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Snowflake

Update: Blizzard conditions kill 27 in Nepal with another 70 missing

Ted Thornhill
Daily Mail UK
Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:22 UTC
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Members of the army pulling dead bodies of trekkers from the Thorung La mountain pass on the Annapurna Circuit, near Muktinath, in Mustang district
Dozens of stranded foreign trekkers have been rescued and more bodies have been found following a blizzard and avalanches in northern Nepal, taking the death toll to 27. About 70 people are still missing along or near the popular Annapurna trail, according to the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal, and the death toll is expected to rise.

The route, 100 miles north-west of the capital, Kathmandu, was filled with international hikers during the peak October trekking season, when the air is generally clear and cool. Government administrator Yama Bahadur Chokhyal said rescuers recovered 10 more bodies from the Thorong La pass area - which lies at over 17,000 feet - where they had been caught in a sudden blizzard on Tuesday.

The bodies were not yet identified. Rescuers recovered the bodies of four other hikers - two Poles, an Israeli and a Nepalese - from the area on Wednesday.

Additional images
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Ice Cube

Hmm...Water temperature of the Great Lakes is over 6 degrees colder than normal - threatening earlier and colder winter in Midwest

Zoe Szathmary
Daily Mail UK
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 21:35 UTC
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Michigan residents may see a cold and icy winter arrive sooner this year, reportedly due to lower temperatures in the Great Lakes. Average surface temperatures for both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan have dropped: Superior's went from from 53.7 degrees on October 11, 2013 to 47.6 degrees Saturday, while Michigan's went from 62.1 degrees to 56.0 degrees, MLive.com reported. That means both lakes experienced temperature drops of 6.1 degrees, the news site explained.

Michigan residents may need to bundle up sooner to brace both November and December chilly weather as a result of cooler lakes, MLive.com reported. Lakes may also ice up sooner because of the extra chilly water temperatures, the news site reported. Despite these potential effects, there may be less lake effect snow, the website explained.

'Lake effect snow is heaviest when the lake waters are warm, and the air above is very cold,' MLive.com said. 'The bigger the difference in lake to air temperature, the more intense the snow can fall. Colder lake waters would mean lake effect snow could be not as intense. That is not to say we won't still have what some would call heavy snow. It means the 24 to 36 inch lake effect snows in one to two days would be harder to achieve.'
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Igloo

Austrian daily reports: "Huge ice growth surprises climate scientists" ... "Like one not seen in decades"!

P Gosselin
NoTricksZone
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 21:10 UTC
Iceage
© Kronen Zeitung/EPA
The Austrian online Kronen Zeitung here has an article about something most German-language media outlets have been too red-faced to report on: The sudden growth in polar sea ice.

The Kronen Zeitung opens with:
A huge growth in ice at the poles has surprised scientists and is casting questions. Is global warming taking a break? [...] For the prophets of climate change the new figures pose questions: At the poles of Mother Earth, in complete contradiction to prognoses of a complete polar melt, there is an ice growth like one not seen in decades."
Almost the entire mainstream media has been quiet about this development. So it is refreshing to see that some media are reporting the "good" news that the planet is not warming alarmingly.
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Ice Cube

Ice ages happen far more often than previously thought: Scientists surprised to discover Scotland had glaciers until relatively recently

Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:17 UTC
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© Martin KirkbrideSnow blankets Scotland's Cairngorm Mountains.
The last glacier in Scotland may have melted within the last 400 years, not 11,500 years ago as previously believed, new research finds.

The Cairngorm Mountains of eastern Scotland are the snowiest part of the Scottish Highlands even today. But previous studies of rocks from around the United Kingdom suggested that the last glaciers vanished from the region after about 11,500 years ago, when a cold period called the Younger Dryas ended.

"Conventional wisdom is that's when Scotland had its last glaciers," said study researcher Martin Kirkbride, a senior lecturer at the University of Dundee. The new study reveals that a later cold snap brought glaciers back to the land.

The last glacier

Kirkbride discovered Scotland's last glacier inadvertently while doing fieldwork with undergraduate students in the Cairngorms. One student was working on a project about how avalanches moved debris down the mountain slopes, and the researchers were curious about where the boulders they saw littering the bottom of the hills came from. They hiked up the slope and found ridges of boulders bordering a large slab of granite.

Comment: It appears that these researchers should talk to their colleagues, who found this summer the prestage for glacier formation at Mt. Ben Nevis:

Another sign of impending Ice Age? Glacier-like hazards discovered during the summer on Ben Nevis, Scotland
A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain's North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes.

On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve.

Neve is the first stage in the formation of glaciers, the team said.

The team has also encountered sheets of snow weighing hundreds of tonnes and tunnels and fissures known as bergschrunds.

The large, deep cracks in the ice are found at the top of glaciers.

