The Weather (2013)

[Slateman]

can mike napoli shovel snow?

Probably not with that bad hip of his

[imref]

winds are howling out here in western PWC.

[1995hoo]

If you read Twitter, Miguel Bloombito is worth following. Funny stuff.

@ElBloombito: Por que el stormo, el Alternato Parkingo de Side esta suspendido. Pero el ÑYPD will give los ticketos anywayo.

@ElBloombito: Avoido los yellowado snow coños. Esta probablyo not lemoño.

@ElBloombito: Nemo esta un estupido name para un stormo. Yo soy renamingo el stormo to Snowbracabra! #Snowbracabra

@ElBloombito: When yo soy was your agero, yo would walko to schoolo en el blizzardo. Úp hillo. Botho wayso! #Snowbracabra

[imref]

snow rates of 4-5" per hour in parts of CT, that's insane.

[imref]

high wind advisory for the entire D.C. area until 6 AM, 25-30 MPH sustained, 50MPH gusts.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Some great buried cars out in the parking lot.  I have not seen many 30+" totals, although Worcester is up to 28".  Boston is still under 22," so this storm will not be top 3, I think.

CT, between Norwich and Hartford east to RI, really  got dumped on. 5 - 6" an hour early last night.

Cape Cod and SE Mass have most of the power outages.  ~400K.   Some flooding all along the coast, especially between Cape Ann (Gloucester) and NH, the beachfronts and causeways north of Logan, and the stretch South of Boston Harbor down to Cape Cod. 

As for the Hancock Tower, that was in the 70s.  It was a combination of the double pain glass cracking, the twisting of the Tower and wind coming up through the stair wells that popped the glass.  For a long time, they called the building the world's tallest plywood skyscraper.  What is interesting is that when they did computer simulations of high wind events, the building was more in danger of flipping over its narrow sides than it's broad sides (it is a parallelogram).

[imref]

Rt. 25 in Long Island near Riverhead.

[mitlen]

Rt. 25 in Long Island near Riverhead.

(Image removed from quote.)

Charles Foxtrot

[imref]

Charles Foxtrot

The LIE was reportedly equally as bad, with hundreds of cars stranded and police using snowmobiles to reach drivers.  As of this morning there were reports that some were still in their cars.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Patrick and Menino, neither of whom I ordinarily praise, were smart as all heck to ban road travel around Boston and then throughout the state.  The roads are clearing up pretty quickly, and we almost made it through the storm without a fatality. 

Almost, unfortunately.  A kid was out  with the family clearing snow, got cold, and the dad let him go into the car to warm up.  They had cleared the snow behind the car but did not check the tail pipe to see if it was clear.  CO built up in the car, the kid stopped breathing, neighbors called the EMTs and tried to resuscitate, the father goes into a cardiac event, too.  The dad is OK now, but the kid could not be revived at the hospital.

Sad.

[imref]

Horrible.

[mitlen]

Patrick and Menino, neither of whom I ordinarily praise, were smart as all heck to ban road travel around Boston and then throughout the state.  The roads are clearing up pretty quickly, and we almost made it through the storm without a fatality. 

Almost, unfortunately.  A kid was out  with the family clearing snow, got cold, and the dad let him go into the car to warm up.  They had cleared the snow behind the car but did not check the tail pipe to see if it was clear.  CO built up in the car, the kid stopped breathing, neighbors called the EMTs and tried to resuscitate, the father goes into a cardiac event, too.  The dad is OK now, but the kid could not be revived at the hospital.

Sad.

Wife and I watched that on the news.   So sad   ....    I think any parent can look back and think  ...  phew man that was a bad decision.     That could have gone bad.    Even if it wasn't your fault.     I know I can.

[imref]

Weatherboy:

While a fairly mild weather system will move through the east coast on Monday bringing rain far to the north, a cold front behind the system will help usher colder air into the northeast. An area of low pressure will form over the southeastern US; this system may bring an area of light to moderate snow to a portion of the Mid Atlantic around Valentine's Day.

