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Extreme TemperaturesS
You know that global warming is hitting hard, when New Mexico wakes up to -33C temperatures.
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© AP Photo/Channi AnandA homeless child sits wrapped in a towel in his temporary home under a flyover in Jammu, India, on Jan. 2,2013.
Police spokesman Surendra Srivastava said Thursday that at least 114 people have died from the cold in the state of Uttar Pradesh. At least 23 of those died in the past 24 hours.
Srivastava said many of the dead were poor people whose bodies were found on sidewalks or in parks.
© NOAA
(Note: Percentages of snow coverage have only been calculated since 2004.)
The previous record was set in 2010, when the new year saw 61 percent of the U.S. beneath snow. That same season was marked by the blizzard nicknamed 'Snowmageddon,' in the mid-Atlantic, which set a long list of records in cities such as Philadelphia, DC and Baltimore.
"As far as New Year's Days go, I think that our snow cover is very healthy," AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston said.
The lack of snow coverage since record keeping began in 2004, with the exception of 2010, have been an anomaly, Boston explained.
© Hokitika Guardian A central section of this bridge near Harihari on the West Coast was carried away by the storm-swollen Wanganui River.
Snow fell on the Lindis Pass in Otago overnight, forcing travellers to abandon their vehicles near the summit.
Sergeant Mark Booth of southern police communications said Lindis Pass was closed and eight vehicles were stranded.
"But I imagine at this time of year the snow's not going to last long."
The centre of the island and the West Coast have "copped it" over the last few days, Mr Booth said.
The West Coast road via Lewis Pass through Murchison had closed, forcing travellers to make a seven hour detour around Blenheim and Kaikoura to get to the east coast of the island.
Last night severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for the Westport area as the last of the system moved through.
Nearly 600mm of rain has fallen on the West Coast in the past 48 hours.
A vital one-lane bridge on State Highway 6, just north of Harihari, was washed away yesterday.
Alaska is going rogue on climate change. Defiant as ever, the state that gave rise to Sarah Palin is bucking the mainstream yet again: While global temperatures surge hotter and the ice-cap crumbles, the nation's icebox is getting even icier. That may not be news to Alaskans coping with another round of 50-below during the coldest winter in two decades, or to the mariners locked out of the Bering Sea this spring by record ice growth.
Then again, it might. The 49th state has long been labeled one of the fastest-warming spots on the planet. But that's so 20th Century. In the first decade since 2000, the 49th state cooled 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit. But now comes cooling. Researchers blame the Decadal Oscillation, an ocean phenomenon that brought chillier surface water temperatures toward Alaska. Some contend the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is harming the state's king salmon runs, too.
Full story here
Then again, it might. The 49th state has long been labeled one of the fastest-warming spots on the planet. But that's so 20th Century. In the first decade since 2000, the 49th state cooled 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit. But now comes cooling. Researchers blame the Decadal Oscillation, an ocean phenomenon that brought chillier surface water temperatures toward Alaska. Some contend the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is harming the state's king salmon runs, too.
Delhi witnessed its coldest day on Wednesday in the past 44 years, with the maximum temperature falling sharply to 9.7 degree Celsius. Residents woke up to a foggy morning, with the minimum temperature dipping to 4.8 degree Celsius.
Poor visibility affected schedules of nearly 30 flights and led to diversion of an international flight to Mumbai. In Uttar Pradesh, the death toll continued to mount, with 15 more people succumbing to the chill in various parts of the state.
Officials said four people died in Muzaffarnagar which remained the coldest place with 0.6 degree Celsius, followed by three in Mathura, two each in Agra, Bulandshahr, Etah and one each in Barabanki and Mirzapur.
With this, the death toll in the state this winter has reached to 107.
Night temperatures remained below normal in most parts of the state including Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Bareilly and Kanpur divisions.
Poor visibility affected schedules of nearly 30 flights and led to diversion of an international flight to Mumbai. In Uttar Pradesh, the death toll continued to mount, with 15 more people succumbing to the chill in various parts of the state.
Officials said four people died in Muzaffarnagar which remained the coldest place with 0.6 degree Celsius, followed by three in Mathura, two each in Agra, Bulandshahr, Etah and one each in Barabanki and Mirzapur.
With this, the death toll in the state this winter has reached to 107.
Night temperatures remained below normal in most parts of the state including Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Bareilly and Kanpur divisions.
© Spc. Balinda O'Neal, Alaska National Guard Public AffairsAlaska National Guardsmen clear a building roof in Cordova, near Anchorage, on Jan. 9, 2012.
Like most of the planet, the state has been heating up steadily over the past century and is frequently cited as one of the fastest-warming areas on the planet, according to the Alaska Dispatch, an online newspaper. The Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks notes the state was warming at roughly twice the pace as the rest of the planet, particularly from the 1970s into the 1990s, reports the Dispatch.
But since 2000, nearly all the National Weather Service monitoring stations sprinkled across the vast state have reported colder-than-average temperatures. The station at King Salmon on the Alaska Peninsula, for example, experienced an average 4.5 degree Fahrenheit (2.9 degrees Celsius) drop in temperature over the course of the first decade of this century.
The City of El Paso, Texas, where the snow line has reached in recent years, despite the global warmists' predictions that snow would soon be a thing of the past for places far to the north.
While the best chance for snow will be across the Trans-Pecos, a general coating to perhaps an inch of snow will likely fall before it is all said and done.
The upper-air disturbance will begin to enter the Southwest on Wednesday night and slowly ride along the United States and Mexico boarder. This disturbance will likely stick around through Friday before lifting northeastward into the southern Plains.
As the system tracks into the Southwest, it will draw Pacific moisture from the south and Gulf of Mexico moisture from the east.
While communities from the Midwest to the Northeast and even the southern U.S. are digging out after a massive storm blanketed much of the country, the Northeast is now bracing for more snow over the weekend.
Two storm systems will combine into one and bring light snow to the major cities in the Northeast. Most areas in the northeast will see 1-3 inches of snow with isolated amounts of 4 inches in the higher elevations Saturday morning from Philadelphia to New York and into New England.
This week's winter blast is accounting for at least 15 deaths -- most of them on the nation's roads.
"This is really bad out here. I see accidents everywhere. There are police everywhere. It's no joke," an Ohio woman told Good Morning America.
© Oregon State Police via KOIN-TVThe scene of a tour bus crash in eastern Oregon on Dec. 30, 2012.
Police say the bus lost control around 10:30 a.m. on the snow- and ice-covered lanes of Interstate 84 in eastern Oregon. The bus crashed through a guardrail and went down an embankment a few hundred feet.
Rescue workers are using ropes to help retrieve people from the crash scene. State police say the charter bus was carrying about 40 people, but they did not say where the vehicle was traveling to or from.
The bus crash was the second fatal accident in Oregon on Sunday morning due to icy conditions. A 69-year-old man died in a single-vehicle rollover accident. CBS affiliate KOIN-TV in Portland reports both the 26-year-old driver, who is expected to survive, and the deceased passenger were wearing safety restraints.
Source: The Associated Press
