Extreme Temperatures
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Snowflake Cold

Killing freeze, widespread frost to seize the Northeast U.S. later this week

The chilliest air of the season so far will settle over much of the Northeast Thursday into Friday and will bring frost to more areas than experienced frost early this week.

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The pattern through this week will bring cooler-than-average temperatures to the region with a reinforcing push of cool air forecast to settle in Thursday night and Friday.

Where skies become clear and winds diminish Thursday night over the interior, the stage will be set for a frost and even a freeze in the coldest locations.

Ice Cube

4 U.S. States hit with September snow - Parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana and Colorado hit by snowstorm that dumped 20 inches of snow

As summertime draws to a close across the country, a snowstorm has hit parts of Wyoming dumping up to 20 inches of snow. The freak summer snowstorm hit parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana and Colorado and left a blanket of snow on the ground as temperatures plummeted to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
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© APClean up: Terry Chandler clears snow off her car before heading to work on Thursday in Gillette, Wyoming

Children took full advantage of the unseasonably cold weather building snowmen in the local park and amusing themselves by pelting each other with snowballs. Forecasters said that the storm was heaviest on Wednesday and Thursday.

Meanwhile, much of northern Wyoming received early-season snow on Thursday, ranging from flurries at lower elevations to as much as 10 inches in mountain areas. Big Horn Mountains, the town of Buffalo saw as much as 10 inches and Custer, South Dakota was blanketed with up to eight inches. Up to 3 to 5 inches fell in Cody, the earliest recorded snowfall there since records were kept in 1915.

Some roads and highways were slippery on Friday morning, but travel was not hampered in Wyoming. However, the heavy wet snow did snap off tree branches and cause some power outages in Buffalo.

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Ice Cube

Professor Bob Carter warns of unpreparedness for imminent global cooling

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Eric Worrall writes:

Professor Bob Carter, writing in today's edition of The Australian, a major Aussie daily newspaper, warns that the world is unprepared for imminent global cooling, because of the obsession of policy makers with global warming.

According to Bob Carter;
Heading for ice age

"GRAHAM Lloyd has reported on the Bureau of Meteorology's capitulation to scientific criticism that it should publish an accounting of the corrections it makes to temperature records ("Bureau warms to transparency over adjusted records", 12/9). Corrections which, furthermore, act to reinforce the bureau's dedication to a prognosis of future dangerous global warming, by turning cooling temperature trends into warming ones - a practice also known to occur in the US, Britain and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, we have a report by Sue Neales that the size of our grain harvest remains in doubt following severe frosts in southern NSW killing large areas of early wheat crops and also damaging wheat and canola crops in South Australia and Victoria ("Trifecta of calamities to deplete. crop harvest", 12/9)

Is it unreasonable to be surprised that none of your writers, much less the government, has noticed that leading solar astrophysicists, such as Habibullo Abdussamatov from Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg, have for years been commenting on the declining activity of the sun?

These scientists are projecting a significant cooling over the next three decades, and perhaps even the occurrence of another little ice age.

Obsessed as they are with a gentle global warming trend that stopped late last century, should the expected solar cooling eventuate, policy makers will rue the day they failed to heed the advice of independent scientists on climate change issues."
Heading for ice age

Phoenix

California firefighters battle out of control wildfire as area withers under triple-digit temperatures

wildfire
© AFP
Los Angeles - Hundreds of firefighters spent a second day on Saturday battling a wildfire burning out of control in a national forest southeast of Los Angeles, as the region baked under triple-digit temperatures that prompted authorities to issue a "heat alert."

The so-called Silverado Fire, which broke out in the Cleveland National Forest on Friday morning, had charred some 1,600 acres (647 hectares) by Saturday afternoon as it burned through brush and chaparral left bone dry by California's record drought.

Evacuation orders were issued for more than 200 homes in and around Silverado Canyon as some 740 firefighters worked to gain a measure of control over the flames, assisted by 10 water-dropping helicopters and five fixed-wing aircraft, according to the U.S Forest Service fire-tracking website InciWeb.

The heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring over 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in parts of Southern California on Saturday and was not expected to break until late Sunday. The sweltering heat prompted Los Angeles health officials to issue a "heat alert" for this weekend, urging residents to take special precautions.

"Extreme heat such as this is not just an inconvenience, it can be dangerous and even deadly, but we can protect ourselves, our families and our neighbors if we take steps to remain cool and hydrated," Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, the city's interim health director, said in issuing the heat alert.

Snowflake Cold

Ice age cometh? Record winter blast hits U.S. Northern Plains

weather map sept 12 2014
Massive early cold wave - Nearly an inch of snow at Rapid City. This is the earliest recorded snowfall going back to 1888.

