October 29: 1-2 Feet of Snow For Northeast Corridor Today

Warmest October for Minnesota since 1963. Source: Dr. Mark Seeley.

* Irene is no longer a tropical storm or depression, but a weakening area of low pressure near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.


Balmy October. Here's a blurb from Mark Seeley's WeatherTalk: "On a statewide basis this has been a very warm October, warmest since 1963 and probably 4th warmest in history. Observers report a mean monthly temperature that is 5 to 7 degrees F warmer than average. Extremes for the month ranged from 90 degrees F at Browns Valley on the 6th to just 13 degrees F at Embarrass on the 21st."

Earliest Foot Of Snow For Many Northeastern Cities? We're still compiling the climate data, but I suspect that today's snow storm will wind up dumping the earliest foot or more of snow on record for many northeastern cities from Harrisburg and Philadelphia to Scranton, Albany, Hartford and Worcester, MA. Winter Storm Warnings are posted for much of the northeast - meaning heavy snow is imminent. Click here to see the latest watches and warnings from NOAA.

"Plowable to Crippling". The Poconos of Pennsylvania and the Catskills of New York could pick up as much as 20-24" of snow from today's fast-moving coastal storm. A foot or more of snow is expected from northern Virginia to coastal Maine.

Predicted Snowfall Amounts (using Cobb Method):

Washington D.C. 2"
New York City: 4.6"
Philadelphia: 9"
Lancaster, PA: 26"

Tens of Millions Impacted By Snow? Early in the day Friday NOAA calculated that nearly 26 million Americans were under either a Winter Storm Watch or Winter Storm Warning.

Satellite To Help Forecast Tornadoes, Hurricanes And Other Extreme Weather To Launch. The International Business Times has a story about NASA's latest Earth-observing satellite: "Finally, after a five-year delay, the $1.5 billion NASA Earth-observing satellite will be launched Oct. 28 from California. The satellite is aimed to test new technologies to improve weather forecasts and monitor climate change. About the size of a small school bus, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project - NPP for short, carries five different types of instruments to collect environmental data, including four that never before have flown into space. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologists plan to feed the data into their weather models to better anticipate and track hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather."


Instruments on the NPP:

• Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS)

  22-channel passive microwave radiometer, to create global models of temperature and moisture profiles that meteorologists will enter into weather forecasting models.
  

• Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS)

  Michelson interferometer, will monitor characteristics of the atmosphere, such as moisture and pressure that will be used to produce improvements in both short-and-long term weather forecasting.
  

• Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS)

  OMPS, built by Ball Aerospace, incorporates an advanced nadir-viewing sensor and a highly innovative limb-viewing sensor. OMPS instrument continues Ball’s history of building ozone-measuring instruments and will continue the long-term continuous data record of ozone measurements from space.
  

• Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)

  VIIRS, developed by Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, has a 22-band radiometer similar to the MODIS instrument. It will collect visible and infrared views of Earth’s dynamic surface processes, such as wildfires, land changes, and ice movement. VIIRS will also measure atmospheric and oceanic properties, including clouds and sea surface temperature.
  

• Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES)

  3-channel radiometer measuring reflected solar radiation, emitted terrestrial radiation, and total radiation, will monitor the natural and anthropogenic effects on the Earth’s total thermal radiation budget.
  

Obama Has Declared Record 89 Disasters So Far In 2011. ABC News has the story: "From Hurricane Irene, which soaked the entire East Coast in August, to the Midwest tornadoes, which wrought havoc from Wisconsin to Texas, 2011 has seen more billion-dollar natural disasters than any year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. And as America’s hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and wildfires set records this year, so too has President Obama in his response to them. During the first 10 months of this year President Obama declared 89 major disasters, more than the record 81 declarations that he made in all of 2010. And Obama has declared more disasters — 229 — in the first three years of his presidency than almost any other president signed in their full four-year terms. Only President George W. Bush declared more, having signed 238 disaster declarations in his second term, from 2005 to 2009."