The team of mountaineers, geologists and botanists is recording wildlife and rock forms on the North Face.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Midland Valley Exploration and the Nevis Partnership, an organisation based at Torlundy, near Fort William, are involved in the three-year project.

So far, many new populations of rare fauna such as highland saxifrage, tufted saxifrage and wavy meadow grass have been recorded.


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Snowflake Cold

Heavy snow in Kyrgyzstan leaves four people frozen to death

Robert Felix
IceAgeNow.info
Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:46 UTC
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Surprise snowfall traps at least 2,000 sheep - Many farmers have not yet harvested half of their crop.

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Heavy snowfall in the north of the country suddenly overwhelmed the area, said the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The heavy snowfall trapped many the shepherds and one of them froze to death. Three homeless people also froze to death in the capital Bishkek.

The country's north and south Bishkek-Osh highway was closed due to heavy snowfall in the mountains.

This was reported in the press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Kyrgyz Republic on Friday
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Snowflake

Snow for September was highest on record in North America


Stevengoddard.wordpress.com
Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:23 UTC
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Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab
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Snowflake

Autumn snow hampers traffic in the Urals, Russia

Robert Felix
iceagenow.info
Tue, 07 Oct 2014 18:16 UTC

The snow has brought a lot of trouble for drivers because most have not yet changed tires.

"I was driving on the highway M5″ Ural ", the roads are very quickly swept out, - says Igor Nikiforov. - Maximum speed was 20 kilometers (12 miles) per hour, and even at this speed it was scary at some turn to go, the car just drifting. There were traffic jams because trucks could not climb the mountain, they stood and idled."

Over the weekend there were forty serious accidents on the roads of the Chelyabinsk region.

Meanwhile, resourceful residents of the South Urals have used the bad weather to open the ski season.

In Zlatoust adults and children began sculpting the first snowman.

Thanks to Argiris Diamantis for this link
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Snowflake Cold

Ocala, Florida breaks 84-year old cold record

Joe Callahan
Ocala.com
Mon, 06 Oct 2014 13:05 UTC
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© Isocrates.us
Children were bundled at bus stops. Workers left home in sweaters and light jackets. Heat pumps switched on earlier than normal.

Monday morning, the temperature dipped to 49 degrees in Ocala - a record low for the day.

The previous record was 50 degrees, set in 1930. The official measuring site is the city water plant at Southeast 36th Avenue just north of Maricamp Road.

Monday morning's daybreak low temperatures ranged from 46 degrees near Salt Springs to 52 degrees in Ocala.

The official forecast for rainfall and temperatures can range significantly throughout Marion County. The county's official forecast is issued by the weather service, while the Star-Banner's weather page uses AccuWeather forecasts. Sometimes those predictions differ.

National Weather Service forecaster Kate Guillet said the cold front began pushing through late Friday night from the central Plains, bringing relief to a very wet three weeks in Marion County.

"It brought cooler and drier weather," she noted. "The temperatures dropped very quickly because there were no clouds (to hold in the heat)."

Sunday's morning low in Ocala hit 50 degrees, just missing the record of 49 degrees set in 1987.
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Snowflake Cold

Cold temperatures set record as snow arrives in Chicago


Nbcchicago.com
Sun, 05 Oct 2014 10:48 UTC
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Saturday's snowflakes mark the third earliest snow sighting since the city began recording

Looks like Mother Nature isn't going to let Chicago forget that winter is coming.

The city saw light snow Saturday morning, marking one of the earliest snow sightings on record.

The earliest snow spotting in Chicago is Sept. 25, which occurred in 1928 and again in 1944, according to the National Weather Service.

Saturday's snowflakes mark the third earliest snow sighting since the city began recording.

The Rockford area also spotted snow Saturday morning, marking their second earliest sighting. The record was set in 1951 when the area saw snow on Oct. 3.

But the snow wasn't the only weather element the Chicago area made the record books with this weekend.

The city set a temperature record with O'Hare Airport recording a high of 47 degrees, marking the lowest maximum high temperature in 79 years, the NWS reported. The previous record, set on October 4, 1935, was 48 degrees.

The average high temperature in Chicago for the month of October is 62 degrees. The average low temperature is about 43 degrees.
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Snowflake Cold

130 year record low temperature in Vladivostok, Russia

Robert Felix
iceagenow.info
Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:43 UTC
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Snow in the Perm region. The autumn weather breaks records.
Earlier than normal snowfall in the Perm region.

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2 Oct 2014 - Snowfall in early October in the Perm area "is not the norm for the region," said Andrew Shikhova, of the Regional Center for Geographic Information Systems.

Another record was broken in Vladivostok, which registered the lowest absolute minimum air temperature in more than 130-year history of weather observations.

Tuesday morning in the seaside capital was only plus one degree Celsius.
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