesto and see how we are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’. If you agree with what we stand for, then join the society for a minimal postage and administration fee and receive your very own official membership certificate and badge." (photo above is an amazing example of "asperatus clouds", a new class of clouds recently discovered and documented).



Wake Up And Smell ..... The Internet? Neatorama.com has the next evolutionary phase of the World Wide Web: "Meet Olly, a "web connected smell robot" that converts tweets, Facebook notifications, RSS feeds - whatever you want - into smells:

Olly has a removable section in the back which you can fill with any smell you like. It could be essential oils, a slice of fruit, your partner's perfume or even a drop of gin. [...] Olly is stackable, so if you have more than one, you can assign each one to a different service with a different smell. Connect one to Twitter and another to your calendar. Before you know it, you'll have a networked internet smell centre."

PG-Rated Weather Page. Well, that's one way to make a point.


Ah, If Every Day Could Be A Wednesday. Image frame grab courtesy of failblog.org.

Armistice Day Blizzard. This photo was taken in St. Louis Park on November 12, 1940 - 10 to 15 foot drifts common across the Twin Cities metro. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

"Snowfall Inflation"

Our biggest fear as meteorologists? Missing a tornado that threatens neighborhoods - and - predicting flurries, only to wake up the next morning to a foot of flurries - and - forgetting to wear pants in front of the green screen. But I digress. Not good. So we compensate. I think we're all still haunted by the Armistice Day Blizzard of Nov. 11-12, 1940. The forecast that day called for flurries. The subsequent storm sparked a 50 degree temperature drop, 20 foot drifts. 145 people died. That was before computer models, but it had a huge impact on forecasters. 

It's better to predict 4" (and wind up with 1") than the other way around. Viewers have long memories. That's why we tend to over-predict snowfall amounts. Nobody wants to get caught with their Doppler down.

Climate Stories...

A New Record: 14 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in 2011. Joe Romm at Climate Progress has the details: "In September 2010, Munich Re one of the world’s leading reinsurers, wrote “the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change.” In January, they summed up 2010 this way:  “The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change.” Last week meteorologist and former hurricane hunter Dr. Jeff Masters analyzed 2011, “Fourteen U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters in 2011: a new record,” which I excerpt below:


"It’s time to add another billion-dollar weather disaster to the growing 2011 total of these costly disasters: the extraordinary early-season Northeast U.S. snowstorm of October 29, which dumped up to 32 inches of snow, brought winds gusts of 70 mph to the coast, and killed at least 22 people….  The damage estimate in Connecticut alone is $3 billion, far more than the damage Hurricane Irene did to the state. Hundreds of thousands still remain without power a week after the storm, with full electricity not expected to be restored until Monday. The October 29 snow storm brings the 2011 tally of U.S. billion-dollar weather disasters to fourteen, thoroughly smashing the previous record of nine such disasters, set in 2008. Between 1980 – 2010, the U.S. averaged 3.5 of these weather disasters per year. Through August, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) estimated that ten weather disasters costing at least $1 billion had hit the U.S., at total cost of up to $45 billion. However, the October 29 snow storm brings us up to eleven billion-dollar disasters, and a new disaster analysis done by global reinsurance company AON Benfield adds three more."

Storms May Have Prevented Record Loss Of Arctic Ice. Yahoo News has the story: "DENVER - The amount of Arctic sea ice hangs on through the summer is partly dependent on the storminess of the weather, according to a new study. The research finds that in years when the weather in the Arctic is calm, more ice is lost by the end of the Arctic summer. Arctic sea ice has been in overall decline for decades now, reaching a record low in September 2007 and almost hitting that record again in 2011.  But while the trend is toward more melting of sea ice, the year-to-year measurements wobble up and down. The new research, presented Oct. 27 at the World Climate Research Program meeting here, found that storms account for much of that yearly variation. In fact, it may have been a stormy summer that saved 2011 from beating the 2007 sea ice-loss record, said study researcher James Screen of the University of Melbourne. The ice seemed on track to melt faster than in 2007, but then storms ravaged the Arctic for several weeks in July, Screen told meeting attendees."