Remembering April's Fury - One Man's Story. Here's a remarkable tale of survival from WSFA-TV: "LAKE MARTIN, AL (WSFA) – On the six month anniversary of the April 27^th Tornado Super Outbreak, some memories are just as fresh as they were on that dreadful night.  David Woodall lost his mother and aunt when an EF-4 tornado reshaped the landscape of Lake Martin, forever changing his life. The EF-4 tornado ripped through parts of Elmore and Tallapoosa Counties on that Wednesday evening, taking the lives of two of David's closest family members who were taking shelter in a cabin.  This tornado claimed five additional lives and caused over two dozen more to be injured. Investigators believe winds in this tornado reached 170 mph along a 44 mile path.  The twister spared little in its path...sweeping up everything from trees to full size vehicles.  The damage was nothing less than extensive. Earlier in the day, David Woodall was chasing other tornadoes in north-central Alabama.  Monitoring radar, he made the call to his wife and daughter in Wetumpka to let them know a tornado was passing far enough to the north of their home.  He knew the tornado was now aiming for his family's cabin at the lake, where his mother and aunt were sitting out the storms all day."

BYD's All-Electric E6 Hits Market - 87 MPH And A Range Of 180 Miles. It turns out the Chinese are pushing the envelope when it comes to all-electric vehicles, as reported by gizmag.com: "One of the stars of the Chinese automotive industry is Shenzen-based BYD, which although only sixth largest of the Chinese manufacturers, had the country's top selling individual vehicle last year in the form of the BYD F3 (a Toyota Corolla E120 clone).Now, after substantive testing of its e6 all-electric model in taxi and company fleets, the five-seater 75 kW, 87 mph crossover has gone on sale to the Chinese public, with a (claimed) range of 300 km (186 miles), which would give it the longest range of any EV in the world at present."

Climate Stories....

In A Position Shift Romney Says The Cause Of Climate Change Is Unknown. Well, this is a disappointing development. The atmosphere is warming, weather is becoming more extreme, but let's not consider the 95 million tons of greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere every DAY. No, it couldn't possibly be that, could it? The story from The Hill: "Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney is trying to cement his status as a skeptic of man-made global warming after coming under fire from conservatives for saying that humans contribute to climate change. During a fundraising event in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Romney cast doubt on climate science, bringing his position on global warming closer to that of his rivals for the GOP nomination. “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet,” Romney said during a speech, a clip of which was posted by the liberal blog Think Progress. “And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Research Unveils Extensive U.S. Geothermal Resources. The story from gizmag.com: "As a green energy source, geothermal heat is tough to beat, but until recently, it was believed to be economically feasible only in areas with shallow tectonic (volcanic) activity. Now, with a generous grant from Google.org, the search engine giant's philanthropic arm, two scientists from Southern Methodist University (SMU) have pooled together the results from more than 35,000 data sites to paint a very different, almost rosy, energy picture for the United States and, indeed, the world....Currently, more than 2700 MW of electricity are generated geothermally in the U.S. each year- roughly equivalent to 60 million barrels of oil - and sufficient to power 3.5 million homes, all while eliminating 22 million tons of carbon dioxide, 200,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 80,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 110,000 tons of particulate matter. Clean, indeed."

October 28: Freak Saturday Snow Blitz? (8-12" possible from D.C. to New York)

Halloween Superstorm Facts. The 20 year anniversary is coming up - and some of the all-time Twin Cities records are listed above. Minnesotans have plenty of Halloween 1991 memories (and horror stories). In the coming days we'll review one of Minnesota's most remarkable snowstorms....ever.  Data above courtesy of the MN State Climate Office.


2.5" snow at Amarillo, Texas Thursday morning.
4-8" snow reported in downtown Denver and close-in suburbs; most of that snow will be gone by this evening.
57.68" precipitation at Cincinnati, Ohio: wettest year on record (old record: 57.58" in 1990).


* Is it time to have two types of tornado alerts, 1). Tornado Warnings and 2). Tornado Emergencies? I try to make the case below.


Freak October Snowstorm? The latest guidance is in, and I almost fell off my couch last night. Models consistently print out a second, coastal storm Friday night into Saturday, and there may be enough cold air in place for mostly snow. It's hard to believe, but there's a potential for a heavy, wet ("plowable") snowfall from Richmond to D.C., Baltimre and Philadelphia. A few of the computer models are hinting at a foot of snow for some of the major population centers in the Mid Atlantic states. Good grief - this is all happening a little too quickly...



Saturday Snow Blitz? Man, I hope the models are wrong. This is pretty incredible - models now suggesting that enough cold air will be in place for mostly snow as a coastal storm pushes north Friday night into Saturday, a fast-moving shield of snow falling at the rate of 1"/hour, from near Richmond to Washington D.C. to Philadelphia, the suburbs of New York City, to Hartford. The Twin Cities has yet to see a flake of snow, and our nation's capital and the Big Apple may be digging out from at least 10" snow by Saturday evening.

