Baby, It's Cold

Planet’s most abnormally cold air to surge into Lower 48 states

Severe cold will make for icy NFL games in Kansas City and Buffalo and frigid Iowa caucuses. It will also test the Texas power grid.

Stunning cold is crashing southward from the Arctic into the Lower 48 states. It could break hundreds of records this weekend into early next week. The bitter cold will arrive in the wake of another blockbuster storm sweeping the nation.

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The Arctic blast will produce the planet’s biggest negative temperature anomalies over parts of the western and central United States, in some places up to 60 degrees below normal. It will make for icy NFL playoff games in Kansas City and Buffalo this weekend and frigid Iowa caucuses Monday, and could test the Texas power grid.

On Friday morning, the cold had already begun to invade large parts of the western and central United States. The most extreme cold was in northern Montana, where wind chills plunged as low as minus-60 with actual air temperatures as low as minus-30. Air temperatures plummeted into single digits as far south as southern Kansas and as far east as Minneapolis.

It is poised to turn even more frigid over the weekend.

Wind chills below minus-40 degrees are forecast for much of the northern Plains and northern Rockies. "This will pose an increased risk of frostbite on exposed skin and hypothermia,” the National Weather Service warned. “Have a cold survival kit if you must travel.”

More than 28 million people are under wind chill alerts from eastern Washington state to Missouri.

Many major population centers will endure at least two to three days of severe cold, with temperatures at least 30 degrees below normal and dangerously low wind chills, between the weekend and early next week, including Denver, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Dallas.

“We call it ‘life-threatening’ for a reason,” wrote the Weather Service office serving St. Louis on X, formerly Twitter. “Temperatures of this magnitude will cause harm if caught outdoors unprepared. Take it seriously. This kind of cold does not happen very often.”

This cold air outbreak is coming off a very mild start to winter, so it will come as a shock. Much of the northern contiguous United States has observed temperatures about five to 10 degrees above average since Dec. 1.

If current forecasts hold, areas home to more than 55 million Americans are expected to drop below zero through next Tuesday. Almost the entire Lower 48 faces temperatures at or below freezing at some point by the middle of next week.

Central U.S. faces brunt of polar plunge

This winter’s coldest air so far had already plunged into the southern Plains and Upper Midwest on Friday morning.

Monday's high temperature forecast compared to normal. (weatherbell.com)
By Saturday, most of the northern and central Plains should experience highs below zero and widespread lows of minus-15 or colder.

Havre, a city in north central Montana, is forecast to reach minus-40 Saturday, shattering the record of minus-35 set in 1997. Several other cities in Montana are likely to set records including Helena, which is expected to dip to minus-38, surpassing the calendar day record from 1888. Wind chills could approach minus-60 or minus-70 both, with minus-40 to minus-60 spilling into the northern Plains.

Subzero record lows are a risk as far south as Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. Oklahoma City is forecast to fall to minus-2 on Tuesday morning. From there, the zero-degree line probably extends across northern Arkansas and then toward Indianapolis. Houston may struggle to rise above freezing while much of the South hovers in the 20s on Tuesday.

Locations as far east as the spine of the Appalachians could also flirt with zero Tuesday morning.

McAllen, at the far southern tip of Texas, is forecast to set a record with a low of 28 Wednesday. Gulfport, on the coast of Mississippi could challenge its calendar day record with a low of 17.

In all, hundreds of daily cold records, for lows and highs, are possible from the shores of the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf Coast between Saturday and Wednesday. Cities where record lows are a good bet include Spokane, Wash.; Billings, Mont.; Kansas City, Mo.; Tulsa; and Lake Charles, La.

Texas grid faces a test

With the Arctic air mass sinking into the southern Plains, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a weather watch for Jan. 15 to 17 (Monday through Wednesday) because of the anticipated high heating demand.

Texas’s statewide low temperature is forecast to average around 15 degrees Monday and Tuesday.

The grid is expected to hold, thanks to both increased capacity and the fact that the cold will not be as severe or prolonged as the extreme event in February 2021 when it collapsed.

Frigid for playoff football

Wind chill forecast for Saturday evening during the game in Kansas City. In and around the city, wind chills are forecast to be in the minus-20s to near minus-30. (weatherbell.com)
A wild card weekend kick-starts the playoffs with a throwback to frozen football games of old.

The Weather Service is predicting a high in the single digits in Kansas City on Saturday when the Chiefs host the Miami Dolphins.

The kickoff temperatures will probably be near or below zero before dropping to several degrees below zero in the fourth quarter. Factoring in frigid winds, it will feel like minus-20 or lower. There could be a snow flurry in the air, too.

When the Buffalo Bills face the Pittsburgh Steelers at home Sunday afternoon, fresh snow should be on the ground, and it may still be falling heavily at times from bands off Lake Erie.

