Storms
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Cloud Lightning

No, global warming did NOT cause the storms, says one of the Met Office's most senior experts

David Rose
Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 03:39 UTC
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Firing line: A storm passes over Britain on the 'conveyor belt' last week
  • Mat Collins, Exeter University Professor in climate systems, said storms driven by jet stream that has been 'stuck' further south than usual
  • He told The Mail on Sunday there is 'no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter'
  • Appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo
One of the Met Office's most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming.

Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream - the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe - which has been 'stuck' further south than usual.

Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: 'There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.'

His statement carries particular significance because he is an internationally acknowledged expert on climate computer models and forecasts, and his university post is jointly funded by the Met Office.

Prof Collins is also a senior adviser - a 'co-ordinating lead author' - for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo.
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Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream
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Airplane

Relentless Snow and Ice: U.S. airlines canceled record number of flights

Scott Mayerowitz
Fox News - DC
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:49 UTC
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© Business Insider
The relentless snow and ice storms this winter have led to the highest number of flight cancellations in more than 25 years, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

U.S. airlines have canceled more than 75,000 domestic flights since Dec. 1, including more than 14,000 this week. That's 5.5 percent of the 1.37 million flights scheduled during that period, according calculations based on information provided by flight tracking site FlightAware.

It's the highest total number and highest percent of cancellations since at least the winter of 1987-1988, when the Department of Transportation first started collecting cancellation data.

The nation's air traffic system was still recovering Friday from the latest bout of bad weather. Flights were taking off again but thousands of passengers weren't.

"This year is off to a brutal start for airlines and travelers," says FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker. "Not only is each storm causing tens of thousands of cancellations, but there's been a lot of them."

And February still has two weeks left.

Mother Nature isn't entirely to blame. A mix of cost-cutting measures and new government regulations has made airlines more likely to cancel flights and leave fliers scrambling to get to their destination.
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Bizarro Earth

Widespread polar vortex freezing, erupting volcanoes, strange loud booms, big waves, earthquakes and lots of meteors - Something in space lurks close to earth

Shepard Ambellas
Intellihub
Tue, 04 Feb 2014 15:48 UTC
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© China DailyMount Sinabung, Indonesia
Current worldwide weather anomalies and drastic changes with the earth and sun give indication that some type of massive celestial object may be moving in to range, possibly even threatening the inhabitants of earth as emergency preparations by various nations have been taken

It's no big secret that weather patterns are drastically changing worldwide. In Indonesia alone 19 volcanoes were raised to alert status Tuesday, after the Mount Sinabung eruption in North Sumatra killed 16 people last week. Three volcanoes in the region still remain on "high alert". This doevtails with seismic activity in the U.S. Yellowstone region which was also reported to have picked up recently, showing a clear trend of noticeable earth changes worldwide.

And what about the recent cold spell which broke cold weather records in over 50 cities across the U.S.? Shockingly, the temperatures even ran into the frigid negatives throughout pockets of the U.S. that typically never fall that low in temperature.

Influential weathermen, like NBC's Today's Al Roker, are now claiming that the "polar vortex" is to blame, a term listed in some 1959 weather publication entitled the "Glossary of Meteorology" and almost unheard of by modern society. Some weathermen say that the dense cold air has migrated down from the poles causing unusually abnormal weather patterns further south into the United States, making for the coldest spell in decades.

Strangely on Jan. 8, the Today show made mention of a "left winged global conspiracy" regarding the polar vortex, giving a force-fed tidbit to the masses. Take note that the seeding has already begun and corporate propaganda is already in full swing.

Comment: There is evidence that these environmental events may be caused by a companion star to the Sun:

"Check out the Wikipedia page on the so-called 'Nemesis' hypothesis. (And see here for additional resources.) It was introduced in 1984 by two teams of astronomers (Whitmire & Jackson, and Davis, Hut & Muller) to explain the periodically spaced extinction events observed in the earth's fossil record. The idea was that a companion sun passing through or close to the spherical Oort cloud would send a death-dealing swarm of comets in earth's direction every 26 million years or so. Its presence may also help explain the non-random trajectories of certain long-period comets, as well as the strange and unexpected elliptical orbit of the recently discovered transneptunian object Sedna."