Surreal. Let's see if the models are on the right track. Stay tuned.

Wisconsin Snow Burst. “Thanks to Jerry Veverka for sending us this pic of snow falling 5 miles southwest of Phillips, WI.” (source: Duluth National Weather Service).

First Snow. NWS Burlington VT: “First images of snow this morning across central and southern VT as well as the southern Adirondacks. This image is from a web cam near Chelsea, VT. Mainly light amounts of snow today with up to an inch or two in the higher elevations of the southern Green Mts.”

Rina Weakens To Tropical Storm As It Approaches Yucatan Peninsula. Reuters has the latest: "Hurricane Rina weakened to a tropical storm on Thursday as it swept toward Mexico's Caribbean coast after causing travel chaos and spurring evacuations from island resorts. Rina is expected to continue to weaken as it sweeps the eastern coast of the Yucatan peninsula by evening, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. The coast is home to the strip of resorts known as the Riviera Maya. In Playa del Carmen, strong rain had eased by the morning although the sea was choppy and the dock for ships to the tourist island of Cozumel was closed. While most souvenir and gift shops on the pedestrian boulevard 5th Avenue had their steel shutters drawn, only a few beach-front properties had their windows secured with wooden panels. "


Rina's Track. There's a good chance Rina will weaken into a tropical depression and do a U-turn, soaking the Yucatan Peninsula, but sparing Florida in the process. Too much wind shear, too much dry air being entrained into the storm's circulation.

Hurricane Hunter Pics. The USA is the only country that flies planes INTO hurricanes, to learn more about intensity and future track. Every hurricane is different, and only so much data can be gleaned from weather satellites. These big, 4-engine, turboprop aircraft send back real-time information to NHC, launching "dropsondes", small weather instruments that parachute to the ocean floor below, sending back a live data stream of wind, pressure and humidity all the way down.  (Thanks to Justin Kennedy from NOAA for tweeting the photos above).

Mudslides And Flooding Ravage Areas Of Scenic Beauty In Italy. The New York Times has more details: "ROME — Flailing through mounds of sludge left by torrential rains, rescue workers cleared debris and hunted for survivors in Tuscany and Liguria on Wednesday after mudslides and flooding left at least six people dead and hundreds homeless in those areas, among the most picturesque in Italy. Video images showed vast devastation, including in Monterosso al Mare, a village on the Unesco World Heritage List. In some towns, videos showed, streets had become canals, furniture was piled pell-mell outside homes, bridges were swept away, highways were blocked by tree trunks and overturned trucks, cars were washed out to sea and boats were shredded like matchsticks."

Hurricane Tracker. Here's a very cool visualization of "Rina" from the New York Times, showing past and predicted track, along with a "meteogram" to the right, with the change in intensity over the last few days.

Hurricane Photos. The New York Times has done a very good job soliciting and posting hurricane-related photos. Man of these photos are from Hurricane Irene, but some pics from Tropical Storm Lee are included as well. Definitely worth a look.

Hurricane Irene Victims Are "Still Really Suffering". WRAL-TV has an update on the lingering impact of Irene: "Aurora, N.C. — It has been two months since Hurricane Irene hit parts of eastern North Carolina, and, in many places, the cleanup is far from over. In Beaufort and Pamlico counties, flooding was a big part of the problem, leaving homes and businesses uninhabitable. At Carolina Seafood in Beaufort County, workers have been shaping the company back to what it was before the storm. There wasn't much left of the crab processing company following the hurricane. “I just went to my knees and cried,” said Vance Henries, owner of Carolina Seafood. “Walls were busted in. We had trees – floating trees – that had come in like torpedoes and just took walls out.” With nowhere to process the crabs, most of the employees had to look elsewhere for work. Employee Janet Diffenderfer says, after a hurricane, “elsewhere” is hard to find. “No (one was) hiring. They weren’t even hiring before the hurricane hit,” she said."

South Jersey Businesses And Residents Still Feeling The Effects Of Hurricane Irene. PressofAtlanticCity.com has the story: "HAMILTON TOWNSHIP — A few days after Hurricane Irene struck South Jersey last month, a group of FEMA employees visited Byron Rovins at his Watering Hole Cafe on Weymouth Road here and asked how he had fared in the storm. “I said, ‘There’s no damage, but no one is driving by,’” — due to the closing of the Weymouth Road bridge three-and-a-half miles from his business — Rovins said. Six weeks later, Rovins is still feeling the impact of Irene, as he waits for the bridge to be repaired and his customers to return. “Maybe it would have been better if I had some damage,” Rovins said, jokingly. But there’s some truth to what Rovins was saying. South Jersey was spared the brunt of Irene, although the hurricane did cause severe flooding in the township and the northwest section of Atlantic City. But, still, the damage was light compared with problems in North Jersey, and as a result, fewer disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration have been made here."