A winter storm watch is in effect Saturday afternoon through Monday morning as a foot or more could fall in the most persistent bands. Several inches could accumulate during the game, with temperatures in the low or mid-20s. But it will feel closer to the single digits to near zero as winds gust to 40-plus mph.

Iowa caucuses face intense chill

High temperatures on Monday in Iowa are expected to remain below zero. (weatherbell.com)
The long-awaited opening salvo of the 2024 presidential election begins Monday with the caucuses in Iowa. And it will be nearly as cold as it gets.

Highs on Monday shouldn’t get above zero across the state, while deep snow remains on the ground from recent storms. Temperatures will hover just above record lows for the date in most areas. But Sioux City’s predicted high temperature of minus-3 would be the coldest on record.

By Monday evening, temperatures are forecast to approach ten below zero before dropping overnight to minus-15 or minus-20. Winds gusting around 30 mph could deliver wind chills of minus-20 to minus-30 during the evening, dipping as far as minus-40 overnight.

How cold will your city be?

Much of the central United States takes this Arctic attack head-on, and it is quite powerful considering our warming climate. Here’s how cold it is forecast to get in a number of cities, several of which could set calendar day record lows:

• Great Falls, Mont. — Minus-36 for Saturday’s low
• Sioux City, Iowa — Minus-20 for Sunday’s low
• Burlington, Ill. — Minus-14 for Monday’s low
• Fargo, N.D. — Minus-10 for Sunday’s low
• Kansas City — Minus-10 for Monday’s low
• Minneapolis — Minus 11 for Monday’s low
• Chicago — Minus-6 for Monday’s low
• Denver — Minus-8 for Monday’s low
• St. Louis — 0 for Sunday’s low
• Dallas — 11 for Tuesday’s low
• Houston — 21 for Tuesday’s low

Denver is among the cities that will experience a rather long stretch of abnormally cold temperatures. “Expect sub-zero wind chills all of Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday also,” wrote Chris Bianchi, a broadcast meteorologist based in Denver, on X, formerly Twitter. “Temps will probably be stuck in the single-digits in Denver all of Saturday-Monday. This isn’t common.”

In Chicago, highs probably won’t rise above the single digits Sunday through Tuesday. Even as far south as Little Rock, highs may be stuck in the 20s Sunday through Tuesday.

By Tuesday morning, subzero cold is expected to stretch as far as southern Kansas and Missouri.

Although the Arctic blast will moderate farther east, the coldest air of the season will also arrive along the East Coast by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Lows may dip to the mid- and upper teens along the Interstate 95 corridor from Virginia to Boston on Wednesday, with interior areas in the single digits or colder. Freezing highs are probable from Washington northward.

Freezing overnight conditions may also dip to northern Florida by Wednesday, with the rest of the Gulf Coast probably sinking into the 20s.

When will the cold relent?

A model simulation for late next week continues to look favorable for cold in the eastern half of the nation with the flow pattern directing Arctic air from Canada southward. (Tropical Tidbits)
This first round of cold will ease late next week, though much of the country will remain chillier than normal. That’s before another faceoff with Arctic air that’s possible by the weekend of Jan. 20 and 21.

Any signals for a more substantial thaw are still about two weeks away. Forecasts made by longer-range models, while low-confidence, indicate milder than normal weather for the central state in early February but chilly weather holding on in the East, when El Niño events are known to sometimes fuel winter storms.

Tornadoes

... in December.

At least 6 dead, 23 injured after tornadoes touch down near Nashville

Six people were killed and nearly two dozen injured after tornadoes touched down around Nashville on Saturday, according to local authorities, who feared the death toll could rise as rescue efforts continued late Saturday night.

The severe thunderstorms that spawned the tornadoes erupted ahead of an intense cold front that stretched from Michigan through western Tennessee and into eastern Texas. Ahead of the front, abnormally warm and humid air — as much as 20 degrees higher than average for this time of year — surged northward, helping to fuel the storms.

More than 75,000 customers were without power in Tennessee as of Saturday night. The hardest hit areas appeared to be Clarksville, Tenn., and the northern side of Nashville. A child and two adults were killed in Clarksville, the city’s mayor said, and the Nashville Emergency Operation Center reported three people were killed by severe storms there.

“This is devastating news and our hearts are broken for the families of those who lost loved ones,” said Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts, who declared a state of emergency and enacted a 9 p.m. curfew for Saturday and Sunday night. “The city stands ready to help them in their time of grief.”