Biggest Jump Ever Seen In Global Warming Gases. Here's an update from AP and the Seattle Times: "The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. "The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries - China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases."

Health Cost Of 6 U.S. Climate Disasters: $14 Billion. The story from Reuters: "Deaths and health problems from floods, drought and other U.S. disasters related to climate change cost an estimated $14 billion over the last decade, researchers said on Monday. "When extreme weather hits, we hear about the property damage and insurance costs," said Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council and a co-author of the study. "The healthcare costs never end up on the tab." The study in the journal Health Affairs looked at the cost of human suffering and loss of life due to six disasters from 2000-2009. "This in no way is going to capture all of the climate-related events that happened in the U.S. over that time period," Knowlton said. "At $14 billion, these numbers are big already." To put this in context, 14 weather disasters in the United States so far this year have cost at least $14 billion, according to Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground website. Masters said by email that health costs and deaths are considered in some of the data used to reach this figure."


How Global Warming "Skeptics" Roll. The graphic above tells it all - professional deniers will continue to cherry-pick data. In fact, for some of these professional skeptics there is no evidence, no smoking gun, that will ever change their minds. Planetsave.com has more: "This dynamic graph (or GIF, to be technical) is one of the best graphics I’ve seen (ever.. on any topic). It so accurately explains, or showcases, global warming “skeptic” (i.e. denier) logic. Basically, it highlights how they can go on cherry picking for ages and continue saying “the world is cooling” when it’s obviously warming."

Dust Obscures Picture Of Hurricanes In Warming World. Another intriguing story from Yahoo News: "Scientists have a pretty good idea that hurricanes will become less frequent and more intense due to climate change, said oceanographer Chunzai Wang during a recent visit to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, where scientists study everything from ocean acoustics to hurricane forecasting. But other curveballs that recently have come to light complicate the picture. One is dust. Every year, storms over West Africa disturb millions of tons of dust, and strong winds carry those particles westward into the skies over the Atlantic Ocean, where many hurricanes form. [Infographic: Storm Season! How, When & Where Hurricanes Form] During a dust spike triggered by heavy rainfall, there's a drop in hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, Wang said. As the dust spreads into the atmosphere, it increases what's called the vertical wind shear, the change in wind direction that comes with height, Wang said. That's bad news for hurricanes, because too much wind shear can break up tropical cyclones (the general term for hurricanes and tropical storms)." Image above courtesy of NASA.

Commentary: Science Trumps Climate Change Deniers. Here's an Op-Ed in the Kansas City Star: "Richard Muller was supposed to be the white knight for the deniers of global warming, smiting the fire-breathing activists who insist that climate change is real. In the end, though, science prevailed. Muller, a well respected physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, has long been a critic of the scientific methods used to determine whether the climate is, indeed, changing and whether humans are responsible in any way. Two years ago, Muller and his team at Berkeley set out to examine the evidence compiled by mainstream scientists and set the matter straight. While Muller insists that all he is interested in is promoting sound scientific studies, his project must have sounded promising enough to the Koch brothers, who ended up funding a quarter of the $600,000 cost of the study. The brothers, Charles and David, run the largest privately held company in the U.S. Since the 1980s, foundations formed by the Koch brothers have spent more than $100 million on conservative organizations and causes. Koch Industries is involved in oil and other endeavors that produce large amounts of greenhouse emissions, and the Kochs have bankrolled numerous efforts to discredit climate scientists."


Warming Arctic Wakes Up Methane And Microbes, Study Shows. The Medill School at Northwestern has the story: "As global warming pushes temperatures in the Arctic up faster than anywhere else, concern is rising about releasing the vast reservoir of greenhouse gas-forming carbon trapped in permafrost. The fate of the carbon could rest on some of the tiniest inhabitants of the frozen landscape: millions of microbes that respond rapidly to thaw, according to new research published in the on-line edition of Nature this week. Microbes frozen for thousands of years can spring to life and digest the carbon to release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, amplifying warming and melting. Scientists can't yet predict how much of the carbon stored in Arctic permafrost will reach the atmosphere, but microbes could play a pivotal role."