National Effort Ongoing To Improve Severe Weather Warning Network. The Montgomery Adviser has a look at weather technology and ways to improve the tornado warning process. Doppler radar (and now dual polarization Doppler) has become so sophisticated that we can see circulations within thunderstorms we never saw before. But only 20% or so of rotating thunderstorms go on to spawn tornadoes. The NWS wants to err on the side of caution and safety (smart idea) but this means a lot of false alarms go out to the public. My proposed solution? Call it a tornado warning (if it's based on rotation on Doppler radar). If it's an actual tornado on the ground, a confirmed funnel causing damage - call it something else, call it a "Tornado Emergency", another level of urgency - something to SHAKE PEOPLE and make sure they take action. The sobering lesson of Joplin: sometimes, even if people do the right thing and ride out a tornado in a basement or underground shelter - it can still not be enough. If it's an EF-4 or EF-5 the odds of survival are much lower, even in a basement. Thankfully less than 2% of all U.S. tornadoes are EF-4 strength or higher.

Some people will rightfully point out that having 2 different kinds of tornado alerts will be confusing, and it's hard to argue with that. Some people may hear a (rotation-based) tornado warning and sit on their hands, do nothing until or unless it turns into a full-blown tornado emergency with circulation reaching the ground. I'm not sure if there's a perfect solution here - but the more I think about this the more I believe there should probably be some way of distinguishing between rotation-based tornado warnings, and more urgent situations where rotation is accompanied by reports of a tornado on the ground from SKYWARN and law enforcement.  To me the notion of a Tornado Emergency makes sense, and imparts an additional level of urgency the public probably needs to do the right thing.
"On the evening of April 27, in the midst of a massive tornado outbreak in Alabama, Lee Schaffer felt he would have plenty of time to get his family out of their mobile home and to their safe area -- his parents' house -- if a twister struck. He was wrong. When the tornado warning went out for Elmore County, the Santuck resident gathered his wife and four children, all younger than 5, and went next door. "We had been under tornado warnings several times before and had never been hit by a tornado," he said. "I wouldn't say we were ignoring that warning that night, but you think you would hear the tornado coming and you would have time to get someplace safe."But it was at night, you couldn't see it coming. It didn't make a freight train like sound, just a low, eerie hum."

Italy Digging Out After Flash Flood Devastation. AP has some incredible footage in this YouTube story. Reports of 20" of rain in less than 12 hours, resulting in widespread mudslides and flash flooding. At least 9 deaths are being blamed on the freak floods; the death toll expected to rise in the days ahead: "Italians were digging out Thursday from under the debris piled up by flash flooding and mudslides in the normally picturesque northwestern region. The death toll climbed to at least nine, with several still missing."

Flood Waters Move In On Bangkok. Voice of America and AP have an update: "Thai authorities say flood waters creeping down from the north could soon swamp the Thai capital, Bangkok, leading thousands of people to leave the city. Thai monks, soldiers, and local people hammered particle boards in between two concrete walls along Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River.  They dropped sandbags into the space between the walls, extending the height by about half a meter. The hope is that the makeshift barrier will prevent, or at least slow down, flood waters from entering the Kaew-Fah-Chulamani temple. Phra Rattanamaythee, head monk at the temple, says he thinks the mass of water headed to Bangkok will probably spill over the wall. But, he says as long as the water is not too high they can still live on the temple’s second floor. He says the flood disaster is worse than in past years. The government and people tried to prevent it, but the water mass is a larger amount this time. He says they have used all of their personnel and equipment, but could not stop the water. He says they have done their best."

Residents Escape Bangkok Flooding. Another perspective on the worst flooding in 50 years from the Washington Post: "Parts of Thailand's flood-threatened capital are rapidly emptying of residents who are listening to a government warning to use a special five-day holiday to escape the danger."

NASA - NPP: Final Steps To Countdown. NASA is about to launch a new satellite that will revolutionize the monitoring of weather and climate from low-Earth orbit. Here's a good YouTube explainer: "NPP is nearly ready to be launched! This video describes the final steps for this Earth-observing climate and weather satellite before it launches, currently scheduled for the morning of Oct. 28, 2011."