Rescue efforts were still underway in both areas Saturday night. Photos from the Clarksville Fire Rescue showed at least two homes with their front facades and roofs torn off, a tractor-trailer truck that had been flipped onto its side and rescue workers scouring neighborhoods for people trapped or injured. Northeast of Nashville, utility poles, trees and power lines were downed in the nearby city of Gallatin, while buildings were at least partially collapsed in parts of neighboring Hendersonville.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) directed the public Saturday night to follow guidance from local and state officials. “We mourn the lives lost,” he said in a social media post.

Through 8:30 p.m. Eastern, the National Weather Service had received about 75 reports of severe weather from northern Louisiana to southern Kentucky. But most of the severe weather was concentrated in western and central Tennessee, including 15 reports of tornadoes. The NWS said that as of 10 p.m., the severe weather threat had ended for all of Middle Tennessee.

The same front is forecast to barge toward the East Coast on Sunday. Some severe storms could erupt in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic but they are not predicted to be as widespread or violent as Saturday’s storms in the Tennessee Valley.

In the Northeast, the front is expected to trigger torrential rains Sunday night into Monday morning. Flood watches are in effect from northern Virginia to eastern Maine, including Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, where 1 to 3 inches of rain are predicted.

And BTW - 

November wrapped up 6th-warmest autumn on record for U.S.

2023 Atlantic hurricane season ends as nation remains at 25 separate billion-dollar disasters so far this year

Last month wrapped up a remarkably warm meteorological autumn across the U.S., with the season ranking as the sixth-warmest autumn on record for the nation, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

A busy Atlantic hurricane season also came to a close, ranking fourth for the most-named storms in a year since 1950.

Below are highlights from NOAA’s U.S. climate report for November 2023:

Climate by the numbers

November 2023

The average November temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 44.4 degrees F (2.7 degrees above average), ranking as the 19th-warmest November in NOAA’s 129-year climate record.

November temperatures were above average across much of the U.S., while below-normal temperatures were observed in parts of the Northeast. No state in the contiguous U.S. saw its top-10 warmest or coldest November on record. However, Alaska saw its fourth-warmest November in the 99-year period of record for the state.

The nation’s average precipitation across the contiguous U.S was 1.38 inches (0.85 of an inch below average), ranking as the 12th-driest November on record. Indiana saw its third-driest November on record, while Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin all saw a top-10 driest November. No state saw a top-10 wettest November.

Meteorological autumn

It was an exceedingly warm meteorological autumn (September through November) across the contiguous U.S. The average autumn temperature was 56.1 degrees F (2.5 degrees above average), ranking as the sixth-warmest autumn on record.

New Mexico and Texas saw their third-warmest autumns on record, while Maine saw its fourth warmest. Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming all had their top-10 warmest autumn.

The total autumn precipitation across the U.S. was 5.66 inches (1.22 inches below average), which ranked as the 15th-driest autumn on record. Tennessee’s autumn ranked as third driest, with three additional states — Indiana, Kentucky and Mississippi — seeing their top-10 driest autumn. No state ranked in their top-10 wettest on record for the September–November period.

Year to date (January through November 2023)

With just one month to go in 2023, the YTD average temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 55.8 degrees F — 2.0 degrees above average — ranking as the 10th-warmest such YTD in the record.

Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas each ranked warmest on record, while Connecticut, Florida and Massachusetts each ranked second warmest for the January–November period.

The YTD precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 26.89 inches, 0.70 of an inch below average, ranking in the driest third of the historical record.

Louisiana and Maryland ranked seventh and eighth driest on record, respectively, for this YTD period. Meanwhile, Wyoming ranked seventh wettest on record, while Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont all saw their top-10 wettest such YTD.

This Winter

NCAR computer model predicts super El Niño for coming winter

There have only been three super El Niños since 1950. This winter could be the fourth.

BOULDER, Colorado — The temperature of the ocean water in the tropical Pacific Ocean west of South America is already warmer than normal, which is a condition known as El Niño.

A new climate model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is predicting that warming will continue into December, becoming one of the warmest or strongest El Niños in history.

“It’s very much the case that the stronger the El Niño, the greater the impacts," said NCAR research scientist Steve Yeager.

He said when an El Niño warms to a wintertime average of more than 2 degrees Celsius above normal, it's often referred to as a super El Niño. That's not an official term but he said it's just becoming an acceptable description in the media, the public and also among scientists.

And there have only been three occurrences of super El Niños since 1950, when sea surface temperature records began.

The new NCAR prediction system shows that this winter’s El Niño could rival those other super El Niño seasons.

Which is important to know because he said strong El Niño conditions can result in some reliable weather patterns over the winter months. In particular, wetter than normal weather in the southwestern states and warmer than normal weather to the north.

But how does Colorado fit in?

“I personally wouldn’t want to make a prediction about what’s going to happen in Colorado, and I get asked that a lot," said Yeager. "Colorado’s kind of in between the zones where there are really strong impacts, so it could go either way.”