Outrunning Climate Change. The story from Conservation Magazine:"So, climate change scrambles your cozy coral reef or welcoming wetland. You gotta move – the new climate is driving you crazy! But how far… and how fast? That’s the question a team of researchers tries to answer in a new study of the pace of thermal shifts. Greenhouse gases have warmed the land by approximately one degree Celsius since 1960, the researchers note in Science, and that is roughly three times faster than the rate of ocean warming. But “different regions are warming or even cooling at different rates,” the authors note, “so uniform responses across the globe to climate change should not be anticipated.” Instead, organisms will have to move at different paces to maintain their “thermal niches.” To see just how fast those niches are shifting, the researchers analyzed global temperature records from 1960 to 2009, and then calculated how fast temperatures were shifting across land and ocean. Surprisingly, despite the differences between land and sea, they found that organisms would need to move at similar rates to keep pace with climate change. On land, they’d need to travel about 2.7 kilometers (1.6 miles) per year; in the oceans, about 2.2 kilometers (1.3 miles) per year."

November 8: Midwest Snow, November Tornadoes (risk of T.S. "Sean")

0" no accumulation expected in the Twin Cities tonight into Wednesday, storm tracks far enough east. 5-8" snow possible in Rochester, Minnesota by midday Wednesday. Winter Storm Watch posted for southeastern MN (includes southeastern suburbs).

10.4" snow predicted for Eau Claire, WI by midday tomorrow (NAM model using "Cobb Method").

November 6: average date of the first coating (1/10th") snow in the Twin Cities.
November 18: average date of the first 1" snowfall in the Twin Cities.
December 20: average date of the first 4" snowfall in the Twin Cities. Source: MN State Climatology Office.

May 2: last trace of snow flurries in the Twin Cities.

7th busiest season for named storms in the Atlantic/Caribbean since 1851.

Photo Of The Day: Way Too Close For Comfort. Veteran storm chaser Reed Timmer captured this image of a monster tornado near Tipton, Oklahoma Monday afternoon - what appeared to be an EF-2 or EF-3 tornado less than 300 yards up the road. Remarkable.

Oklahoma Battered By Tornadoes, Hail. Here's the latest from the L.A. Times: "Some residents two miles south of Tipton, Okla., were trapped after their house was damaged by the storms, but they were eventually rescued and were not injured, Tillman County emergency management director Jeffrey Rector told the Associated Press. At about 3 p.m. Central time Monday, storm spotters reported a large tornado south of Tipton, about 130 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, headed toward Snyder. The same tornado apparently touched down in Tillman County, destroying a structure and damaging at least three others, according to KOCO-TV. The tornado weakened before striking Snyder, but additional tornadoes associated with the same storm system have also touched down in the area, the station reported."

First Winter Storm Watch.  A Winter Storm Watch means that conditions are ripe for as much as 6" of snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. If the storm is inevitable the watch will be upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning. If you're traveling south/southeast/east - away from MSP Tuesday night into the first half of Wednesday, prepare for wintry travel conditions. I-94 and I-35 may stay mostly wet and slushy, but secondary roads and bridges may become icy and snow-covered. The latest watches and warnings are here.

P-P-Plowable? This is why meteorologists have migraines and gray, rapidly thinning hair (from pulling it out of our heads with both hands). It still looks like the Twin Cities metro area will be right on the edge of any accumulating snow. The best chance of a coating to an inch or 2": the southern and eastern suburbs of St. Paul. As much as 6" of slushy snow may pile up over southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin tonight into Wednesday morning, potentially enough to shovel and plow. Here we go....


