© Steven Goddard
Ushcn.tavg.latest.raw.tar.gz
Monthly temperatures which are marked with an "E" are "estimated" rather than measured. More than half of the current data for 2015 is fake.
© Steven Goddard
Extreme Temperatures
So far this year, more than 50% of USHCN data is fake, and NCDC is adjusting US temperatures upwards by more than one degree. New records for both.
Ushcn.tavg.latest.FLs.52i.tar.gz
Ushcn.tavg.latest.raw.tar.gz
Monthly temperatures which are marked with an "E" are "estimated" rather than measured. More than half of the current data for 2015 is fake.
As more data comes in, these numbers will go down some, but the point is that the more data is missing, the higher the temperature. This is likely due to to loss of rural data, and infilling with UHI contaminated urban data.
Ushcn.tavg.latest.raw.tar.gz
Monthly temperatures which are marked with an "E" are "estimated" rather than measured. More than half of the current data for 2015 is fake.
Thundersnow
More than a dozen people reported seeing several bright flashes in the sky, unexplained by air traffic or other human activity. One thought neighborhood children were pulling a prank at first. Another suggested a meteor had split into three parts. Another reported hearing booms.
Then came a post showing a Chicago-based meteorologist on The Weather Channel standing in a blinding snowstorm with the sky flashing behind him. The ecstatic reporter hooted as he and his camera man captured "thundersnow" on camera several times in the course of a few minutes.
Though rare, thundersnow is a real phenomenon, a snow thunderstorm that occurs under circumstances similar to a thunderstorm as a cold or warm front moves into an area. The thunder is often muffled by the snow, but the flashes may still be visible.
"It's pretty rare, but it's not out of the question in the winter," said John Lingaas, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. "The conditions have to be just right."
This week's hard copy of Spiegel features the front cover story dubbed "Der verheizte Planet" - The heated planet - (see image below). Thus, Spiegel is returning and keeping to its long tradition of promoting end-of world scenarios.
The following image sequence shows how the burning planet is just the latest and newest climate catastrophe designed to get an apocalypse-weary public to worry (and to buy its magazines). So far the reaction, however, has been a big yawn. The world is, after all, full with other real concerns.
The following image sequence shows how the burning planet is just the latest and newest climate catastrophe designed to get an apocalypse-weary public to worry (and to buy its magazines). So far the reaction, however, has been a big yawn. The world is, after all, full with other real concerns.
© Spiegel
Spiegel depictions over the last decades. 1986 and 2015 were even front cover images. 1974: cooling. 1986: sea level rise. Now, 2015: it’s a burning planet.
Spiegel depictions over the last decades. 1986 and 2015 were even front cover images. 1974: cooling. 1986: sea level rise. Now, 2015: it’s a burning planet.
King Crab on Redcar beach
Red king crab could be first on our shores, crustacean is usually found in icy waters like the Arctic
He's spent his working life beneath the sea but even oceanographer David McCreadie was baffled by a rare visitor to Redcar.
For the formidable-looking red crustacean found by David's fiancee Diane Weinoski looks for all the world like a king crab - and they hardly ever stray from considerably icier waters.
Members of the lithododid family, king crabs are large, tasty and usually found in seas MUCH colder than Redcar's.
And despite having worked and played in oceans across the world since the mid-1960s, David has never heard of one being found this far south.
© Andrew Jowett / Times Herald
Ducks sit on a shelf of ice Monday along the St. Clair River in Port Huron.
Ducks sit on a shelf of ice Monday along the St. Clair River in Port Huron.
Terry McFadden, a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said waterfowl across the state are dying because of the extreme cold and growing ice cover.
Below-zero temperatures have caused rapid ice formation, blocking ducks from food sources in the water and sometimes trapping the birds in the ice.
"Most likely it's going to be similar to last year, we lost quite a few last year," McFadden said. "We don't have a really good estimate, but it was in the thousands."
McFadden said waterfowl, including long-tailed and canvasback ducks, are concentrated in the St. Clair River, where some of the region's only remaining open water is located.
That large concentration of birds depletes available resources as the ice forms.
© John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
A screech owl sat on a perch mending a fractured wing at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
A screech owl sat on a perch mending a fractured wing at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
If this month's record cold and snowfall have taken a toll on human residents in Massachusetts, they have also wreaked havoc on the animal population, particularly wildlife. Animal shelters are beyond capacity with weather-related injuries.
"This is the worst winter that we've seen in terms of straight-up starving animals coming in," said veterinarian Maureen Murray, who practices and teaches at the Tufts University Wildlife Clinic in North Grafton. "With this historic amount of snow and extremely low temperatures, animals need more energy to stay warm, but they're not able to find food sources for that energy, so it's a really big strain on them."
Although it's difficult to determine whether wildlife populations have suffered permanent damage, local experts say it's clear the animals are under extreme stress.
A tugboat tries to negotiate ice floes
© Wikimedia Commons.
Gyrfalcon.
Gyrfalcon.
Wildlife biologist Chris Anchor with Cook County Forest Preserve District says the same conditions that brought snowy owls to Chicago have also brought Chicago the biggest falcon in the world.
The Gyrfalcon has a wing span up to 4 and 1/2 feet and weighs three or four pounds. Anchor says they can kill other birds as large as ducks and geese.
He says the Gyrfalcon, spotted at Navy Pier and also in Barrington northwest of Chicago, has a maximum air speed of 120 miles an hour.
Anchor says this is only the fourth one he's seen in his 30-year career as a wildlife biologist.
Ice and oranges.
Winter's grasp doesn't seem to be letting up, as there are wind chill and freeze warnings throughout the state, says this video.
Freezing temperatures in Florida are threatening orange crops while apples from Washington state are left to rot as dock workers are on strike.
Thanks to Taavi Peterson for this video
Stuck.
Frozen waters in Maine have left lobstermen stuck on the mainland again this week.
The boats are sitting frozen and stuck and ice is preventing many lobstermen from leaving the harbor.
Some say it's been at least three weeks since they have been able to get out on the water and that the deep freeze is really starting to hurt their very livelihoods.
Lobster boats stuck in ice.
Comment: Ice age cometh: Brutal winters point to Earth turning colder