He said there just haven't been enough examples of super El Niños through history to establish a dependable connection to small areas like cities or states, but he said there is a high likelihood of weather patterns to develop similar to the ones in the 1997-98 super El Niño.

That season was marked by flooding in South America, extreme rainfall in Central Africa and one of Indonesia's worst droughts in history. And the Pacific basin saw 11 super typhoons, the most in history.

In Colorado, all three previous super El Niño seasons were colder and snowier than average on the Front Range. Denver got more than 70 inches of snow in Denver each season, which is well above the average of 56 inches. Statewide snowpack was slightly below average in 2016, but slightly above average in 1998. Traditional statewide snowpack was not recorded in 1983.

Yeager said the key to predicting winter weather patterns in the future will likely depend on accurately predicting the strength of each coming El Niño.

Which is something his new model has already shown in simulations. Yeager just completed a research project in which he had the NCAR model reforecast previous El Niños and La Niñas based on global climate conditions at the time. The graph below shows that the predictions made by the model marked by the orange line, captured the actual observations including the three super El Niños.

“That’s really exciting." said Yeager. It means that our science is kind of coming into fruition of being actionable. Of being useful to society, which is a very gratifying thing.”

And he said the next big thing in El Niño forecasting will be determining something he calls the flavor of conditions, which is basically which part of the ocean is warming the most. He said if only the central part of the El Niño ocean region is warmer than average it will have a much different impact than if just the eastern or western side of the El Niño region is warmer than average.

Climate Impact

Yeager said that climate change is impacting scientists’ ability to predict El Niños because the climate is warming so fast that modeling is having a hard time keeping pace with new normals almost every year.

"The warming climate is also affecting other ocean basins that impact weather patterns," he said. "For example, the Gulf of Mexico and much of the rest of the Atlantic is record warm, so it will be very interesting from a science perspective to see how those offset, diminish or enhance this winter's El Niño."

He also said that more moisture is getting added to the atmosphere as a result of climate warming, which is making extreme single events more frequent. That can dramatically alter averages, so it's kind of like trying to hit a moving target as a forecaster.

Nature Bats Last

Law enforcement officers climb through debris
looking for survivors early Saturday in Rolling Fork MS
(Rogelio Solis/AP)

Max Olson Chasing

Straight out of an epic Hollywood disaster movie.

How Mississippi’s tornadoes unfolded overnight and why they were so deadly

At least 23 people are dead in Mississippi following a terrifying Friday night in which large, destructive tornadoes tore across the state.

The violent twisters formed amid a severe weather outbreak that unleashed damage from Louisiana to North Carolina. They were fueled by record-setting heat and energized by howling jet stream winds.

The twisters formed from the same destructive storm system that barged into California’s Bay Area on Tuesday and produced deadly flooding in both the Desert Southwest and the nation’s midsection.

The twisters’ terrible toll can be linked to their utter ferocity, the vulnerability of the region they struck and for sweeping through at night, when it was difficult to see them coming.

How the tornadoes were unleashed

The rotating thunderstorm or supercell that spawned the deadly tornadoes swept across the entirety of Mississippi and continued through northern Alabama — an exceptionally long path for a single storm. Supercells contain rotating updrafts fueled by warm, unstable air near the ground and are twisted by changing winds with altitude.

The National Weather Service in Jackson, Miss., first issued a tornado warning for the storm as it entered Mississippi at 7:40 p.m.

Just before 8 p.m., it cautioned “a large and extremely dangerous tornado was located 7 miles west of Rolling Fork.” By 8:03 p.m., the Weather Service said the storm was located near Rolling Fork. “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. TAKE COVER NOW!,” it warned. Rolling Fork was among one of several towns especially hard hit.

The wedge-shaped funnel was probably on the ground for the next 90 minutes covering 80 miles as it barreled across west-central Mississippi at high speeds. The Weather Service was compelled to declare multiple tornado emergencies, the most dire alert for twisters, as it carved a path through the towns of Anguilla, Louise, Midnight, Silver City, Tchula and Winona.

Along this path, tornado lofted debris 30,000 feet high, said Samuel Emmerson, a member of the radar research group at the University of Oklahoma, describing it on Twitter as an “extremely high-caliber” tornado.

Shortly after passing Winona, around 9:32 p.m., the tornado may have weakened or lifted for a time as the storm raced across northeast Mississippi.

However, it appeared to re-form and strengthen around 10:50 p.m. when the Weather Service office in Memphis declared yet another tornado emergency for the town of Amory and then the city of Smithville.

When radar displayed an unmistakable signature of debris immediately west of Armory, confirmation of the destructive twister, broadcast meteorologist Matt Laubhan for television station WTVA could not contain his emotion.

“Dear Jesus, please help them,” he pleaded.