Mount Rushmore from NWS Rapid City Twitter Feed:
mount rushmore sept 12 2014
A television Meteorologist in Sioux Falls, SD had this to say:
Brandon Spinner ‏@wxSpinner89 Sep 11
Way too early for this. Even the Presidents look like they are crying..."

Ice Cube

Calgary goes from 25° C to 0 in one day

Monday's snowfall was a shock to the system for Calgarians, who were basking in balmy weather just hours earlier.

The temperature plummeted from a summery high of 25 C (77 F) Sunday to the freezing point (32 F) Monday, and several centimetres of snow accumulated in many parts of the city and surrounding areas.

snow car
© ALEXA HUFFMAN/DAILY HERALD TRIBUNE/QMI AGENCYGwenda Jean Pierre brushes snow off of her car during the first snowfall of the season in Grande Prairie, Alta. on Monday, Sept. 8, 2014.
"It's just a shock to the system," Environment Canada meteorologist Bill McMurtry said.

"Many people were out in the sun, enjoying nice warm temperatures (Sunday) and (Monday) people are looking out their windows going, 'It's snowing.'
#snow #Alberta #cbc #yeg #september #global
pic.twitter.com/wvwAmZxQQ4

- Hunter & Olivia (@HunterOlivia) September 8, 2014
"It just shows you how much things can change in 24 hours. The general consensus is it's too early."

The people aren't wrong.

Even from a scientific standpoint, it's strange to have a significant dump of snow this early in the transition to fall.

Snowflake Cold

U.S. Plains could see winter-like temperatures as cold front sweeps down from Canada

cold front sept 2014
Cold is about to sweep into the northern U.S. Plains from Canada and drop temperatures to winter-like levels.

Readings in Calgary were forecast to drop to 27 Fahrenheit (minus 3 Celsius) later this week and snow was flying there yesterday, according to Environment Canada.

That will be a welcome change for energy traders after a mild summer, although it's just a glimpse of what may come.

While the temperatures will drop, they won't be falling too far where it counts.

Chicago, for instance, will end this week with highs in the 60s and lows in the 50s, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. New York will reach into the 80s during the day and 60s at night.

The big cities of Canada also won't see much of the cold. Overnight temperatures in Toronto and Montreal will drop into the 40s by the end of the week.

In New England, conditions like that are called "good sleeping weather."

Snowflake

First snowfall of the season in Grande Cache, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta

In Grande Cache, the snow was so heavy and thick, it cut power to many homes.
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© Rob Bonnett
"Fall is still two weeks away, but Mother Nature clearly has different weather plans for Alberta," says this article in the Huffington Post.

People around the province woke up to snow Monday morning, after an "unseasonably cold Arctic airmass" descended over the province.

Environment Canada issued snowfall warnings for Airdire, Cochrane, Hinton, Grande Cache, Kananaskis, Canmore, Nordegg and area, Okotoks, High River, Rocky Mountain House, Whitecourt, and Edson.

Grande Cache so far got the worst of it, recording 15 cm (5.9″) by Noon MDT.

People in Alberta's major cities took to Twitter Monday morning, to lament the early snowfall.


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Snowflake

3 days of heavy early snowfall results in 174 lost and 200 trapped on Pakistan's Deosai Glacier

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The trapped and missing people are mostly shepherds and their families who move with their herds during the season.
At least 174 people are missing and around 200 people are trapped in Pakistan's northern mountaineer 'Deosai' glacier site as massive snowfall which continued over the last three days has blanketed the region, local officials said.

Around 200 people, including women and children, are trapped in the Charagah area of Deosai while 252 people were rescued Saturday night, Tariq Hussein a local administration official told reporters.

Many among the rescued people are injured as the region faces an unseasonal amount of snowfall, the official said. The trapped and missing people are mostly shepherds and their families who move with their herds during the season.

Igloo

Sir Paul Nurse, once a respected scientist, is reduced to mud-wrestling

Sir Paul Nurse
© CorbisPoliticians who do not believe in climate change should be 'crushed and buried', according to a speech given by Sir Paul Nurse.
He's the new President of the British Science Association (I bet they are loving this media coverage) and has decided to move on from the old technique of debating scientific points on their merits. It's too slow (especially if you don't have... evidence).

Instead he's going with retro-science - Do you believe, sinner? It's so retro, it's retro-the-renaissance.

From The Daily Mail, UK
Politicians who do not believe in climate change should be 'crushed and buried', according to the new president of the British Science Association.
How much belief is enough, I wonder, to avoid the crushing? If a politician believed in the greenhouse theory but not the catastrophe, is that half crushed, or do we skip the squishing and go straight for the burying?