Sharp Cut-Off. Am I nervous? You bet. Models are hinting at 6-10" snow from Albert Lea to Rochester, with less than 1" for the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities. A slight jog to the north/west could push heavier snow amounts into the immediate Twin Cities, but the odds of this happening are small, less than 1 in 4.


Rochester: Instant Winter. While Twin Cities commuters breathe one big collective sigh of relief (and snow lovers whine), folks in Rochester, Minnesota may get more snow than they bargained for. The latest NAM model prints out .82". A 10:1 ratio seems reasonable, meaning a good chance of 8" snow. Now the ground is relatively mild, some of that snow will melt on contact, but I could still envision a big pile of white by midday Wednesday. The heaviest snows are forecast to come tomorrow morning around breakfast.


Tropical Storm "Sean"? According to NHC there is a 70% probability an area of disturbed weather off the southeast coast will strengthen to tropical storm status in the next 48 hours. Thankfully, steering winds should nudge "Sean" away from the east coast of the USA.


Projected Track. All the models whisk "Sean" to the north/northeast - it may threaten the Canadian Maritimes by Thursday with coastal beach erosion and tropical storm force gusts.

2011 Hurricane Season Costliest, Deadliest In Three Years. The story from USA Today: "This year is the USA's costliest and deadliest for hurricanes since 2008. Two of the 17 storms that formed in the Atlantic - Irene and Lee - caused most of the damage. Hurricane Irene killed 45 people and caused at least $7 billion in damage, the National Climatic Data Center reports, making Irene the USA's most lethal and financially damaging hurricane since Ike in 2008. Torrential rains from Irene led to catastrophic flooding in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This season was also the seventh-busiest for named storms since record-keeping began in 1851. According to meteorologist Jeff Masters of private meteorology firm the Weather Underground, 2005 had the most storms, followed by 1933, 1995, 1887, 2010 and 1969."

Floods Show What Lies Ahead For Sinking Bangkok. Development and aggressive pumping of underground aquifers has caused the city of Bangkok to sink in the last 30 years (much like New Orleans). Discovery News focuses in on how the current flooding (worst in at least 50 years) may be a preview of coming attractions for Thailand's capital city: "A Thai resident walks by a flooded monastery November 6, 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. Over seven major industrial parks in Bangkok and thousands of factories have been closed in the central Thai province of Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi with millions of tons of rice damaged. Thailand is experiencing the worst flooding in over 50 years which has affected more than nine million people."

Slushy Possibilities

"Hey Paul, what's the weather?" Let me check the Amish Doppler (window). The truth: with a keen knowledge of clouds, a barometer on the wall and current wind direction, anyone can make a fairly accurate 6-12 hour forecast. Anything beyond that requires weather models. Back in the '70s there was but one model (the LFM, or Limited Fine Mesh). Now there are scores of weather models, each with unique physics. Some work better than others in specific scenarios. This is the black art of weather forecasting today - knowing what weather model to believe, and why.

Climate Stories....

Arctic Permafrost: Climate Wild Card. Here's a vaguely terrifying excerpt of a story from Time: "On the basics, the science of climate change is pretty straightforward. Carbon dioxide released into the air—whether through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation or other natural causes—adds to the greenhouse effect, which traps more solar energy in the atmosphere and warms the planet. But just how this will happen—how fast and exactly how the planet and the climate will respond to more carbon and more warming—gets very complicated very quickly. There are wild cards in the climate system, some of which—if they flip the wrong way—could vastly accelerate global warming well beyond anything most climate models predict. One of those wild cards is the 1,672 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent trapped in the form of methane in the Arctic permafrost, the soils kept frozen by the far North's extreme temperatures. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas—it has 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide—and the total amount of carbon equivalent in the Arctic permafrost is 250 times greater than annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As the Arctic warms—which it's doing rather rapidly—there's a risk that the permafrost could become less than permanent, releasing some of that trapped methane into the air, which would then accelerate warming, leading to more Arctic melt, more methane emissions...so on and so on. Climate scientists call this a "feedback loop"—and if it happens soon, you could just call us screwed."