You can read more here: The Cs Hit List 07: Sun Star Companion, Singing Stones and Smoking Visions



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Family

Shock and heartbreak: UK families evacuated over fears their homes will fall into the sea after waves destroy coast

James Rush and Martin Robinson and Rob Cooper and Matt Chorley and Damien Gayle
The Daily Mail
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 08:33 UTC
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© Daily MailCollapse: A huge hole opens up in a road alongside the railway line at Dawlish, Devon, which is left hanging in mid-air after the sea wall was washed away during storms.
Hamlets on the Somerset Levels were being turned into 'ghost villages' yesterday as more homes were evacuated amid rising flood waters, as the military were drafted in last night to help with flood defences.

Householders attempting to stay put despite the water surging into their properties were warned by loudspeakers on police helicopters of an 'imminent threat to life', as more rain lashed into the area.

Royal Marines have been assisting with sandbag defences in the flood-hit region, which had been told to expect another 1.6in of rainfall by this morning.
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Cloud Lightning

Storm washes up 21ft dead whale in Marazion, UK

C M Chloe
West Briton
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 10:24 UTC
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© Kristina SapeyStorm washes up 21ft dead whale in Marazion
A 21ft dead whale has been washed up by the storm on Marazion beach.

Dog walker, Kristina Sapey was at Leys Lane beach this afternoon and took a photograph of the creature.

Commenting on Facebook, she said: "I think it's covered in mud. I didn't get too close as I didn't want the dog to go near it."

The coastguard are advising people to stay away from the badly decomposed animal which they said had died long before it was washed ashore.

A spokesman from Falmouth Coastguard said: "We would rather people didn't go along to see it. We don't want people going near it."

A coastguard team from Penzance went down to take details of the whale after they were alerted to this stranding around 9am this morning.

The spokesman said details would be passed on to the Natural History Museum and Cornwall Council.
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Snowflake

Winter storm killed at least 12 across the Southern U.S.


CBS News - Atlanta
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 07:23 UTC
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© Davis Turner/Getty ImageStudents carry provisions as they walk through icy and slushy conditions back to the Emory University campus on Feb. 12, 2014, in Atlanta, Ga.
Small armies of utility workers labored to turn the lights - and the heat - back on for hundreds of thousands of Southerners as a winter storm that left them without power threatened major cities further up the East Coast.

The Deep South remained a world of ice-laden trees and driveways early Thursday after several unusual days of sleet and snow brought by a powerful system that could bring more than a foot of snow to such metropolises as Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.

At least 12 deaths across the South have been blamed on the stormy weather and nearly 3,300 flights nationwide were canceled with another day of complicated air and road travel ahead Thursday, particularly in the Northeast.

Drivers in and around Raleigh, N.C., became snarled Wednesday in huge traffic jams and abandoned cars in scenes reminiscent of motorist woes in Atlanta during a storm two weeks earlier. In Atlanta, many streets were eerily quiet this storm, with drivers heeding dire warnings to stay off the roads. State troopers say they worked more than 200 crashes in Georgia. Snow was forecast to stop falling and temperatures to rise in most of the state by late morning, but ice remained a concern, with refreezing possible overnight and into Friday.

For some on slick, snow-covered interstates in North Carolina, commutes that should take minutes lasted hours after many got on the highways just as soon as snow and sleet began at midday.
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Ice Cube

Blasted by storm: U.S. East Coast buried, death toll 20 - new storm on the way


Reuters
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 20:28 UTC
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© REUTERS/Chief Petty Officer Alan Haraf/U.S. Coast Guard/Handout via ReutersCoast Guard Cutter Biscayne Bay, a 140-foot ice-breaking tug, sails the waters near Chicago and toward the shores off Indiana, in this picture taken February 12, 2014 provided by U.S. Coast Guard.
The U.S. East Coast was blasted by the end of a four-day winter storm on Friday, freezing sales of Valentine's Day flowers and sweets but revving up snowmobiles and ski areas desperate to salvage a lackluster season.