Poodle + Zombie = Zoodle. With Halloween fast approaching here's a timely nugget, courtesy of Neatorama.com: "What do you get when you cross a poodle with a zombie? A Zoodle! Via Daily Dawdle"



Climate Stories...



Jon Stewart Rips Media For Ignoring "Climategate" Debunking, Covering McRib Instead. This is classic. Thank God for Jon Stewart - doing what CBS, NBC and ABC SHOULD be doing. Who would have thought that some of our best journalism would come from a cable comedy show, but you have to give credit where credit is due. Huffington Post, Hulu and Comedy Central bring you the story (and must-see video clip):  "On Wednesday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart picked up on a story that rocked the science world in 2009: the email hacking that exposed hundreds of exchanges between global warming scientists known as Climategate. If you remember, the emails weren't a big deal because they proved anything, but because they suggested irregularities in data which in turn encouraged climate change skeptics to continue to deny global warming. As Stewart reminisced with a series of clips, Fox News pundits and conservative analysts on all the 24-hour news networks had a field day proclaiming that these emails proved global warming was a fraud. And it worked, too. As Stewart pointed out, studies show the amount of people who acknowledge global warming dropped nearly 20% since the emails were leaked. Given the media circus that was Climategate, Stewart was shocked to learn that a study done by a noted climate change skeptic AND funded by Tea Party oil tycoons the Koch brothers which intended to disprove global warming recently reaffirmed the science behind it. What shocked him even more? How little coverage the findings, printed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, received compared to that of McDonald's "McRib."

Climate Change Making Country's Water Problems Worse: Expert. Reuters has the story: "Climate change and population growth in the United States will make having enough fresh water more challenging in the coming years, an expert on water shortages said on Wednesday. "In 1985-1986 there were historical (water level) highs and now in less than 25 years we are at historical lows. Those sorts of swings are very scary," said Robert Glennon, speaking at the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, Pennsylvania. Glennon, a professor at Arizona State University and the author of "Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It," said that that according to climate experts, shorter, warmer winters mean less ice and greater exposure to the air, leading eventually to more water evaporation."

NOAA Study: Human Caused Climate Change A Major Factor In More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts. Here's a press release from NOAA: "Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. “The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone,” said Martin Hoerling, Ph.D. of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., lead author of a paper published online in the Journal of Climate this month. “This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.” The Mediterranean region accumulates most of its precipitation during the winter, and Hoerling’s team uncovered a pattern of increasing wintertime dryness that stretched from Gibraltar to the Middle East. Scientists used observations and climate models to investigate several possible culprits, including natural variability, a cyclical climate pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and climate change caused by greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere during fossil fuel use and other human activities."



Getting Angry And Going Right. Here's an Op-Ed from The Economist: "GIVEN the broad scientific consensus that climate change is happening, based on data showing that climate change is happening, climate scepticism must be predicated on a belief that the data is flawed. The paper has a look at climate data to date and the methodological limitations that have given rise to what Richard Muller, an astrophysicist, characterise as "legitimate scepticism". As the article explains, Dr Muller, being somewhat sceptical himself in the wake of the 2009 "Climategate" scandal, convened the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group to examine the data and existing analyses using a methodology designed to incorporate some of the concerns of the legitimate sceptics. On October 20th, the group released four papers that corroborate the climate consensus: "The group estimates that over the past 50 years the land surface warmed by 0.911°C: a mere 2% less than NOAA’s estimate." The corroboration should comfort people who are concerned about climate change, although the data are not comforting in the grand scheme of things. No doubt a lot of climate sceptics are stubborn and will not be moved by new methodological approaches. Some, however, will. And although American environmentalists are regrouping after a series of setbacks, they're hardly going to abandon the issue of climate change. Reinforced data may help as they retool their strategies."

Map Shows Stark Divide In Who Caused Climate Change And Who Is Being Hit. The U.K. Guardian has the story: "When the world's nations convene in Durban in November in the latest attempt to inch towards a global deal to tackle climate change, one fundamental principle will, as ever, underlie the negotiations. Is is the contention that while rich, industrialised nations caused climate change through past carbon emissions, it is the developing world that is bearing the brunt. It follows from that, developing nations say, that the rich nations must therefore pay to enable the developing nations to both develop cleanly and adapt to the impacts of global warming. The point is starkly illustrated in a new map of climate vulnerability (above): the rich global north has low vulnerability, the poor global south has high vulnerability. The map is produced by risk analysts Maplecroft by combining measures of the risk of climate change impacts, such as storms, floods, and droughts, with the social and financial ability of both communities and governments to cope. The top three most vulnerable nations reflect all these factors: Haiti, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe."