The storm crossed into northwest Alabama shortly after 11 p.m. and continued producing tornadoes until it reached the northeast part of the state around 12:45 a.m.

The Weather Service received at least 10 reports of tornadoes in northern Alabama from this storm. Around Hartselle, which is about 30 miles southwest of Huntsville, the agency logged reports of damage to homes, people trapped and a tractor-trailer overturned.

Severe storm affected 7 southern states and it’s not over

The storm that swept across Mississippi and northern Alabama was one of many that raged through the South on Friday into early Saturday morning.

The Weather Service has logged more than 100 reports of severe weather from Louisiana to western North Carolina, including more than 80 instances of violent straight line winds that toppled trees and power lines and damaged homes. Tens of thousands lost power.

The Weather Service reported one person was injured near Nashville when a tree fell on a house.

On Saturday, the storm system will push off the East Coast but could still set off some strong thunderstorms in parts of the Southeast and Ohio Valley.

The risk of severe weather and tornadoes is much lower compared to Friday, however. The Storm Prediction Center has placed the zone from southern Mississippi to South Carolina as well as eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania in a Level 1 out of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms; Friday’s risk in the Mid-South was a Level 4 out of 5.

As the storm front stalls across the South on Sunday, the risk of severe weather could increase again between Louisiana and Georgia, with damaging winds and a couple more tornadoes possible, the Storm Predicton Center said Saturday.

A deadly legacy

The larger storm system which spawned Friday’s tornadoes has a deadly legacy. When it slammed into California on Tuesday, at least five people were killed by trees toppled by winds up to 80 mph in the Bay Area. The same storm spawned the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles metro area since 1983.

As the storm exited California on its way toward the central states, it triggered severe flooding in central Arizona, where at least three people died after their vehicles were swept away by floodwaters, the Associated Press reported.

The storm unloaded more heavy rain that spurred flooding over an extensive swath of the central and eastern United States — stretching from eastern Oklahoma into northern West Virginia. The Associated Press reported a car was swept away by floodwaters in southwest Missouri, killing two passengers.

Weather

We've been fucking up this planet for  about 8,000 generations, and the planet is going to fuck us back now.

Honest - I didn't know the atmosphere could be made to "wrinkle" so that the stratosphere (usually up at about 20,000 feet) could "fold down" to about 6,000 feet.

Exploding trees and "frost quakes" ? Seriously, bubba, what the fuck.

‘Historic Arctic outbreak’ crushes records in New England

Mount Washington in New Hampshire logged the U.S.'s coldest wind chill ever recorded: minus-109

Parts of the Northeast woke up to the coldest morning in decades on Saturday, with temperatures 30 degrees or more below average and wind chills in the extremely dangerous category. Virtually the entirety of New England was included in wind chill warnings, while Mount Washington’s minus-109 degree wind chill set a record for the entire United States.

The National Weather Service office serving the Boston region described the cold as “a historic Arctic outbreak for the modern era,” and warned that “this is about as cold as it will ever get.”

In Boston, the morning low fell to minus-10 degrees at 5:15 a.m., the coldest reading observed in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, when Boston hit minus-12. The episode resembled the brutal Arctic blast on Valentine’s Day 2016, when Logan Airport dropped to minus-9 degrees.

Coupled with winds gusting near 40 mph, Boston witnessed its lowest wind chill ever recorded at minus-39 degrees. Records date back to 1944. Wind chill is an index that attempts to quantity the combined impact of cold and wind on the human body, since strong winds blow away one’s body heat.

The temperatures were so extreme in Maine that residents reported “frost quakes,” or cryoseisms. The earthquake-like tremors are caused by rapidly plummeting temperatures, which cause water trapped in cracks in the ground to expand.

The city of Portland, Maine, recorded its all-time lowest wind chill at minus-45 degrees. A weather balloon launched by the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, reported the all-time lowest 850 millibar (an air pressure level corresponding to approximately 5,000 feet in altitude) temperature ever observed by that office at minus-35.5 degrees.

Farther north in Maine, Frenchville Airport in Aroostook County recorded a wind chill to minus-61 degrees, while Cadillac Mountain in Hancock County had a minus-62 degree wind chill. Even Bar Harbor, on the coast, logged a wind chill of minus-48. Greenville in Piscataquis County faced a wind chill of minus-58.

Beyond Mount Washington’s mind-boggling wind chill of minus-109, the actual air temperature scored at the summit was minus-46.2 at minimum — a new February record for the state of New Hampshire. That coincided with wind gusts topping 110 mph. The Weather Service office serving the area tweeted the wind chill was so low that its software for logging such data “refuses to include it!”