More impressive though is a more energized system that appears to be on the heels of the Valentine Day's system. That new more potent storm could bring the "B" word back to the Mid Atlantic and/or Northeast in time for the Presidents Day holiday weekend, which is just a week away from now...

[Coladar]

Bleh, can we not get any snow? I was reading last month, saw an article saying it had been something like 750 days since we had 2" of snow. Now another month, and the seven day looks like we prolly won't get anymore this year. Second half of February beginning with temps in the mid40s? So it could very easily end up being a drought of 1000+ no-snow days by the time next winter arrives.

And the old record, going back to the 1880s, was only 400-some... 460-480 if memory serves. Since we've usually been the border between snow and rain for these storms, either horrid luck for snow lovers or Al Gore was on to something.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Why is February so much worse for snow than December or January most years?  I'm thinking it is that the Carribean, Gulf, and bahamas area is already warming up, giving juice to storms, while the north is still pretty cold, so when you get any wobble in the northern jet, you get a lot of moisture hitting the cold.

[imref]

NAM showing the mid-week snow threat dissipating, sigh....

[Mathguy]

Definately due to warmer temps starting, giving moisture.  Not sure about the Carribean part.  Think of February as the polar end to what happens in August-Sept with hurricanes

Why is February so much worse for snow than December or January most years?  I'm thinking it is that the Carribean, Gulf, and bahamas area is already warming up, giving juice to storms, while the north is still pretty cold, so when you get any wobble in the northern jet, you get a lot of moisture hitting the cold.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

They were saying yesterday on the weather channel that a difference between a northeaster and a hurricane is that tropical systems draw their strength from warm waters and are warm throughout their circulation.  A northeaster draws its strength from the cold warm contrast.  While the storm yesterday resembled a hurricane from the satellite shot, with an eye-like structure and spiral circulation, what was happening was the warmer storm was drawing moisture up and the colder clipper was sliding under the warm circulation, pitching it up and over the colder storm until the ciruculation was captured and chilled, leading to bands of heavy precip on the nrth and west side of they "eye."

[imref]

and now the Euro is again pointing to a big mid-atlantic snow event on Feb 16-17.  Round and round she goes, where she stops....

[imref]

They were saying yesterday on the weather channel that a difference between a northeaster and a hurricane is that tropical systems draw their strength from warm waters and are warm throughout their circulation.  A northeaster draws its strength from the cold warm contrast.  While the storm yesterday resembled a hurricane from the satellite shot, with an eye-like structure and spiral circulation, what was happening was the warmer storm was drawing moisture up and the colder clipper was sliding under the warm circulation, pitching it up and over the colder storm until the ciruculation was captured and chilled, leading to bands of heavy precip on the nrth and west side of they "eye."

that's correct, and as oceans warm, these storms "should" get stronger (thought not necessarily more frequent).  This is exactly what we've been seeing with larger and larger storms striking the east coast (Irene, Sandy, Nemo, etc.).  It drives me up a wall when folks argue that these storms mean that there's no global warming.

Raise the air temp from say 24 to 26 and the ocean temp from 40 to 42 and you get "more" moisture in winter storms.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I don't like arguing global warming (like I don't like to argue about whether night time is dark in the absence of moonlight or artificial light), and of course this conforms to the models, but even before the past 25 years, February was a particularly bad time for northeasters.  It is more pronounced now, but the Blizzard of '78 was an early February storm, and I think another of the Boston top 5 was in February '69.

It is interesting that many of the older east coast storms on this list were in March.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/10-biggest-snowstorms.htm#page=10

[Coladar]

that's correct, and as oceans warm, these storms "should" get stronger (thought not necessarily more frequent).  This is exactly what we've been seeing with larger and larger storms striking the east coast (Irene, Sandy, Nemo, etc.).  It drives me up a wall when folks argue that these storms mean that there's no global warming.

Raise the air temp from say 24 to 26 and the ocean temp from 40 to 42 and you get "more" moisture in winter storms.

