Earth ChangesS

Windsock

Freak 'Tornado' rips through North Cornwall

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© Unknown.The poly-tunnel at Trevone Farm was flattened by the whirlwind.


A freak whirlwind caused thousands of pounds' worth of damage to property after ripping through three North Cornwall coastal villages early on Saturday morning.

Outbuildings were destroyed in Trevone, and roofs of houses were damaged in Harlyn Bay and Constantine Bay after what residents described as a "tornado'' struck the area.

A terrified couple out walking their dog at 7.30am on Saturday in Trevone ran to take shelter in a ditch as debris flew towards them.

Another resident of the village found her chicken shed had been upended and landed on a road, killing one of her chickens.

Cloud Lightning

NOAA images show wind farms distort weather radar data, affecting their primary mission of forecasting and safety

"Chaotic wind velocities associated with the rotating turbine blades triggers the doppler radar mesocyclone detection algorithm"

Note: this essay was written by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Burlington, Vermont and tipped to me by a reader. Vermont's wind farm acreage pales in comparison to places like the Texas and Oklahoma, where there are literally thousands of acres of wind farms right in the middle of tornado alley. I've been there and seen them firsthand.
wind farm doppler
Certified Consulting Meteorologist Mike Smith writes:

"While driving to Norman, OK recently I saw the newest "wind farm" to the west of Interstate 35 southwest of Tonkawa. Wind farms show up as bright ground clutter on weather radars and here it is."
One has to wonder just how much trouble wind farms are causing the nation's doppler radar warning system. It looks like a classic case of the law of unintended consequences at work. - Anthony



National Weather Service WSR-88D Radar and Wind Farm Impacts


Introduction

The most valuable tool used by the National Weather Service (NWS) to detect precipitation is the radar. Radar stands for Radio, Detection, and Ranging, and has been used to detect precipitation since the 1940โ€ฒs, with most of the technology coming from the military.

Family

'Two out of five corpses are children' says survivor of Philippines typhoon Haiyan

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© REUTERS/Romeo RanocoTacloban City, where two out of five killed by Typhoon Haiyan were children, according to aid worker
Survivor of what may be the strongest storm ever to make landfall tells of terrible destruction in Tacloban City

Only when Lynette Lim started to walk into Tacloban City, a few hours after 'Super' Typhoon Haiyan wreaked unimaginable devastation across the Philippines, did she realise how lucky she herself had been to survive the storm.

"Everything was just flattened," said Miss Lim, the Asia communications manager for Save the Children, who arrived in Tacloban with a group of aid workers assessing the potential need for help just 24 hours before Haiyan smashed into the city on Friday.

"The water was knee high and there were bodies floating in the streets. I saw several dead children. I'd say two out of every five corpses I saw were kids. Most of the houses were wooden and they were completely destroyed.

"There were trees and electrical poles strewn across the road and corrugated iron roofing that had been ripped off houses."

Making her way through the villages south of Tacloban, she discovered the full extent of the horrific damage caused by winds that came close to 200mph, and storm surges that sent waves as high as the second storey of houses crashing ashore.

"Everywhere we went, people told us between 10 and 50 people had been killed in their communities," said Miss Lim. "Most of the families who had decided to evacuate ahead of the storm left one member behind to guard their homes and possessions. Unfortunately, most of them died."

Bizarro Earth

Deadly, rare tropical cyclone hits Somalia

Tropical Cyclone
© NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFCA slow-moving tropical cyclone destroyed hundreds of homes and farms in Somalia.

A slow-moving tropical storm pounded the Somalia coast this weekend, a rare hit for the war-torn country that killed more than 100 people and devastated coastal communities.

The unnamed tropical storm made landfall on Sunday (Nov. 10) north of Eyl in the Puntland state, a semiautonomous region that typically receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain every year.

The storm, designated Tropical Cyclone 03A, was forecast to dump a year's worth of rain on Puntland this week and hit the shore with winds of 46 mph (74 km/h).

Weak storms such as Cyclone 3A can wreak havoc along the arid African coast because they trigger flash floods, said Amato Evan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

"Even a very weak storm can cause huge damage and loss of life in this area," Evan told LiveScience. "In an area that doesn't receive a lot of rainfall in general, a storm that moves very, very slowly and dumps a lot of rain in one place for a long time can be particularly deadly."

Cloud Grey

Melbourne tracks towards cold snap record

Melbourne looks set to shiver through its longest November cold snap in more than 20 years.

The city hasn't hit 20 degrees since Friday and isn't forecast to top that until Sunday.

Senior weather bureau forecaster Peter Blake says that would make it a nine-day cold stretch not seen since 1989.

"At this time of year, to have an extended run of below 20, obviously doesn't happen that often," he said.

Isolated showers, overcast skies and highs of 16 to 19 degrees are forecast for the rest of the week.

But the cloud is expected to clear on Sunday for a mostly sunny afternoon with a high of 21, rising to 23 on Monday.

"So there is relief in sight," Mr Blake said.