Even more impressive was the fact that Mount Washington, by some accounts, protruded into the stratosphere — the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Ordinarily located more than 20,000 feet above the ground even in the dead of winter, the stratosphere “folded” down in a series of bunched-up pinches. One of them helped tug a filament of the stratosphere low enough that the summit of the 6,288-foot mountain poked into it. That said, the summit did not record a noticeably dramatic uptick in ozone, which would be the case if the stratosphere fully descended to that level.

There were also instances of trees exploding — the result of quickly expanding water stored in sap. Some in northern New England recalled hearing sounds analogous to gunshots.

TikTok user Rodger C commented “they’re popping all night here [in] Massena, New York.”

“I’ve been hearing gunshot sounds for the last 8 hours and kept walking around the house trying to figure out what it was!” tweeted Sofia Fojo. “I’m in Vermont and have a ton of maple trees around.”

In Upstate New York, the actual air temperature — not factoring in wind — fell as low as minus-38; wind chills there dipped to minus-50.

In Vermont, Mount Mansfield logged a low temperature of minus-35. Burlington was cold — but not record cold. The city started the morning around minus-15 degrees, which paled in comparison to the minus-26 degree morning low set on Feb. 4, 1963.

Worcester, Mass., made it down to minus 13 degrees, compared to the daily record of minus 4 last set in 1934.

There were even reports of winter waterspouts — akin to devilish vortexes of stream — on Lake Champlain and over the open Atlantic. The frigid air blowing over comparatively mild waters caused a rare type of fog known as “Arctic sea smoke” to form, while shallow updrafts stretched eddies within the fog to the puffy cloud bases above.

The fleeting, but intense, Arctic cold shot is the result of dual pressure systems parked to the north. A low is pushing east through Ontario en route to the Canadian Maritimes, while Arctic high pressure hovers over the northern Plains. Highs spin clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, while lows pin counterclockwise; like meshing gears, the two oppositely spinning air masses conspire to entrain a strip of polar air from near the Hudson Bay and convey it southeast.

At higher altitudes, a lobe of the polar vortex — a pool of frigid air — dived from near Hudson Bay, Canada, directly over Maine. But it will exit quickly.

A marked warming trend is expected in the days ahead. Boston could hit the mid-40s on Sunday, a 55-degree spike in barely 36 hours. That could put a strain on drainage systems and pipes.

Today's Weather

Since 1851 - 171 years ago - there have been 50 Atlantic Basin hurricanes that formed in November.

50 - out of 935.

And all but a handful have occurred in the last 40 years.

And now, Nicole.

Today's Weather

We'll have about 50 degrees and a day filled with intermittent rain here in The Piedmont - a relatively pleasant winter day.

But a coupla hundred miles to the northwest they've put up a Winter Storm Warning that stretches from Maine to SW Texas.

That's basically one storm that runs about 2,300 miles.

Because Anthropogenic Global Warming is making the jet stream do some weird things, which destabilizes the weather patterns.

Another Once-In-A-Century kinda thing that pops up every few years.

Thanks a lot, Assholes-Who-Won't-Do-One-Fucking-Thing-To-Fight-Climate-Change. Good job.

Today (update)

Power's been out for 4 hours because of our big 5-inches-of-snow storm.

When the power comes back, so will I.

Meantime, I'll either be outside shoveling, or inside thinking up new excuses not to be outside shoveling.

Power came back on - tho' it's still a little spotty - at about 5:30Pm EST.

Here's the trouble:

Yeah yeah, OK, it was wet and heavy, and we got a good 5 inches in about 8 hours. 

So first off - thank the fake lord for union crews who know how to fix stuff.

But second - how am I supposed to have any real confidence the grid is being properly maintained and upgraded when it seems like every time 12 or 15 snowflakes get together, the fuckin' power craps out?

Anyway, thanks again guys.

Today's Climate Fact

In 70 years of records-keeping, Iowa has had 5 tornadoes in any given December.

They had 5 in one day yesterday.

Climate Change is real,

and it's here - right fucking now.

Overheard

Thanks to the extraordinary tech savvy and keen business acumen of the Republicans, Texans will never be short on electrical power except when the weather gets hot or cold.

Cold AF

The plains states - a full dozen of them - the middle third of this country has been stomped on by a storm and near-polar temperatures, and funnily enough, Texas is the only one reporting the kind of monumental problems that catch the fancy of the news cycle for a solid 72 hours.

Partly because they're just not used to that level of horrendous weather down there, and partly - mostly IMO - because the radical right decided to go all "fuck it, I can do what I want", and ignored the warnings from the Climate Science folks, and the warnings from the designers and engineers that the gear they were counting on for all that grandiose energy independence would crap out if it wasn't "winterized" properly - and gee, guess what happened.

The people in charge - ie: Republicans - decided low price was more important than the safety and wellbeing of the people paying the bills.

