Extreme Temperatures
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Snowflake Cold

Heavy snowfall in south China kills livestock, destroys homes

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© XinhuaPassengers board a bus in the snow in Zhengzhou, Henan province.
Snowstorms moved further south on Sunday, battering parts of Central and East China, delaying flights and forcing road closures, as forecasters warned rain and snow will continue in those areas this week.

Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces were among the areas hardest hit, as dozens of flights were delayed and several highways closed.

Snowfall in those areas is expected to continue through Monday afternoon.

Comment: Meanwhile, wildfires rage in Tibet, Norway and Alaska...

Many Tibetan monasteries and famous sites destroyed this winter by mysterious 'wildfires'

Wildfire warning issued for Alaska - apparently freeze-dried vegetation can 'spontaneously combust'

Third 'winter wildfire' breaks out in Norway - Second in two days - What is going ON?!


Chalkboard

Climate scientist who got it right predicts 20 more years of global cooling

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Dr. Don Easterbrook - a climate scientist and glacier expert from Washington State who correctly predicted back in 2000 that the Earth was entering a cooling phase - says to expect colder temperatures for at least the next two decades.

Easterbrook's predictions were "right on the money" seven years before Al Gore and the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for warning that the Earth was facing catastrophic warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide, which Gore called a "planetary emergency."

"When we check their projections against what actually happened in that time interval, they're not even close. They're off by a full degree in one decade, which is huge. That's more than the entire amount of warming we've had in the past century. So their models have failed just miserably, nowhere near close. And maybe it's luck, who knows, but mine have been right on the button," Easterbrook told CNSNews.com.

"For the next 20 years, I predict global cooling of about 3/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, as opposed to the one-degree warming predicted by the IPCC," said Easterbrook, professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University and author of 150 scientific journal articles and 10 books, including "Evidence Based Climate Science," which was published in 2011. (See EasterbrookL coming-century-predictions.pdf)

In contrast, Gore and the IPCC's computer models predicted "a big increase" in global warming by as much as one degree per decade. But the climate models used by the IPCC have proved to be wrong, with many places in Europe and North America now experiencing record-breaking cold.

Comment: To read more about the Dr. Don Easterbrook and REAL science, see:

'Geologist Declares 'global warming is over' - Warns U.S. Climate Conference of 'Looming Threat of Global Cooling'
Global Warming's Kaput; 2008 Coolest in 5 Years
Global Warming? Global Cooling Forecast Backed By Real Science


Snowflake Cold

78,000 still without power after Pennsylvania ice storm as big freeze continues

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Frozen: About 78,000 customers in Pennsylvania and Maryland are still without power, and faced the prospect of yet another day without electric heat or light.
Utility crews restored power to thousands of Pennsylvania homes Saturday and early Sunday, yet some customers in the dark for days after a tree-snapping ice storm may not regain power until early next week.

About 78,000 customers in Pennsylvania and Maryland remained without power early Sunday, and faced the prospect of yet another day without electric heat or light.

The majority of them are in the Philadelphia area, with utility PECO reporting about 77,500 outages, as of 1 a.m., down from about 155,000 earlier Saturday.

The latest outages include nearly 39,000 customers in hard-hit Chester County, or more than one in five customers.

Igloo

The heaviest snow in two decades has struck Tokyo

Tokyo Snow
© AFP/Kazuhiro NogiA jetliner of Japan's All Nippon Airways taxis at Tokyo's Haneda airport covered by the heavy snow on February 8, 2014.
The heaviest snow in two decades has struck Tokyo and other areas across Japan, leaving at least seven people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Up to 27 centimetres of snow was recorded in Tokyo by late Saturday, the heaviest fall in the capital for 45 years, according to meteorologists.

The storm hit Tokyo on the eve of its gubernatorial election. Observers say the heavy snowfall may affect voter turnout in the city of 13 million people.