October 27: Denver Digs Out (Hurricane Rina may fizzle, sparing Florida)

 

28.21" mercury: lowest pressure ever observed in Minnesota at Bigfork, Minnesota on October 26, 2010.

28.60" pressure reported in the Twin Cities on October 26, 2010 - second lowest on record.

"Landicane". Here is a visible image taken October 26, 2010, showing the cyclonic swirl of clouds associated with an unusually powerful area of low pressure, whipping up 60-70 mph winds and record low barometric pressure readings.

60-62 mph: peak wind gusts in the Twin Cities metro during the October 26, 2010 super-storm.

"This spring's tornado season has cost insurers nearly $15 billion so far, just behind the $23.1 billion World Trade Center attack in 2001, this year's $35 billion Japan quake and the $72.3 billion Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, according to an analysis by insurers." - story on tornado clean-up at timesfreepress.com.

Denver Snow Blitz. Here is a frame-grab from the Denver Zoo, taken Wednesday at 9:30 am (when 4-6" of slushy snow had already accumulated). Hard to believe it was 80 Monday afternoon in the Mile High City.

18.2" snow at Jamestown, Colorado.


What A Difference A Day Makes! Denver's snowy makeover took less than 18 hours to accomplish - time lapse photo series courtesy of the Denver Examiner.

Interactive Denver Snowfall Tool. The Denver NWS has done a good job collecting and visualizing snowfall and rainfall amounts - click here to see the latest snow totals.

Snowy Before And After. Here is a YouTube clip from Ft. Collins, Colorado, showing the (rapid) transition from autumn to winter, complete with fallen tree limbs, the result of 8-10" of heavy wet snow: "Had a big winter storm hit Colorado last night. I took some footage yesterday ahead of the storm, and more this morning, showing all the snow and broken tree branches!"

One Year Ago: Record Low Pressure For Minnesota. What a difference a year makes. Here's a special statement that went out from the Twin Cities NWS on October 26, 2010. "A new low pressure record was set for the state of Minnesota.  At 5:13 pm on October 26th, a pressure of 955.2 mb* (28.21 inches of mercury) was observed at Big Fork, Minnesota, located in the north central part of the state.  The previous record was 962.7 millibars (28.43"), set on November 10, 1998 at both Albert Lea, MN and Austin, MN."

"One of the deepest extratropical low pressure systems on record for the lower 48 states evolved from Iowa into Minnesota on October 26th and slowly moved northeast on the 27th.  Such a low developed in response to powerful 175 kt jet stream winds from the west and a major contrast in temperatures, with warm and moist air to the south and colder air building to the north.  A low pressure area in advance of this system had already tightened the temperature gradient, or as meteorologists say, increased the baroclinicity.  This set the stage for even lower pressures as the strong jet stream moved atop the area." (source: Twin Cities NWS).

Peak Winds. Last year's record low pressure created a partial vacuum as it drifted across Minnesota, air accelerating into this atmospheric "bomb" accelerated close to hurricane force, numerous wind gusts of 60-70 mph across the Upper Midwest. Map courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Rina "Unwinding". The combination of wind shear and very air in the Gulf of Mexico getting tangled up in the storm's circulation should imply further weakening in the coming days - the odds of a major hurricane striking Florida dropping off with each passing hour. Enhanced satellite image courtesy of the Naval Research Lab.


Rina: Forecast To Fizzle. Only 1 computer solution brings the soggy remains of Rina into Florida (near Tampa). Odds favor rapid weakening between Cancun and Havana as dry air wraps into the storm center and wind shear shreds the circulation.

Hurricane Rina Rages In Space Station Astronaut Video. Details from foxnews.com: "From high above Earth, the astronauts on the International Space Station have a unique view of the menacing Hurricane Rina raging below, and by the looks of a video recorded today (Oct. 25), the view from space reveals quite a storm. "We have a view of Hurricane Rina in the video camera here," space station commander Mike Fossum of NASA radioed to Mission Control in Houston. It's a biggun." From Fossum's perspective, the cloudy white mass of the hurricane can clearly be seen beneath the space station as it passes overhead. The video of Hurricane Rina  from space compiles multiple camera angles from the orbiting lab. The footage was captured at 2:39 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) today as the space station flew 248 miles (399 kilometers) over the Caribbean Sea, east of Belize."

