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Flashback Friday coldest October 16 in DC in 138 years


Washington Examiner
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:36 UTC
Friday was the coldest Oct. 16 in 138 years in the nation's capital.

For the first time since the National Weather Service began compiling data, the city's high temparature for the day was below 50 degrees.

Friday's highest temperature was recorded at Reagan National Airport at 3:34 p.m. It was 45 degrees.

The previous record for coldest Oct. 16 was in 1940 when the temperature reached no higher than 51 degrees.

The hottest temperature recorded on Oct. 16 in Washington is 89 degrees - just a degree short of being twice Friday's high.
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Cloud Lightning

Flashback November, China: Hebei capital experiences heaviest snowfall since records began


Global Times
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:27 UTC
Nearly 50 centimeters of snow fell over two days in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province to turn the city into a winter wonderland. The heavy snow broke a record set 54 years ago and paralyzed traffic.

Heavy snow blanketed Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei Province, for a second day and paralyzed all transport, provincial authorities said Wednesday.

Meteorological officials said the city recorded 7.44 centimeters of precipitation in the 24 hours till 6 am Wednesday, with the accumulated snow 48 centimeters thick in most areas.

It was the heaviest snowfall in the city since 1955 when the city began to make meteorological records, reports said.
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Flashback New Zealand: Coldest October in 64 years


NZPA
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:55 UTC
It will come as little surprise to most New Zealanders that the country shivered through the coldest October in 64 years.

In its climate summary for the month, the Niwa said the average temperature nationwide was 10.6degC _ 1.4degC below average.

Such a cold October has occurred only four times in the past 100 years, the last time in 1945.

It was only fractionally warmer than August, which recorded a warmer-than-normal average temperature of 10.4degC.

Niwa said October was shaped by a series of southerly fronts, all-time record low temperatures in many areas, and unseasonable late snowfalls.

The heaviest October snowfall since 1967 occurred in Hawke's Bay and the central North Island on Octobe 4 and 5 stranding hundreds of travellers, closing roads, and resulting in heavy lambing losses.

Not only was it cold, but it was also wet.
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Flashback Kansas: October bringing record cold

Tim Hrenchir
CJOnline.com
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:48 UTC
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Topekans just weathered their chilliest first half of October on record -- by a significant margin.

And more cold air could be in store the rest of this month, says Kyle Poage, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Topeka.

Poage released a list Saturday of the coolest 15-day periods to begin October the weather service has recorded since it began keeping temperature records in 1885 in Concordia and in 1887 in Topeka.

Poage said the lowest average temperature ever recorded in Topeka for the period of Oct. 1-15 is 49.4 degrees, set this month. Finishing second through fifth were 1949, at 53.2 degrees; 1964 and 1977, at 53.3 degrees each; and 1952, at 53.5 degrees.
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Snowman

Flashback Snow on the French Riviera??


CNN iReport
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:36 UTC
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I am an American Expat living in Antibes (Nice) France. I live 5 blocks from the beach, and 3 blocks from Port Vabaun, the 2nd largest yacht port in the world. I thought living here, I would escape the ice and snow of my native Cincinnati, Ohio. Boy was I wrong!!!
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Igloo

Flashback Often Alaska's coldest spot, Bettles is setting records


The Associated Press
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:13 UTC
Fairbanks -- It's been bitter cold in Bettles, 200 miles north of Fairbanks.

The village in the foothills of the Brooks Range recorded a new record low temperature of 47 degrees below zero on Saturday. It was the fifth day in a row a new record low was set in the town, and the sixth day in a row that the temperature was more than 40 below zero.

Bettles weather observer Max Hanst said Bettles typically is one of the coldest places in Alaska, but even this is unusual. He said these temperatures usually occur in January.

It's been chilly elsewhere in the Interior.

In Fairbanks, it was 34 degrees below at Fairbanks International Airport Saturday morning. That was one degree shy of tying the record low of 35 below set in 1904.
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Igloo

Flashback Hong Kong shivers in coldest November in more than 120 years


Earth Times
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:06 UTC
Hong Kong - Hong Kong recorded its coldest November 18 in 120 years as a winter monsoon continued to send temperatures falling, weather experts said Thursday. Temperatures fell to 9.7 degrees Celsius in the sub-tropical city on Wednesday morning - the lowest November 18 reading since records began in 1883.

In more rural areas close to the border with China, it was even colder, falling as low as 6.6 degrees.

The previous coldest November 18 was in 1976 when the temperature was 11.9 degrees.
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Cold Arctic Pressure Pattern Nearly Off Chart

Andrew C. Revkin
Dot Earth Blog
Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:39 UTC


A big driver of the outbreaks of record cold and snow in many spots around the Northern Hemisphere is the little blue dot at the lower right-hand corner of the graph above, just above the year 2010. The chart (generated by Ignatius Rigor for Dot Earth) shows the state of the Arctic Oscillation, a pattern of atmospheric pressure that has two phases, positive and negative (somewhat like the more familiar cycle of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific). A strong negative or positive condition can powerfully influence weather around the northern half of the globe and the behavior of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean.
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Snowman

50 years of cooling predicted

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:23 UTC
Who said the science was settled?
Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth's ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.

In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.

"My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century," Lu said. "Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming...."

In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations.
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Snowman

Flashback Newfoundland Digs Out from Record Snow


United Press International
Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:45 UTC
St. Johns, Newfoundland - The Canadian province of Newfoundland Monday was digging out from a record snowfall of 15.5 inches in St. John's, weather officials said.

The city's old snowfall record for Dec. 6 was around 8 inches, set in 2002, which Sunday's storm easily surpassed, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The CBC said the snow, which was driven by wind gusts of more than 60 mph, tied up traffic Monday and forced residents to haul out snowblowers and try to navigate snow-packed roadways. Officials said a crane had to be brought in to pull a city snowplow out of a ditch.
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