Extreme Temperatures
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Ice Cube

Ice storm in U.S. strands thousands of ill-equipped in the South

Kim Severson and Alan Blinder
The New York Times
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Ben Gray/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressTraffic inched along the connector of Interstate's 75 and 85 in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Thousands of commuters were trapped in cars overnight on highways in the greater Atlanta area, hundreds of students remained inside dozens of schools Wednesday morning and at least 50 children spent the night on school buses because of an ice storm that is still gripping the deepest parts of the South.

Residents ran out of medicine, a baby was born to a stranded mother and pleas for help flooded Twitter and Facebook as a region that rarely deals with ice and snow came to a screeching halt during a rare meteorological event that was still icing points this morning as far south as Brownsville, Tex.

"This came very suddenly," Craig Witherspoon, superintendent of Birmingham City Schools in Alabama, said Wednesday morning. An estimated 600 students in his district spent the night in schools, tended by about 100 staff members.

"All reports for the Birmingham area were that we'd get a light dusting to the south of where we were," Mr. Witherspoon said. "And the flakes started coming, and then it just poured out."
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Ice Cube

Valdez, Alaska, cut off by avalanche, ice dam and "glacier lake"

Robert
Ice Age Now
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 21:09 UTC
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© ReutersA lake had formed below the avalanche.
Video shows a flyover of Keystone Canyon and the Lowe River, 1/26/2014.


A glacier-sized avalanche has blocked the river. An ice lake has formed, currently at an estimated depth of 60 feet and growing.

The Richardson Highway is flooded and the town of Valdez cut off from road access. There is some concern as to when and how the lake will release and downstream residents are on evacuation alert.

Thanks to Josh Cooley in Valdez for this video
"Incredible to be living here in Valdez during this event," says Josh. "Luckily my pantry is well stocked, and we are having food shipped in by barge."
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Snowflake Cold

Extreme chills across central Canada mean hazardous weather for Southeastern U.S.

Scott Sutherland
Geekquinox
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:57 UTC
Canadian cold
© Canadian PressCanadians from Saskatchewan to Quebec are bundling up against the cold this week.
Those of us north of the border in Saskatchewan to Quebec were greeted with bitterly cold weather this morning, but this blast of cold from the polar vortex is bringing a rare winter storm to the US Southeast.

Today is already the third day in a row of bitter cold and biting wind chills for the prairie provinces, as temperatures across Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been hovering around -30°C since Sunday. The light winds blowing through the area have been making it feel more like -40 or even lower. The cold-spot for this morning was in northern Manitoba, but even Winnipeg and Brandon reached -45 wind chills over the past day - cold enough to freeze exposed skin in as little as five minutes!
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Cloud Precipitation

Florida schools to close for possible ice, snow


Click Orlando
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:51 UTC
welcome to florida
Schools, courts, government offices close in advance of possible winter weather

Schools, courts and government offices throughout the western Florida Panhandle plan to close because of anticipated snow and ice as a polar vortex grips much of the country.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for the region. Forecasters say a mix of freezing rain and snow is expected Tuesday through Wednesday.
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Snowflake Cold

Coming polar plunge could be winter's coldest

Kristina Pydynowski
Accuweather.com
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:16 UTC
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© Accuweather.com
A blast of frigid air will grip most of the eastern two-thirds of the United States through Wednesday and could yield the lowest temperatures so far this winter in some communities.

The impending polar plunge will rival the frigid days from earlier this January for the coldest daytime highs and nighttime lows so far this winter. This does not include South Florida.

The arctic air first plunged into the Upper Midwest, northern Plains and northern Rockies on Sunday and is continuing to press to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts through Tuesday.

The magnitude of this cold blast will be enough to produce a far-reaching threat of frostbite, hypothermia, frozen pipes and water main breaks.
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Snowflake Cold

Winter is coming: Polar blast is only a taste of things to come


Climate Change Dispatch
Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:54 UTC
Image
© Accuweather.com
Just in time for Obama's State of the Union Address, where he is supposed to invoke global warming and the power of his mighty pen, comes another polar plunge the likes of which may not have been seen before:

"A blast of brutal cold will grip most of the eastern two-thirds of the United States through Wednesday and could yield the lowest temperatures so far this winter in many communities.