Most Likely Scenario: Rina Weakens, Soaks Cuba, Possibly South Florida. The more Rina weakens, the result of wind shear and dry air entraining into the system, the lesser the odds it will impact Florida. The storm is weakening, and it may still brush the Florida Keys with heavy rain, but a series of cooler fronts will steer Rina away from the Gulf coast.

Normal November Rainfall For Lower Mississippi River Valley. Here's a look at how much rain should fall during the month of November, courtesy of the National Weather Service: “Compared to October, average rainfall in November increases slightly over the lower Mississippi basin. This corresponds to fronts that begin to make it further south toward the Gulf of Mexico. The first few fronts tend to be dry because the jet stream is still to the north, but moving into November the jet stream gets closer to the Gulf, helping create low pressure systems in our area.”

Big Sky Country. Here's a good summary of Montana weather from the NWS: “Satellite imagery can tell us about more than just cloud-cover. Clear skies this afternoon and visible satellite imagery allows us to see surface features, including mountain ranges, lakes and some of the newly snowcapped peaks and ridges across western and central Montana.”

Thousands Leave Flood-Surrounded Thai Capital. USA Today has an update on the worst flooding since 1942: "BANGKOK (AP) – Bangkok residents jammed bus stations and highways on Wednesday to flee the flood-threatened Thai capital, while others built cement walls to protect their shops or homes from advancing waters surging from the country's flooded north. "The amount of water is gigantic," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said. "Some water must spread into Bangkok areas but we will try to make it pass through as quickly as possible." Some neighborhoods on the city's fringes were already experiencing waist-high flooding, but central areas remained dry. Everywhere, people were preparing for flooding that seemed all but inevitable. Websites posted instructions on the proper way to stack sandbags. Many residents fortified vulnerable areas of their houses with bricks, gypsum board and plastic sheets. Walls of sandbags or cinderblocks covered the entrances of many buildings."

Insurance Disputes Stall Post-Tornado rebuilding Efforts. Insurance companies dragging their feet? Hard to imagine, huh? Timesfreepress.com has the details: "The shaky cell phone videos of the swirling black masses that devastated Ringgold, Ga., and parts of Apison on April 27 tell only part of the story. Though less tragic than the vivid destruction and altered lives, every piece of tornado debris carried a dollar value. In fact, when taken as a single event, the spring 2011 tornadoes rank as the ninth costliest incident in global insurance history, according to the Insurance Information Institute. This spring's tornado season has cost insurers nearly $15 billion so far, just behind the $23.1 billion World Trade Center attack in 2001, this year's $35 billion Japan quake and the $72.3 billion Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, according to an analysis by insurers. And it's not over yet. Six months after tornadoes struck the Southeast, untold numbers of homes have been bulldozed, with only a patch of mud or a weathered driveway marking their absence. Many more are in various stages of repair, while others remain shattered and empty."

Custom Calendars. If anyone asks (doubtful) today will bring 10 hours and 27 minutes of daylight to the Twin Cities. We've lost about 5 hours of daylight since June 21. Interested in sunrise/sunset, or even moonrise and moonset, and the total quantity of daylight (for any city?) Click sunrisesunset.com for a calendar, on-demand.

Facebook Is Serious TV Rival. The story from Media Daily News at mediapost.com: "Daytime is Facebook time, not TV time, for most media consumers. Facebook is closing in on being a mass medium -- just like TV, according to a study by Frank N. Magid Associates Generational Strategies. More consumers use Facebook during workday hours -- 9 p.m. to 5 p.m. --than watch TV. The survey says only baby boomers are the exception -- 35% report they are watching TV, versus 26% who say they are using Facebook. Thirty-two percent of Gen Xers -- those 35-46 -- use Facebook during daytime. compared to 28% who watch television. Those 18-34 are using Facebook 44% compared to 32% for television.  Teen millennials use Facebook 30% versus 24% for TV. Younger groups 8-14, which the study calls "iGens," are the only younger viewers to give TV parity compared to Facebook -- at 16% each."

File Photo. Nothing to worry about......yet.

Little To Gripe About

"Paul, I'm a good Minnesotan. I love all 4 seasons. But getting up in the dark and driving home in the dark is wearing on me." Try "full spectrum" lights. Pick up bulbs at Fleet Farm or Menards; they can help your state of mind.