Of course, "low price" is coded political language which translates to serve two basic purposes

1. profit for the big shareholders
2. rationale for continuing the shitty anti-people policies that Republicans have been peddling for decades

Anyway, not even my enjoyment of watching Ted Cruz take it in the shorts because of his little jaunt down Mexico way can make this massive failure anything but bitter when we see the real cost being tallied.

And of course, it's not just Texas, and it's not just dumbass Republicans.

WaPo:

A boy who fell through ice, a woman who lost power: 47 deaths tied to winter storms — and counting

The cold has killed the young and the old. It has claimed lives from southern Texas to northern Ohio. And authorities expect the toll to rise in the coming days, with frigid weather lingering, hundreds of thousands without electricity and millions without clean water.

The two major winter storms that have plunged most of the United States into an Arctic chill have killed at least 47 people since Sunday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. More than half of them — 30 — lived in Texas, where persistent power outages have exposed residents to bitter temperatures.

The Post’s data includes deaths confirmed or suspected to be linked to the weather and its attendant hardships, and the true number is undoubtedly higher than what is known so far. Some first responders worry about what they’ll find in their next week’s worth of wellness checks.

In Taylor County, Tex., Sheriff Ricky Bishop said his officers have been checking on residents for days, delivering food and water and following up with them later to make sure they’re all right. Already, they’ve found three people dead.

“There’s definitely that possibility that over the next week or two we could find some more that we don’t know about right now,” Bishop said.

The identities of most victims still aren’t known. Authorities have confirmed the ages of fewer than half, but of those, 18 were 50 or older and five were 85 and older. Seven states have at least one confirmed death.

Where the weather is coldest, some have resorted to risky, last-ditch attempts to keep warm, using gas grills indoors or running cars inside closed garages. At least five people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a news conference this week, tallying hundreds of 911 calls about gas poisoning. “This carbon monoxide poisoning is a disaster within a disaster.”

Others seem to have frozen to death. At least 17 people died of hypothermia or “exposure to the cold.” Some of them were among society’s most vulnerable.

Early Thursday, a man was found lifeless in a parking lot north of Houston. He was wearing a jacket with no shirt beneath, authorities said. He had no shoes and no socks.

About 350 miles northwest, in Abilene, another person was found dead whom the local fire chief described as “a transient” who had been sleeping outside.

Even those with shelter succumbed.

In rural eastern Kentucky, two elderly women from Ashland — a city of 20,000 on the banks of the Ohio River — died in 48 hours, both of hypothermia. One woman, age 77, lost power in her home, Boyd County Coroner Mark Hammond said. Her family, blocked by ice and felled trees, couldn’t reach her and couldn’t contact her. She was found on Wednesday.

Still others have died in cold weather accidents — in cars and on foot.

In Louisiana, a 77-year-old man in Calcasieu Parish, where Lake Charles is located, slipped, fell into a pool and drowned. And in Lafayette Parish, a 50-year-old man died after slipping on ice and slamming his head on the ground.

A 10-year-old boy died in Shelby County, Tenn., after falling through ice into a pond with his 6-year-old sister, who is in critical condition. When authorities arrived at the scene, it was just 14 degrees.

That boy is one of three known victims under the age of 12. Another, identified by Univision as Cristian Piñeda, was 11. His mother had just managed to get Cristian from Honduras to Texas so the two could live together, she told the outlet. With no electricity, she tried to cover him with blankets as best she could.

It was 12 degrees when Cristian’s mother put him to bed Monday night. He never woke up.

We'll always have bad weather, and we'll always see people die because of that weather. The point here is that we have to be better at assessing the risk, and being as prepared as possible, so we can mitigate that risk.

But mostly, we have to be better at holding politicians and their benefactors accountable when they fuck up like this.

Private profit and socialized risk and externalized cost. That shit has to stop.

Crazy Weather

This is like the beginning of a scary movie where the narration will eventually turn to frogs raining from the sky and giant spiders crawling out of volcanoes or something. Weird shit that the Climate Science guys have been telling us we can expect, and that will be actively deliberately ignored by "conservatives" - many of whom are already claiming these reports are false, and just part of the global conspiracy to keep us from compensating for our small wieners by driving big stoopid trucks and SUVs.

ABC net:

A powerful storm bringing sub-zero temperatures has transformed parts of the Saudi Arabian desert into a winter wonderland.

Residents of Tabuk, 193 kilometres from the Red Sea, awoke to see the region's dry desert coated in white snow, leaving many in awe.

Tabuk, one of the coldest regions in Saudi Arabia, typically dips to 4 degrees Celsius at this time of year but it is usually dry, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Eric Leister.

Videos began circulating online showing camels shuffling through snow instead of sand, as residents enjoyed some snow play.

