Over $500 million in damage already caused by floods and high winds

The latest storms to hit Ireland will cost the economy almost half a billion dollars - with more on the way over the weekend.

Record tides and devastating flood and gales lashed the country on Friday with Ireland's weather forecast service warning of a repeat on Sunday.

Experts have branded the freakish winds and rain as the worst series of storms to hit the country in over 15 years.

And economists have warned that the price of home insurance will increase after estimating the current damage at over $500million.

Galway and Cork were worst hit with flooding while the River Liffey in Dublin also reached record levels.

Experts have warned that Friday's freezing temperatures were simply a warm-up and that this weekend will bring a big chill for 140 million people - almost half the nation - that could prove fatal for the unprepared - and will continue through the winter.

With the Northeast still reeling from the huge storm that dumped as much as two-feet of snow across the region and was responsible for the deaths of 13 people, a new weather system is threatening to bring record low temperatures to the Midwest as a polar vortex barrels over the United States.

'It's the mother lode of cold air,' said Weather Channel coordinating meteorologist Tom Moore. 'On the heels of what will be the coldest air of the season, will be dangerous, life-threatening winds.'

The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, North Dakota, minus 31 in International Falls, Minnesota, and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago.

Moore said that as the freakishly cold weather hits the region, authorities need to act fast to avoid a human catastrophe because of the chill. 'Anybody living out on the streets needs to be rounded up and put into a shelter,' said Moore to MSNBC News. 'The repercussions for not could be deadly, and I'm afraid we're going to see cases like that.'

The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, North Dakota, minus 31 in International Falls, Minnesota, and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago. The so-called 'polar vortex' will send cold air piled up at the North Pole down to the U.S., funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast.

Weather expert Andrew Freeman of Climate Central explains that the rarity is 'an area of cold low pressure that typically circulates around the Arctic during the winter, spreading tentacles of cold southward into Europe, Asia, and North America at times. Except this time, it's not a small section of the vortex'.

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Coastal areas in the south and west of the UK have been swept with waves of up to 10 meters (30 feet) high, causing flooding and destruction. With around a hundred flood warnings active on Saturday, the country could yet expect more severe storms.

Gale force winds accompanied by monster waves, twice the height of a double-decker bus, eroded Britain's Atlantic coast on Friday. Dozens of houses were flooded, piers damaged, roads and railway tracks, including major ones, affected.

At Heathrow several flights had trouble landing because of the wind, while connections to and from Gatwick were hampered by the bad weather.

More than a hundred flood warnings were issued by Environment Agency Saturday morning. Four of those were severe. That was one-fifth Friday's rate. However weather forecasts for the coming days say it's not yet time to relax.

Climate experts say that global warming is melting sea ice faster than expected, which is why the poles currently have the most sea ice ever measured for the date.
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Antony Frampton and his colleagues at the Environment Agency have rebuilt the mile-long shingle sea defence of Weymouth beach esplanade every day during the stormy weather over the past fortnight, with the exception of Christmas Day.

The team was hard at work again on Friday, as The Independent visited the Dorset town that is currently taking a hammering.

"The sea defence gets eroded overnight and so we rebuild it the next day," said Mr Frampton, before hopping into one of several Environment Agency diggers along the front and once again rebuilding the shingle wall that had been demolished the previous evening by the powerful gales and onslaught of heavy rain.

"We want to keep the shingle at a certain width so waves don't go over the wall and close the beach road," he said - although the road had been forced to close earlier that morning after flooding, and was due to close again last night as a precaution against the expected storm surge.

Fifty-two scientists and tourists rescued from a trapped vessel in the Antarctic still can't get home.

On Thursday, a helicopter flew the stranded passengers off the icepack in groups of 10 and 12. Their ship had been trapped in the ice for more than 10 days.

Now, they're stuck again, this time because the Chinese icebreaker that sent the helicopter fears it could get stuck as well.

The Australian ship meant to carry the passengers home is hanging around in case it's needed to rescue the Chinese.

French officials severely under-estimated the danger posed by storms that battered large parts of the country over Christmas, interior minister Manuel Valls has admitted.

On a visit to Brittany - the region worst affected by Storm Dirk - Valls recognised that an "error" had been made in forecasting and preparing for the bad weather.

Tens of thousands of homes were left without power over the festive period as fierce winds brought down by power lines and rivers flooded.

Valls has ordered préfets to assess the full extent of the damage in their department and try to ascertain why a higher level of warning was not issued.

Fox Business host Stuart Varney said on Tuesday that his theory of "global cooling" had been proven when a research ship recently got stuck in ice near Antarctica.

The habitual climate-change denier reported that all 52 passengers of the Russian-flagged MV Akademik Shokalskiy had been rescued by helicopter after Chinese and Australian ice breakers had tried for days to reach the vessel.

"The ship, sent to the Antarctic to study climate change, has been stranded in the ice for 10 days," Varney noted. "Attempts to rescue the passengers using ice breaker ships failed. Rescuers finally got through using a whopping, great big helicopter that was landing on the supposedly, very thin ice."

The governors of New York and New Jersey declared a state of emergency on Thursday as a major snowstorm hammered the northeastern United States, causing thousands of flight cancellations and paralyzing road travel.

The first major winter storm of 2014 brought bone-chilling temperatures and high winds from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast, with nearly 2 feet (60 cm) of snow falling in some areas of Massachusetts.

Much of the northeast saw heavy snowfall and plummeting temperatures late on Thursday evening and early on Friday, said Jared Guyer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"That whole region is blanketed in winter storm warnings, which will continue at least through the morning hours if not beyond," Guyer said.

The storm posed the first major challenge to New York's new mayor, Bill de Blasio. The city's reaction to snowstorms has caused political havoc for mayors for decades.

Yet another vessel has been trapped by global warming sea ice! The Xue Long icebreaker has sent out a distress call.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has released another press release:

Aurora Australis on standby as a precautionary measure

Xue Long notified AMSA at 1pm AEDT this afternoon it has concerns about their ability to move through heavy ice in the area. The Aurora Australis has been placed on standby by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) to remain in open water in the area as a precautionary measure. The Xue Long has advised RCC Australia that it will attempt to manoeuvre through the ice when tidal conditions are most suitable during the early hours of 4 January 2014.

There is no immediate danger to personnel on board the Xue Long."

Prof Turney tweets he is gutted by the news. I guess he can't believe that climate warming could trap so many ships in sea ice. His communication manager just announced that all the new sea ice is caused by global warming, see my last post.