Global Warming Threatens Forests In U.S. West. Here's a good summary from ThirdAge.com: "Global warming and other factors are causing large movements of tree species across the U.S. West, researchers say. With climate change, insect attack, diseases and fire, several tree species are expected to decline and possibly die out in regions where they have lived for centuries while others move in and replace them, researchers at Oregon State University said. Some of the once-common species, such as the lodgepole pine, may be replaced by other trees, perhaps a range expansion of ponderosa pine or Douglas fir, UPI.com reported. Other areas may see a complete shift out of forest into grass savannah or sagebrush desert, researchers said."

Entergy CEO Steps Up Demand That The Industry Deal With Global Warming. NOLA.com has the story of an energy company CEO who is is acknowledging the need to price carbon: "J. Wayne Leonard, the chief executive of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., has upped the ante on his demand that the federal government and his fellow major industry executives deal with global warming, abandoning support for a national carbon emissions "cap and trade" program in favor of a per-ton fee on carbon emissions. The carbon fee would be levied on all carbon emissions to provide a financial incentive to reduce emissions, with money from the fee used to reduce the national deficit and help low-income families, Leonard said. Some of the money from the fee would be funneled into support for research and development of carbon reduction technology and alternative energy."

 

Climate Change Affecting Oceans Faster, Study. Australia's ABC Network has the story: "Climate change is having a more pronounced effect on animals and plants in the world's oceans than scientists had previously anticipated, a new analysis shows. Scientists had expected that the effect of climate change would be slower in the oceans than on land, due to the amount of energy it takes to heat such large bodies of water. But after studying the changes in temperature on land and in the oceans over 50 years, researchers led by Michael Burrows from the Scottish Marine Science Institute say this isn't the case. Their calculations of the velocity of climate change and shifts in seasonal timing between 1960 and 2009 appear in today's issue of the journal Science ."

November 7: Aurora, Wisconsin Slush (extreme weather has left America's power grid more vulnerable)

U.S. Anticipates Northern Lights Show This Week. More solar flares are predicted, and that may increase the odds of seeing the Aurora Borealis this week. "Anticipation is mounting that soon the world will be treated to an incredible light show with a sunspot bubbling with activity. Spaceweather.com reports that the unusually large sunspot unleashed at least five M-class solar flares since Saturday and has a “delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class flares.” Solar flares are ranked by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) based on their x-ray energy output. M-class solar flares are the second strongest with X-class flares sitting at the top of the list. Even if a CME (coronal mass ejection) occurs, it may not head to Earth, as was the case last Thursday. With the sunspot situated on the sun’s outer edge (from Earth’s viewing point), the CME that was unleashed took aim on Mercury and Venus instead." (Aurora photo courtesy of NASA).

Midweek Storm. The next storm system is forecast to track from north Texas into Missouri, reaching Madison, Wisconsin by Wednesday morning, a cold rain mixing with wet snow (especially over Wisconsin). Map courtesy of NOAA.

Wednesday Slush over Wisconsin? The GFS model prints out as much as 2-6" snow near Oshkosh and Appleton, a slushy inch or two near the Quad Cities of Iowa. I think these amounts are a bit high, but the models have the right idea pushing the storm track farther east. A little slush can't be ruled out over the Minnesota Arrowhead, but right now odds do not favor any accumulation close to the Twin Cities metro area.

Evidence Of A Quake (On Doppler Radar?) Obviously - radar can't see the earth shaking (it's not quite that sensitive), but Doppler was able to track birds and insects taking flight after the 5.6 tremor began. Loop courtesy of the Oklahoma City office of the National Weather Service.

What Is Going On In Oklahoma? A 5.6 quake Saturday night, followed by at least 21 additional tremors in the 2.7 to 4.0 on the Richter scale in just the last 36 hours. More details from USGS here.

