Sunday, May 17, 2009

Unseasonable Frost Alert

UPDATE 4: June 4, 2009

Well now, isn't this interesting! We are to have SNOW in June in the Sierras centered on Lake Tahoe, as seen in the map below. The blue area in northern California is under a snow watch. Who wants to bet that this will be front-page news across the country on main-stream media? California legislators need to be aware of this as they continue writing the AB 32 regulations, which are predicated on a disappearing snowpack due to global warming.




June 4, 2009: THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO [California] HAS ISSUED A WINTER

WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW ABOVE 7500 FEET FOR THE WESTERN SLOPES

OF THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA AND LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL

PARK...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM TO 9 PM PDT FRIDAY.

THE LOW PRESSURE AREA THAT HAS BEEN IMPACTING OUR WEATHER FOR THE

LAST FEW DAYS WILL MOVE INLAND ON FRIDAY. AS THE SYSTEM MOVES

INLAND SNOW LEVELS WILL LOWER TO AROUND 7500 FEET FRIDAY MORNING

WITH LOCALLY LOWER SNOW LEVELS. THE HEAVIEST PERIOD OF SNOW IS

EXPECTED FRIDAY MORNING WHEN AN AREA OF ENHANCED PRECIPITATION IS

EXPECTED TO DEVELOP OVER THE WESTERN SLOPES. THROUGH FRIDAY

EVENING 4 TO 7 INCHES OF SNOW IS LIKELY ABOVE 7500 FEET WITH

LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS. THE SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DECREASE IN

INTENSITY FRIDAY EVENING.



UPDATE 3: May 31, 2009 -- This blogspot-blogger seems to append new images to the top, so I will go along and place the updates up here, too. Kind of confusing, but so be it.

The map shown below, from NOAA, shows a band of snow between the Great Lakes and Hudson's Bay. Is this at all unusual? Is this merely to be expected as the climate becomes warmer and warmer? After all, tomorrow is June 1st! Hot time, summer in the city, surf's up, tank tops and hot pants, and all that, right?



ORIGINAL POST:
"Unseasonable frost" is forecast for Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio for late Sunday night and early Monday morning. Temperatures in the low 30's will pose a danger to outdoor plants.

Hmmmm....where is this consistent with all the Global Warming that is supposed to be killing us all? All that CO2 in the sky, put there by those evil coal-burning power plants, (death trains, as James Hansen calls the coal-trains running to those power plants), what has happened to the CO2 and the warming it is supposed to cause?

A knowledgeable climate realist, KCR, takes actual observations and compares them to the dire predictions from the IPCC, Al Gore, James Hansen, and the rest of the AGW crowd. Looks like they blew it on this one. As usual. Temperatures are not increasing. Seas are not rising, in fact, they are falling off the west coast of North America. Snow and record cold temperatures occurred in great numbers this past winter. Sea surface temperatures are dropping. Glaciers in Alaska are advancing. Polar ice caps are at either normal, or above-normal levels (if a 30-year recent average is "normal.") Polar bear populations are increasing. No islands are inundated with sea water. And sunspots are at a very low point, as they were during each recent global cooling event such as the Little Ice Age.

Maybe when we get snow in July, will that be sufficient for governments to say enough is enough? Frost in the middle of May is a pretty good start.

UPDATE 1: (May 29, 2009)





The blue areas around Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York are forecasts for freezing temperatures.
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MARQUETTE MI  (Michigan) 
359 AM EDT SAT MAY 30 2009  ...SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES POSSIBLE SATURDAY NIGHT...
  .HIGH PRESSURE...CLEAR SKIES...AND DIMINISHING WINDS WILL ALLOW
TEMPERATURES TO FALL BELOW FREEZING AWAY FROM THE GREAT LAKES
DURING THE EARLY MORNING HOURS ON SUNDAY. A HARD FREEZE...WITH
 TEMPERATURES FALLING INTO THE 20S...IS MOSTLY LIKELY OVER INTERIOR
SECTIONS OF THE WEST HALF OF UPPER MICHIGAN.  (temperatures given in Degrees F)
The NWS goes on to say that this freeze will kill crops.  
This is not good for any farmers in that area. 
This is also not good, if this is to be the norm.  I am not familiar with 
the weather patterns in upper Michigan, so maybe this is normal for there. 
Or, maybe they farmers can quit selling wheat (or whatever they grow) and 
go into the snow-cone business.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

3 comments:

Roger E. Sowell said...

The cold weather set a record for low temperature in North Dakota. From the National Weather Service, RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILLISTON ND
1208 AM CDT SUN MAY 17 2009

...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET AT WILLISTON ND YESTERDAY...

A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 21 DEGREES WAS SET AT WILLISTON ND
YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 23 SET IN 1925.

Interesting, that so little (possibly none?) media attention to this cold-temperature event.

If and when high temperature records are broken, the MSM cannot stop howling about it.

More Cowbells said...

Alright Roger, are you one of those guys, several years back, who was saying to AGW'ers that they can't look at the current weather to determine climatic trends? I find it highly ironic that it is the same argument that the denialists were making several years ago should be the same argument that they themselves should hear right now.

Example three years ago, middle of January in Vermont temps were topping out in the upper 60's, even a few 70s. People were still playing golf, I was riding my bike. When pro-AGW were crying foul, denialists said...it's just the weather.

Okay, right now the sunspot activity is at an extreme low point. What should that result in? cooling...which is what we're seeing.

You're an energy person, so I'll put this to you. How do you think my son & daughter (3 years old & newborn) are suppose to heat their homes when it costs $50 just to extract a barrel of oil from the low-grade shale that is the only stuff that we leave on the planet? Do I care if we cut our oil dependence because of the theory of global warming or the theory of peak oil? No, but either way, I think it's time we seriously re-look at our energy consumption. Technology is great and all, but I'm not hanging my hat on the fact that technology can fix all the woes we leave behind.

Roger E. Sowell said...

More Cowbells, actually, I'm one of those guys who says let's look at the facts and analyze them against physics, thermodynamics, math, and economics. I remember the 1970's hysteria over global cooling, and how some scientists who were supposed to be experts on these matters convinced mass media outlets that the good times were over and the ice age was upon us. There were some very cold winters for a while, and it appeared the ice-is-coming crowd were correct. Then it got warmer.

So the answer is no, I do not look at a short trend and react hysterically. There are enough people doing that already. I prefer to look at the real data, and note that temperatures globally have stayed flat, gone down, and gone up at times. All the while, CO2 has steadily gone up. This tells me, and my engineering colleagues, that there is Zero causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature.

As to your question on fuel for the future, I suggest your kids do exactly what my kids are doing, and what I am doing. Buy the cheapest energy they can at the time. Vote for decision-makers who understand energy economics. Educate those around you about energy and economics. Expose the lie of peak oil. Expose the lie of cheap nuclear power. Expose the lie of toxic coal (it is not toxic). Expose the truth of huge world-wide excesses of clean, cheap natural gas. Expose the truth of clean, inexhaustible and reliable ocean currents for power.

For a pretty good read on energy supplies, read chiefio.wordpress.com, and his article on There Is No Energy Shortage.

Enjoy.