And what a difference a year makes. A year ago today we were cleaning up fallen tree limbs, the result of 60 mph gusts in the Twin Cities. A powerful storm sparked the second lowest pressure on record for MSP (28.6"). Bigfork, Minnesota saw a barometric pressure of 28.21", setting a new state record. We went on to have a wild winter: 86", 4th snowiest on record.

Meteorologists look for "high-amplitude" patterns, big dips and bulges in the steering winds, capable of yanking arctic air south, or pushing moist air north from the Gulf of Mexico. That's when the BIG storms (and bitter fronts) materialize.

I'm seeing a predominately zonal, west-to-east wind flow into the first week of November, a pattern that favors fewer big storms, temperatures near or above average. Highs approach 50 through Halloween, nothing too scary on the maps. 

Climate Stories...

Climate Change Skeptic Turns Skeptical About The Skeptics. Got it? The story from zdnet.com: “Global warming is real,” Muller wrote in his column for the WSJ discussing his findings. “Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.” Muller’s article discusses in fine detail all the reasons why both scientists and the general public have a right to be skeptical, including what he describes as the “largely awful” data quality that is collected by the temperature stations around the United States. The margin of error at 70 percent of those stations, Muller figured, is between 2 degrees and 5 degrees Celsius. What’s more, instruments have changed over time and the local environments have changed. All that makes the data questionable, Muller admitted in his WSJ column. That’s why Muller and his team took a different approach, collecting more than 1.6 billion measurements from 39,000 stations around the world. That approach revealed the following: one-third of the world’s temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, while two-thirds have recorded warming ones. This ratio reflects global warming, Muller wrote: “The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1 degree to 2 degrees Celsius, much greater than the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]’s average of 0.64 degrees Celius.”

* Dr. Muller's explanation of his research and findings was published in the Wall Street Journal.

Climate Control. As their ranks diminish, global warming skeptics target scientists, as reported by The American Prospect:  "Last week Richard Muller and his team released the findings of their exhaustive study on global warming with definitive simplicity, saying flatly “global warming is real.” The statement is an especially damning one to climate change deniers, as Muller, himself once a global warming skeptic, conducted the study partly with funds from the Koch brothers. As even skeptics like Muller begin to accept the overwhelming science behind global warming, opponents are taking up a new tactic that goes after the scientists themselves. One of these scientists is Michael Mann, a climatologist who, since January, has been targeted by climate-deniers. Following the example of the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, which have a tradition of attacking the credibility of scientists who oppose their products, skeptics are beginning question the credentials and research of individual scientists. Since 2007, when a Supreme Court ruling found that, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions based on the threat to human health, global warming skeptics have been left to assert their views in the court of public opinion. The lesson they learned was, if you can’t attack the science, attack the scientist."

The Long Hot Summer And Code Red Days. An article at Huffington Post: "The once-dreaded idiomatic expression "the long, hot summer" regained a literal patina or shade of meaning during the summer months of 2011. Cities are no longer "aflame in the summer time," and even the venerable Farmers' Almanac predicted it would be a white-hot summer. Across these United States, it was the hottest summer in 75 years, and the second-warmest summer on record, the National Climatic Data Center has confirmed. It was also the fifth-hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere since scientists began compiling such climatological records 132 years ago. Well, you don't have to "know much about a science book," or global climate change, to realize our summers are hotter than ever before. Yet, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of pollution caused by automobiles in the Washington metro region. That's a major milestone, since the smog standards are now more stringent than ever before for the average concentrations of ozone at ground level over an eight-hour period. This is vital and paramount because 1.5 million people who live and move and have their being in the Washington-Baltimore region fall within the sensitive groups impacted by unhealthy air quality."

Commentary: Climate Change Deniers May Be Washed Away By Rising Seas. Here's an Op-Ed in the Miami Herald, reprinted by the Kansas City Star: "The rising sea will wash across great swaths of South Florida. Salt water will contaminate the well fields. Roads and farmland and low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated. The soil will no longer absorb the kind of heavy rainfalls that drenched South Florida last weekend. Septic tanks will fail. Drainage canals won’t drain. Sewers will back up. Intense storms will pummel the beachfront. Mighty rainfalls, in between droughts, will bring more floods. The economic losses and the mitigation costs associated with the effects of global warming over the next few decades will be overwhelming. It will cost a medium-sized town like Pompano Beach hundreds of millions just to salvage its water and sewage systems. A sobering study released by Florida Atlantic University contemplated the effects of global warming in specific terms, particularly for South Florida, considered one of the more vulnerable metropolitan areas in the world, with six million residents clustered by the ocean, living barely above sea level.