Oklahoma 2011 Extremes. From the Norman office of the NWS: "(Saturday night’s) 5.6 earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in Oklahoma. Even though it has nothing to do with weather, the new record is another on a long list of records set in Oklahoma this year."

Here’s a rundown of some of the statewide records for Oklahoma so far this year:

Most Snow in a 24 Hour Period: 27 inches Spavinaw, OK Feb 9-10, 2011
Coldest Temperature: -31 degrees Nowata, OK Feb 10, 2011
Largest Hailstone: 6.0 inches 2 miles north of Gotebo May 23, 2011
Highest Wind Speed highest official surface wind measurement (not radar-based) 150.8 mph El Reno May 24, 2011
Highest Summer Average Temperature: 86.8 degrees This was also the hottest average summer temperature in history for any state
Warmest August Average Temperature: 87.7 degrees


National Hurricane Center Estimates More Than 240 Tropical Systems Were Missed Between 1900 to 2002. Here's another eye-opening article from the Boston Herald: "With less than a month remaining in it, 17 named storms have emerged so far this hurricane season, ensuring this will be one of the most active years on record. Yet five of those storms were so weak that a few decades ago they likely would have been overlooked. Indeed, between 1900 and 2002, the National Hurricane Center estimates, it failed to identify more than 240 systems that might have been tropical storms but were mistakenly deemed too weak or went undetected because they were too far out in the ocean to be studied. Climatologists further guess that of those, 75 were hurricanes. Thanks to the satellite era, which came full force in the mid-1970s, forecasters are able to better estimate the strength of even the most distant systems. In the past 35 years, they have spotted dozens of storms that previously would have been discounted, 18 in the past five years alone." (image above courtesy of NASA).

Crippling October Snowstorm Prompts FEMA, MEMA, To Issue Reminder For Storm Preparedness. The timely reminder (and storm checklist) from masslive.com: “More severe weather systems will strike this area; it’s a matter of when, not if,” emergency agency officials said, with the message: “Get Ready Now.” Residents are being urged to assemble and keep disaster emergency preparedness kits close by and to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice if notified by local officials to leave their homes. Such kits should be kept in a portable container that residents can have take with them if they must evacuate their homes. "


An emergency preparedness kit should include:

• At least a three-day supply of food and bottled water for each family member;

• Manual can opener;

• Battery-powered radio and flashlights with extra batteries;

• First-aid kit with family members’ medications and prescription information;

• Hygiene and personal care items."

Opinion: Weathering Future Storms. So much of America's electrical grid is vulnerable to high winds (and falling branches on exposed, above-ground powerlines). Northjersey.com has an Op-Ed about what we can do (in an increasingly stormy environment) to make the power grid more resilient: "LAST WEEK’S freakish autumn snowstorm, the latest in a year that saw damaging blizzards, downpours and flooding, has sparked deepening concern that the region’s aging electricity infrastructure is straining under growing demand and becoming increasingly vulnerable to severe weather. The snowstorm alone left more than 600,000 New Jersey residents and businesses without power – 150,000 in Bergen and Passaic counties alone — and disrupted train service on NJTransit’s Morris and Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines all week. If storms such as Hurricane Irene and the Halloween Nor’easter are the new norm, as a growing number of climate scientists contend, can anything be done to protect and repair utility wires and poles and avoid sustained power outages?"


The Troubling Connecticut Power Failure. A foot or two of snow coming in January would be tough enough - but having that amount of heavy, wet snow falling in late October (with most leaves still on the trees) meant that thousands of tree limbs came down onto powerlines, causing the worst outage in the northeast power grid in recent memory. Here's more on the fallout from the October 29 storm from Reuters and The New York Times: "The moneyed folk inhabiting the Connecticut environs of the hedge fund town Greenwich wield plenty of power. But many of them have lately been powerless. For the second time in barely more than two months, a huge swath of the two million captive customers of Northeast Utilities, the power company that covers territory from the Constitution State up through western Massachusetts and into New Hampshire, have spent too many days without electricity. In an echo of the financial crisis, it turns out that better risk management and stronger regulation could have made the fallout much less bad. This raises serious questions about Northeast’s competence — and whether it should be allowed to complete a $4.7 billion takeover of a Massachusetts rival, Nstar." (photo above courtesy of masslive.com).