The impending polar plunge will rival the frigid days from earlier this January for the coldest daytime highs and nighttime lows so far this winter. This does not include South Florida.The arctic air first plunged into the Upper Midwest, northern Plains and northern Rockies on Sunday and is expected to continue pressing to the south and east through Tuesday.

The magnitude of this cold blast will be enough to produce a far-reaching threat of frostbite, hypothermia, frozen pipes and water main breaks.

Care should also be taken to ensure that livestock and other animals housed outdoors have adequate shelter.

Especially across the Midwest and Northeast, officials may decide to cancel or delay school due to the extreme cold. Some vehicles may struggle or fail to start for motorists.

While highs will be held to the 30s southward to the I-10 corridor, the Midwest and Northeast are bracing for the harshest conditions."

Read the rest here...
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Fish

Thousands of dead fish wash up in Grainger County, Tennessee

Kayla Strayer
WATE.com
Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:36 UTC
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They can be seen washed up on shore and floating in the Holston River below the Cherokee Dam.
Tens of thousands of dead fish are now washing up on the shores of the Holston River in Grainger County. 6 News has been investigating this since viewer Chris Joyce first alerted us Monday morning by posting this photo on our Facebook page.The white spots in the picture are the fish. They are scattered downstream from Cherokee Lake, just off Tampico Road in rural Grainger County.

"It's just a shock to see it in your own backyard," Joyce said. After seeing thousands of dead fish near his home, Joyce turned to 6 News for answers. "I got to looking. There was a lot on the water, a lot on the banks. I took pictures of it and sent it in. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this," Joyce said.
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Igloo

Unusual circular ice flow in Norway caught on camera

Anne Sewell
Digital Journal
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 01:35 UTC

Lillehammer - Reportedly this weird phenomena has been happening for years on the river Gudbrandsdalslågen, north of Lillehammer in Norway. But this is the first time that someone has actually caught it on camera.

The peculiar ice flow is perfectly circular in shape, and spins round and round on the river. Trond Stordal, who took the video told Norway's NRK (in Norwegian) that, "I have seen this for years, and many times thought that I would try to get it on film."

"I spent some time one morning and got myself some good pictures," he added. Stordal, 48, a resident of nearby Otta, took several still pictures with an SLR and also filmed a video with his cell phone.
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Comet

What killed the woolly mammoth? UCSB Professor finds evidence to support comet collision


Noozhawk
Mon, 27 Jan 2014 12:00 UTC
Nanodiamond
© UCSBNanodiamond textures observed with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy: A) star twin and B) multiple linear twins.
Could a comet have been responsible for the extinction of North America's megafauna - woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths and saber-tooth tigers? UC Santa Barbara's James Kennett, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth Science, posited that such an extraterrestrial event occurred 12,900 years ago.

Originally published in 2007, Kennett's controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis suggests that a comet collision precipitated the Younger Dryas period of global cooling, which, in turn, contributed to the extinction of many animals and altered human adaptations. The nanodiamond is one type of material that could result from an extraterrestrial collision, and the presence of nanodiamonds along Bull Creek in the Oklahoma Panhandle lends credence to the YDB hypothesis.
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Igloo

Did it snow on the summit of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo?


The Star
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:29 UTC
Mount Kinabalu
© The StarMount Kinabalu looms majestically over the village of Bundu Tuhan.
Kota Kinabalu: Did it snow at Mount Kinabalu just before dawn on Jan 17 when temperatures dipped to -3°C?

A report submitted to Sabah Parks by their head ranger Martin Mogurin indicated that there were signs of snow at the summit area of the 4,101m-high mountain along the Crocker Range around 4am.

Martin said guides at the mountain submitted a report but were unable to back it up with pictures as it was dark. Sabah Parks officials are trying to verify the report.

Sabah Parks chairman Tengku Zainal Adlin, who has climbed every face of Mount Kinabalu in the last five decades, is not surprised over the snow report.
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