I'm rather embarrassed not to know specifics on this, but isn't the 'long term' view of global warming followed by an ice age of epic proportions? I seem to recall the idea that, save for a runaway process where we end up like Venus... Extra water from polar regions melted + higher temperatures causing more evaporation + more warmth for wicked storms = cloud cover is significantly increased, causing the sunlight to be reflected and freezing the planet for some time.

That was years ago though, maybe they've changed the global warming 'end game' since then.

And JCA's comment about arguing global warming... The insane part is there even is an argument at all. A decade ago? Fine, I get the tepid acceptance of global warming as fact. When we just had one or two years in the 'top ten hottest on record' well, that's one thing. Now, every damn year, global heat records. Atlantic tropical systems use up to R or S names almost annually now. Sandy, these winter blizzards like our last, 'Snowmageddon' and this most recent one.

And now it's been over two years since we, meaning the DC area which almost always drew the border between the NE snow events and rain, have had any appreciable snowfall - meaning that line of snow/rain went further north, and now we aren't getting any snow two years running. I can hardly remember any years we never had any snow. Two, in a row? And still a large number of people question what's right in front of them. The saddest part is its too late, by and large. If the US, as educated and rich as we are, still has this debate, now? Good f*ing luck getting China to change their ways. Hell, you can't even see in Beijing with black pollution, and no changes.

I guess some comfort can be drawn, however cruel it may be, that in the end it'll cost us far more doing nothing and facing catastrophic weather like this on an almost monthly basis than it would have to stop CO2 pollution when we could have.

[imref]

I'm rather embarrassed not to know specifics on this, but isn't the 'long term' view of global warming followed by an ice age of epic proportions? I seem to recall the idea that, save for a runaway process where we end up like Venus... Extra water from polar regions melted + higher temperatures causing more evaporation + more warmth for wicked storms = cloud cover is significantly increased, causing the sunlight to be reflected and freezing the planet for some time.

Most of the stuff I've read (chunks/summaries of the IPCC report) predict a rise of 3-7 degrees C by 2100, triggering rising oceans and severe climate changes.  Beyond that is more difficult to predict because of unknown variations, feedback loops, etc.

There have been a few who've suggested that the atlantic conveyer system could shut down, or warming could trigger huge methane releases from Greenland, triggering runaway global warming and "the venus effect" but few buy into those theories and the IPCC specifically discounted the possibility of that scenario.

Ice ages have typically been caused by orbital variation, we're due for another one around the year 3,500, so nothing to worry about right now.

Of course there are lots of other things that could drastically change the climate - comet/asteroid strikes, massive volcanic eruptions, etc.

That was years ago though, maybe they've changed the global warming 'end game' since then.

And JCA's comment about arguing global warming... The insane part is there even is an argument at all. A decade ago? Fine, I get the tepid acceptance of global warming as fact. When we just had one or two years in the 'top ten hottest on record' well, that's one thing. Now, every damn year, global heat records. Atlantic tropical systems use up to R or S names almost annually now. Sandy, these winter blizzards like our last, 'Snowmageddon' and this most recent one.

And now it's been over two years since we, meaning the DC area which almost always drew the border between the NE snow events and rain, have had any appreciable snowfall - meaning that line of snow/rain went further north, and now we aren't getting any snow two years running. I can hardly remember any years we never had any snow. Two, in a row? And still a large number of people question what's right in front of them. The saddest part is its too late, by and large. If the US, as educated and rich as we are, still has this debate, now? Good f*ing luck getting China to change their ways. Hell, you can't even see in Beijing with black pollution, and no changes.

I guess some comfort can be drawn, however cruel it may be, that in the end it'll cost us far more doing nothing and facing catastrophic weather like this on an almost monthly basis than it would have to stop CO2 pollution when we could have.

I haven't seen any serious scientist dispute AGW, though there's much disagreement over rate of change and impact.  The ones saying "it isn't happening at all" tent to be driven by politics, not science, sadly.

[Frau Mau]

edit, colader, edit! 

[imref]

a tornado struck Hattiesburg, Mississippi tonight, it's freaking february and this is the 2nd time in a few weeks that tornadoes are hitting the SE.  There are reports that Mississippi State University took a direct hit.  The system in the central US is massive.