Flood Situation Worsens As Crisis Becomes Political. The story from The Bangkok Post: "The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has given the government an ultimatum to start cooperating or it will ditch the existing plans it has to tackle the city's floods. Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said yesterday the BMA would come up with a new flood management plan if the Flood Relief Operations Command (Froc) does not spell out by tomorrow how it will cooperate in tackling the floods. The BMA asked the Froc to provide water pumps and speed up flood drainage operations a week ago, but it had not received any response, the governor said. City Hall also asked the Froc to instruct the Royal Irrigation Department to open its 20 sluice gates in Nong Chok district to speed up water drainage to the Bang Pakong River in Chachoengsao province, but only nine of 20 sluice gates had been opened."

Secret To A Long, Healthy Life: Bike To The Store. The story from NPR: "What would you say to a cheap, easy way to stay slim, one that would help avoid serious illness and early death? How about if it made your neighbors healthier, too? It could be as simple as biking to the store. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin were wondering if getting people out of their cars just a wee bit would create measurable improvements in health. So they gathered up data sets on obesity, health effects of pollution, and air pollution caused by automobiles in 11 Midwestern cities, and did a mashup. They found that if the Midwesterners ran half of their short-distance errands by bike rather than by car, 1,100 deaths would be avoided each year, and $7 billion would be saved in reduced health-care costs. The trips were 2.5 miles one way; less than a 25-minute bike ride, the researchers figure."


"Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." Steve Jobs' last words before passing away, according to his sister, Mona Simpson, who was by his side. She recounts the story, and other memories of her brother, in this powerful eulogy in the New York Times.

Climate Stories...

Shakespeare, Sunsets, Global Warming And You: How We Choose Experts On Matters That Matter. This is a rather profound post from ABC News: "Imagine you’re reading Shakespeare on an unseasonably warm evening while sitting on a dune looking west across the sea at sunset. Who really wrote that poetry, what caused that extra heat, and what’s really happening out on the horizon? You’ll need experts for all that. On sunset, scientists now have news this reporter finds it hard to keep a grip on. You watch the reddening sun move down toward the horizon until the bottom edge of the bright disc drops behind the rim of the sea. The still visible portion of the sun morphs into various shapes as it moves inexorably down until it’s just a tiny point of light. Then, as you can plainly see, it is suddenly gone as the sun travels even further below the horizon. Experts now tell us none of that is true. The sun isn’t moving down at all! Instead, the earth beneath you is rolling backwards so that its rounded bulk is slowly rising up between you and the sun."

Global Warming In Antarctica: Glaciers Accelerating, West Antarctic Ice Sheet Losing Mass. An update from indymedia.org: "Scientists have been studying the climate change impact on ice shelfs and glaciers for some time in Antarctica, and particularly around the Antarctic Peninsula where there is substantial warming occurring increasing ice shelf melt and the speed and discharge of glaciers. The most recent studies predict a faster retreat for the Thwaites Glacier and that warm ocean currents are already speeding the melting of the Pine Island Glacier and Ice Shelf and Getz Ice Shelf. A NASA Icebridge flight detected a major new rift in the Pine Island ice shelf on October 14 - the start of the calving of a massive iceberg. A recent paper in Nature Geoscience discusses the Stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet in a warming world and the likelihood of collapse that would raise sea level by more than three metres over the course of several centuries or less."

