Earth Changes
A wave of steady storms this week, capped off Wednesday night by a powerful atmospheric river event that caused the National Weather Service to issue a rare blizzard warning, brought more than four feet of snow to some Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts.
The huge snowfall boosted the statewide Sierra snowpack to 103 percent of normal on Thursday, up from just 69 percent on Jan. 1.
It also comes ahead of one of the biggest California ski weekends of the year, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday weekend.
Snow started falling over the mountainous areas of the northern region on Wednesday afternoon, and by evening, the central parts, including the capital, also received heavy snow that quickly blocked streets in areas located 900 metres above sea level.
By Thursday noon, all of the country's roads were open to traffic, according to the Public Security Department.
Ras Munif in Ajloun Governorate, 76 kilometres northwest of Amman, recorded the highest snow accumulation at 15cm, according to Raed Rafid Al Khattab, head of the weather forecast section at the Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD).
Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings are in effect for those areas expected to receive 80-100" of snow from the time the snow started yesterday through Thursday evening. That's more than 8 feet of snow in just a days of days. To put that in perspective, that is more snow than Roanoke has seen in 5 years.
According to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), the vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an avalanche at 7 am. Rescue operations are currently underway with the police, army and the SDRF trying to rescue the trapped people.
However, it has not yet been established whether the persons in the truck were civilians or security force personnel.
New paper argues for a stronger influence of Arctic sea-ice loss on recent Eurasian cooling, thus causing colder winters and more snow in Europe due to climate change.
A reconciled estimate of the influence of Arctic sea-ice loss on recent Eurasian cooling
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0379-3 (paywalled)
Abstract
Northern midlatitudes, over central Eurasia in particular, have experienced frequent severe winters in recent decades1,2,3. A remote influence of Arctic sea-ice loss has been suggested4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14; however, the importance of this connection remains controversial because of discrepancies among modelling and between modelling and observational studies15,16,17.
Here, using a hybrid analysis of observations and multi-model large ensembles from seven atmospheric general circulation models, we examine the cause of these differences. While all models capture the observed structure of the forced surface temperature response to sea-ice loss in the Barents-Kara Seas-including Eurasian cooling-we show that its magnitude is systematically underestimated. Owing to the varying degrees of this underestimation of sea-ice-forced signal, the signal-to-noise ratio differs markedly.
The Swiss resort of Andermatt-Sedrun (pictured below) has reported this depth on its upper ski runs with 95cm at resort level. Road access to the village was cut off earlier this week although a rail tunnel allowed people to still get in and out.
Deputies from the Morongo Basin Station received a call about a "vicious animal attack" at approximately 10:11 p.m. Wednesday on the 59000 block of Sunflower Drive in Joshua Tree.
Upon arrival, deputies found the victim at home alone, suffering from injuries as a result of being mauled by four pit bulls. She died a short time later.
According to the Sheriff's Department the victim lived at the residence with her husband, and an adult male friend, who owned the dogs.The dogs were considered family pets, and the victim had helped take care of them over the past year, according to the news release.
Pak Tae Ra villagers in Ranote district alerted a regional maritime research centre that a big whale was found on the beach. The centre's chief Suthep Juela-ong found the remains of an Omura whale, weighing 800-1,000 kilograms and 5.65 metres long. It was estimated that the whale has been dead for at least two weeks, Suthep said.
The centre's officials will collect tissue samples and check the cause of death, he said, adding that the preliminary test indicated that it probably died from illness as no outer injuries were found on the body.

A’joure Johnson, 6, of Seattle takes a leap while visiting Me-Kwa-Mooks Park in West Seattle recently.
"The average high temperature at Sea-Tac (International Airport) for the first 16 days of January was 51.8°," the weather service tweeted Thursday.
Those temperature records go back to marks taken at the Federal Building in downtown Seattle since the 1890s, meteorologist Dana Felton said.
A high of 50 degrees is expected on Thursday, Felton said.
There were, however, a few cold mornings: Lows dipped to 33 degrees on Jan. 1, 32 degrees on Jan. 2 and 31 degrees on Jan. 15, he said.
The warmest day so far was last Friday, Jan. 11, when the high climbed to 61, Felton said.
"A 60-degree day is pretty rare in January," he said. "There have only been 16 in the 75 years of records at Sea-Tac."
This morning, Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for this coming Monday - a rare release this far ahead of a storm.
"An intense winter storm is forecast to move across New England Sunday, then the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Monday," reads the alert. "It will bring significant amounts of snow and will generate very strong and frigid northerly winds that will generate blowing snow considerably reducing visibilities and making roads very slippery."
Monday's storm should invade the province of Quebec and the most affected areas should be those located near the American Border and Atlantic Canada.
The expected weather however, still depends greatly on the exact track of the storm which is "still volatile," according to Environment Canada. A track a little further north could mean that Southern Quebec may deal with a "major winter storm."















Comment: Bunk. See: Global warming? - Still no warming for 17 years 9 months