As the storm blew out with a last salvo of thunder snow and lightning, the death toll rose to at least 20, including a 36-year-old pregnant woman killed by a snow plow in a Brooklyn parking lot. Her baby boy remained in critical but stable condition, a New York City Police spokeswoman said.

Snowfall measured 28.5 inches in Pilot, Virginia, about 200 miles west of Richmond, said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Weather Service. A new storm system was on its way, expected to dump up to 3 inches on the East Coast into Saturday, he said.

Across the South, hundreds of thousands of people were still without power on Friday as the result of broken tree limbs stressed by heavy snow and thick layers of ice falling onto power lines. South Carolina customers may not be back to normal service until late Sunday, said Duke Energy spokeswoman Jennifer Jabon.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike was shut for more than seven hours while it was cleared of twisted metal from up to 50 vehicles in multiple accidents that injured 27 people, said Renee Vid Colborn, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The injuries were not life-threatening, she said.

About 1,700 U.S. flights were canceled and roughly 6,600 were delayed on Friday, said flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
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Cloud Grey

Two killed as hurricane after hurricane pummels UK


Sky News
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 02:31 UTC
Building collapse
© Sky NewsWoman Killed In Building Collapse

A woman is killed by falling masonry and a man dies after a wave crashes into a cruise liner as powerful gusts reach 80mph.

A woman has been killed and a man taken to hospital after a building fell on a car in central London, as stormy weather lashed parts of Britain.

The building collapsed at around 11.05pm on Friday opposite Holborn Underground station, the Metropolitan Police said.

A spokesman added: "There were two occupants in the car and a woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

"A man was pulled from the car and was taken to hospital, where he is in a stable condition at the moment."

Images from the scene showed chunks of masonry and debris strewn across the pavement.

London Fire Brigade said the concrete fascia of the building collapsed on to the car in Kingsway.

Around 20 firefighters helped with the rescue, freeing the two people from the car.
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Igloo

Blizzard to lash Eastern New England on Saturday

Alex Sosnowski
Accuweather
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 17:21 UTC
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Into the first part of the weekend, light to moderate snow will push from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic states, but a blizzard is forecast to develop in eastern New England.

The storm has the potential to bring a new round of ground and airline disruptions to parts of the South and East that were hit with the winter storm at midweek and also to some places that escaped the storm in the Midwest.

The storm is forecast to remain rather weak along most of its journey. However, it could bring just enough snow to treat, shovel and plow from parts of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to much of Kentucky and Tennessee into Friday afternoon.

Motorists are advised to exercise caution this evening along Interstates 64, 65, 71 and 75 in Kentucky as temperatures falling below freezing can make for icy travel. Similar conditions in southeastern Pennsylvania early this morning contributed to a multiple vehicle accident on the Turnpike, north of Philadelphia.

The storm brought between 1 and 4 inches over a large part of Iowa and northern Missouri early Friday and was heading across central Illinois toward Indiana during the midday Friday. St. Louis received a wintry mix.

A swath of snow will affect portions of North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York during part of Friday night. A couple of inches could fall on parts of these states with locally higher amounts. The snow could conceal patches of ice beneath.
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Snowflake

Virginia: Storm brought record breaking snowfall to Washington Dulles Airport


CBS News - Baltimore
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:43 UTC
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© CBS
The snowstorm that buried the Mid-Atlantic region this week brought Washington Dulles International Airport its ninth biggest one-day snowfall on record, the National Weather Service said Friday.

Dulles got 11.7 inches on Thursday alone. That broke the record for that date of 3 inches set in 1992, and ranks ninth among the biggest daily snowfalls recorded at the airport near Sterling, Va., meteorologist Heather Sheffield said.

She said the storm dropped a total of 13.3 inches of snow at Dulles from Wednesday through Thursday.

Trained spotters reported unofficial, but credible, storm totals of 2 feet or more in north-central Maryland, including a 26-inch reading near the Baltimore County community of Glyndon, the weather service said.

"Just looking at the overall pattern of the snowfall, I don't have a reason to question the numbers," said Calvin Meadows, observing program leader in the agency's Sterling, Va., office.

The nor'easter was linked to at least four deaths in the region.
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