Climate Change, Beetle, May Doom Rugged Pine. How will climate change impact the North Woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin? Warmer winters, fewer nights colder than -40 F, allow beetles to survive yearround, increasing the threat to pine trees. The Seattle Times has the story: "SAWTOOTH RIDGE, Okanogan County — The bug lady scoots through stick-straight lodgepole and ponderosa, and marches uphill toward the gnarled trunk of a troubled species: the whitebark pine. The ghostly conifers found on chilly, wind-swept peaks like this may well be among the earliest victims of a warming climate. Even in the Northwest, rising temperatures at higher elevations have brought hundreds of thousands of whitebark pines in contact with a deadly predator — the mountain pine beetle — that is helping drive this odd tree toward extinction. Connie Mehmel, with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, is one of a handful of entomologists struggling to track the beetles' destructive path. Mountain pine beetles are probably best-known here as the trunk-girdling devils that have reddened and deadened millions of acres of lodgepole, exposing the Northwest to a greater potential for cataclysmic wildfires. But the evolutionary history of lodgepole pine and beetles is so intertwined that those forests in many places are expected to grow back. Whitebark pines may not."

Climate Change Effects The Seasons: Autumn Doesn't Know If It's Coming Or Going. The U.K. Telegraph has the story: "And why?” my wife Lucy demanded yesterday as she peeled off her gardening gloves, “are my clematis and roses in full bloom on November 1, and why am I still being bitten by gnats and midges?” Standing in shirt sleeves and muddy-kneed cords, brandishing a pair of secateurs, she sounded cross. “I’m supposed to be putting the garden to bed for the winter, not admiring summer flowers and swatting bugs.” The truth is, I don’t know. I’m not convinced anyone knows exactly how climate change is affecting our planet. Nor does anyone know how quickly it’s happening or whether it will last. “Oh, it’s just cyclical,” people say. But perhaps it’s terminal. Maybe the planet’s hitting back after two and a half centuries of industrial man’s abuse and the ravages of our carefree explosion to seven billion mouths, announced last week. What if these signals are a sort of Gaia comeuppance? Perhaps the plants and insects know better than us – they’re certainly more sensitive and less devious – and maybe we should heed their omens."

 

Real Climate Change: From Green To Brown. Here's an Op-Ed from Corpus Christi's caller.com: "For some Americans, climate change is a figment of the overheated imagination of liberal-leaning, pickup truck-hating, CNN-watching, New York Times-reading, Obama- voting, granola-eating scientists. These Americans aren't convinced that there is anything to worry about. Anytime a snowstorm pops up, they ask, where's that global warming? I'm no scientist. In fact, my grasp of the theory of the wheel is a little unsure. But I figure that if a lot of scientists are convinced that there is global warming, and that human activities are contributing to that warming, then the possibility that there is something to the assertion has to be considered. That the Earth is, in fact, warmer is now indisputable fact. Last year tied for the warmest year on record, adding to the recent number of years that rate at or near the top of warm years. Most of the warming has occurred since the 1970s, leading to the not surprising conclusion that human activity has a lot to do with the heating trend. But climate change is one of those issues, like whether Obama's birth certificate is real or whether Al Gore won Florida in 2000, that has more to do with politics than science. That's likely why the TCEQ is likely to shelve a recent scientific report on the health of Galveston Bay which the agency commissioned." (Satellite image courtesy of NASA).


 
Climate Change Endangering Florida. Theledger.com has an Op-Ed: "I recently returned from a national environmental journalism conference in Miami. It was no accident that climate change and sea level rise were prominent on the agenda. If things continue as predicted, the bottom floors of the hotel where we were meeting would be part of Biscayne Bay — well offshore in Biscayne Bay — by the turn of the century. And even the parts of Dade County that aren't underwater will be uninhabitable because the rising sea level will have made much of the Biscayne Aquifer, the shallow aquifer that supplies drinking water in this part of Florida, too salty to drink. That will force regional water managers to move wells farther inland at great expense to supply water to whatever areas in the region are still habitable. Add to that the fact that substantial portions of South Florida that aren't covered by the advancing sea will be underwater anyway. That's because the canal system that for decades drained subtropical rainfall to the sea will be relatively useless."