As a depression moved along the Pacific coast on Saturday, the north-eastern city of Sendai saw 35 centimetres of snow, the heaviest in 78 years.

Local media said at least seven people have been killed in snow-linked accidents - mostly crashes after their cars skidded on icy roads.

In central Aichi prefecture, a 50-year-old man died after his car slipped on the icy road and rammed into an advertisement steel pole, a local rescuer said.

Snowflake

Heavy snow claims two lives in Japan

Tokyo international airport
© UnknownJetliners of Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) are parked covered in snow at Tokyo International Airport (Haneda), February 8, 2014.

Heavy snow and severe weather in Japan have left at least two people dead and nearly 90 others injured.


Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday that nearly 90 people were wounded in snow-related accidents in eastern Japan. Seventeen of them, seriously.

Two passengers, aged 88 and 90, lost their lives in a car accident on their way to a nursing home in Ishikawa, central Japan, the broadcaster added.

Over 600 flights were canceled in the country as the weather agency issued a severe storm warning for the capital, Tokyo, which received as much as 12 centimeters (4.8 inches) of snow on Saturday afternoon.

Railway operators also temporarily suspended services of Shinkansen bullet trains in western Japan, the NHK said.

According to meteorological agency, a quickly developing low-pressure front is approaching eastern Japan.

Igloo

More signs of global cooling? Sun's record weak polar field may forebode Maunder-like Minimum

The Sun in January 2014 and News of the Sun's Polar Field
By Frank Bosse
(Translated, edited by P Gosselin)

Over the last month solar cycle 24 (SC24) has seen some rather brisk activity. The sunspot number (SSN) reached a value of 82.0, which however was only 77% of the normal value (106) for the 62nd month into a cycle. The southern hemisphere (SH) contributed to most of the overall result in January, outperforming the northern hemisphere (NH) 61:21. The following graphic depicts current activity (in red) and normal activity (in blue):
Global Cooling_1
© NoTricksZoneFigure 1: The course of SC24 in relation to the mean value of all observed cycles.
The figure also shows SC5 in light red. SC5 has some degree of similarity to the current cycle so far.

Ice Cube

Ice Age Cometh: Great Lakes ice cover spreading rapidly - Lake Superior sets new record

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© NASAThis breathtaking satellite image from NASA shows a broad view of Great Lakes ice.
Ice continued to build this past week on the Great Lakes due to the cold air and temperatures staying below freezing, and Lake Superior's new record shows it.

The lake is 92 percent frozen, toppling a 20-year-old record of 91 percent set on Feb. 5, 1994. That statistic helped total Great Lakes ice cover soar, and we can expect to see more form in coming days.

The air temperatures this past week averaged around five degrees below normal for the Great Lakes area. This amount of deviation from normal means it was a fairly cold week.

As of February 5, 2014, the entire Great Lakes system is now reportedly covered 77 percent with ice, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Last week at this time the ice cover was 66 percent. The 77 percent ice cover now still lags behind 1994, when the entire Great Lakes system had an average ice cover of 84 percent on February 5. This data is according to Jia Wang, physical oceanographer at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Center in Ann Arbor, MI.

Let's look at each individual lake.

Comment: Then again perhaps there will be no thaw and no normal spring.


Cloud Precipitation

Increasingly common 'rare snow' blankets Iran's capital Tehran

Heavy snow in northern Iran has left around 480,000 homes without power and some towns and villages cut off.

The winter storms were the worst in 50 years, with two metres of snow falling in some areas since the weekend.


Snowflake

Homes buried as severe snow strikes Austria

Large parts of Europe have been hit by severe weather, with snow, rain and high winds causing disruption in several countries.

Houses in Austria were buried under a thick blanket of snow, as the BBC's Rebecca Donovan reports.


Igloo

Record snowfall buries Italian village

Record snowfall in the north of Italy has left some people trapped in their homes.

Villagers in Madesimo had to dig their way out of their properties after several days of wintery weather.

Rebecca Donovan reports.