And it did not take long for the higher areas near Tabuk which were blanketed by the snow to become popular with locals and tourists in the area, local media reported.

Images of the unusual scenes quickly went viral, with people across the kingdom and in neighbouring countries clamouring to view and share them.

Today's Today

While tens of thousands of people traditionally travel to Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, PA, to watch, the ceremony was closed to the public this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Word is though, that Phil did see a shadow, and now Spring will arrive when Spring has arrived every year for as long as there have been people trying to keep track of this stuff - Phil or no Phil.

Here's the official announcement:

Americans are so fuckin' weird.

God Takes A Hand

Or was it the Cosmic Muffin?

Maybe it was the Hairy Thunderer.

From Daily Beast:

A controversial Louisiana statue of a Confederate soldier that has been central to a local dispute for months was toppled overnight—by Hurricane Laura’s 130 mph winds. 

Posts on social media Thursday morning showed the sculpture, named the South’s Defenders Monument, crumpled to its granite steps amid tree branches and other storm debris in front of the Calcasieu Parish courthouse in Lake Charles. Local officials reportedly voted to keep the statue up recently, despite petitions and protests.

More Fun With Disasters

We are to be even more sorely tested.

The storm is the first to reach hurricane strength in this year’s Atlantic season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. It brought harsh winds and rain to Corpus Christi and the surrounding area.

They tell us we can expect a rather robust hurricane season this year.

Weather.com:

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be more active than usual, according to an outlook released Thursday by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service.

The NOAA outlook calls for 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes – one that is Category 3 or higher (115-plus-mph winds) on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

This forecast is above the 30-year (1981-2010) average of 13 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

NOAA's outlook is in agreement with that released in April by The Weather Company, an IBM Business, which calls for 18 named storms, nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

So -

• Wild fires that burned almost an entire continent to cinders
• Murder Hornets
• Killer hurricanes

Those were the 2nd tier stories so far this year.

Fuck you, 2020.

Wondering

These "freak" storms are not freak storms anymore.

This is what the smart folk have been telling us will happen for at least the last 30 years.

So I'm wondering when we might reasonably expect the Press Poodles to catch up.

WaPo:

Freak summer hailstorm buries Mexican city under five feet of ice

It’s summer in Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s most populous towns, which made what happened there over the weekend all the more surprising.

Sunday morning, residents woke to their roads, yards and even cars buried under more than three feet of icy slush from a freak hailstorm that had blanketed the city.

On Twitter, Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said Civil Protection personnel quickly began cleanup, digging vehicles out from beneath the sea of hail and pumping out floodwaters once it had started to melt.

“I’ve never seen such scenes in Guadalajara,” Alfaro told AFP.

“Then we ask ourselves if climate change is real. These are never-before-seen natural phenomenons,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

In some places, the hail was up to five feet deep, AFP reported.

Safety Tip

Please make an extra effort to control your rage over the next few days, because it's inevitable that you'll hear some typically stoopid jokes about "Global Warming" from some typically stoopid Red Hat Rubes.

Just try to remember: busting your knuckles on that idiot's head hurts a lot more when it's really cold like this.

Stay calm and keep shoveling

Another Tweet Today

And still, not one fuckin' word about how these storms have gotten so bad.

This @weatherchannel visualization of storm surge is an amazing and sobering use of technology to show what hurricanes like Florence can do pic.twitter.com/fuszIcOR3s

— Brian L Kahn (@blkahn) September 13, 2018

All Hail Florence

From ISS this morning:

And the good news is that, so far, no one has confirmed reports that the storm has picked up several sharks.

But let's be careful out there.

A New Storm

...and new terminology we get to learn.

Great work, fossil fuel pimps - always excited to hear about some new horror that you guys convinced the rubes wasn't going to happen.

So thanks, and fuck you very much.

WaPa:

Unforgiving cold has punished the eastern United States for the past 10 days. But the most severe winter weather yet will assault the area Wednesday night into the weekend.

First, a monster ocean storm is taking shape, which pasted parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with rare ice and snow early Wednesday. By Thursday, the exploding storm will, in many ways, resemble a winter hurricane, battering easternmost New England with potentially damaging winds in addition to blinding snow. Blizzard warnings have been issued for the Virginia Tidewater region up the coast to eastern Maine, including Ocean City, Atlantic City, eastern Long Island, Boston and Portland.

“This rapidly intensifying East Coast storm will produce strong, damaging winds — possibly resulting in downed trees, power outages and coastal flooding,” the National Weather Service tweeted Wednesday.

[Watch: ‘Bomb cyclone’ moves toward east coast] 

Forecasters are expecting the storm to become a “bomb cyclone” because its pressure is predicted to fall so fast, an indicator of explosive strengthening. The storm could rank as the most intense over the waters east of New England in decades at this time of year.