Snowflake

Record snowfall blankets Havre, Montana

What the winter will bring is still unclear

A second snowstorm hit north-central Montana over the weekend, bringing enough white stuff to tie a National Weather Service record for Havre on Nov. 10 set at 4 inches in 1916 and bringing some slippery driving conditions to the area.

Once again, the winter conditions are not expected to last, with temperatures expected to be in the 20s to 30s, depending on the forecaster, today and back into the 40s or even 50s later in the week.

The forecast calls for mostly sunny skies through the weekends with temperatures expected to drop some by Saturday or Sunday.

The long-range forecast still is up in the air, with The Farmers' Almanac predicting the region including Montana will be piercingly cold with about-normal snowfall, while the Old Farmers' Almanac predicts colder-than-normal winter temperatures here, with lower-than-normal precipitation and snowfall.

Blue Planet

SOTT Focus: Preparation for the coming storm

Our current collective condition has never been more precarious - at least not in our lifetime. Worldwide economic collapse seems certain, only the timing and severity can be debated. The planet seems to be convulsing through all kinds of changes, from weather extremes to increased earthquake/volcanic activity, to mass animal die-offs, to greatly increased bolide/fireball events.
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© sott.netRecent US fireball reports (including sound and fragmentation)
Some of these changes are reflected in changes we can see occurring on other planets in our solar system, and may be related to the bizarre behavior of our sun and/or the nature of space around our solar system. Respected meteorologists and atmospheric scientists are warning of an impending ice age - the beginning of which could occur rapidly and with little warning. Secondary concerns have been widely expressed regarding worldwide food supply, not to mention rising prices and environmental instability.

The point here is not to stimulate panic. The point is to focus on what we can do as individuals and groups to prepare a living environment that is mindful of potential threats - an environment we can create with the means at our disposal. Just thinking and planning around this is preparation itself.

Ice Cube

'January temperatures' in November? First snows hit East Coast as arctic blast sweeps across the U.S.

A biting arctic blast rattled from the Midwest to the Northeast this morning, sending temperatures plummeting and blanketing some areas with snow and sleet. Parts of New York, Chicago and New England, among others, are seeing the first snows of the season while nearly a third of the country can expect temperatures 10 to 20 degrees below normal for this time of the year, meteorologists warned.

Temperatures in the Great Plains and Upper Midwest dropped as low as single digits on Tuesday morning, while Texas and mid-Atlantic states saw temperatures in the 20s, NBC reported.

In Chicago on Monday, the National Weather service recorded 0.4 inches of snow - the first of the season and a week ahead of schedule - and today, the temperature is expected to reach 24 degrees, which is 11 below normal for the date. And the Weather Service reported that even the Southeast can expect surprisingly low temperatures in the teens.
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Low temperatures: Nearly a third of the country is experiencing temperatures between 10 and 20 degrees lower than normal for this time of year. This map shows the temperatures this morning
Additional images

People

Typhoon Haiyan overshadows UN climate change talks in Poland

Philippine delegate weeps at UN climate conference
© UnknownPhilippine delegate weeps at UN climate conference
The devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan cast a gloom over UN climate talks Monday as the envoy from the Philippines broke down in tears and announced he would fast until a "meaningful outcome is in sight."

Naderev "Yeb" Sano's emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres also made reference to the "devastating impact" of the typhoon in her opening speech, and urged delegates to "go that extra mile" in their negotiations.

Scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.

Nevertheless, extreme weather such as hurricanes often prompt calls for urgency at the UN talks.

Comment: What happened in the Philippines as a result of the recent typhoon is tragic. It is therefore also important to direct the focus where it belongs and not use this loss of life to propagate false ideas about climate change.

Warming has occurred, also on some of our neigbouring planets such as Mars, but that warming has stopped here on planet Earth and it looks more like a global cooling is on the cards as the activity on the sun is getting eerily quiet.

As for the Philippines, the lack of sufficient infrastructure has more to do with the extent of the damage seen than global warming, and that lack of sufficient infrastructure is in no small amount due to the in all but name colonial exploitation of the Philippines by the ponerological elite of the world.

Rising global temperatures on Mars melt hints at solar-system-wide, not human, cause for warming
German scientists: Solar cycle 24 points to Dalton or Maunder-like minimum, boding ill for a climate cooling
Shock Doctrine in action: Anglo-Saxon elites send warships, destroyers and special forces to 'protect' crisis-hit Philippines


Arrow Down

Accumulated Cyclone Energy of all cyclones below normal

It is phenomenal. Climate campaigners like [John] Vidal in Guardian keeps arguing that the terrible typhoon Haiyan shows we need to do more about global warming.

Yet, even *after* Haiyan, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy of all cyclones in the Western North Pacific is below normal (99%, http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical.php). The global ACE is at 74%.

As you can see in the graph below (updated Nov 10), both Northern Hemisphere ACE and global ACE are at the lowest since the 1970s.
Global running ACE
© Weatherbell.com

Comment: It is also worth pointing out that there has been no warming for the last 15+ years and that it looks more likely that we are entering a cooling climate if not a full blown ice age.