Tn9

Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) and deep water temperatures have warmed significantly in the equatorial Eastern Pacific over the first two weeks of April, and La Niña conditions are no longer present. While NOAA's Climate Prediction Center has not yet declared an end to this La Niña episode and dropped their La Niña advisory, it is very likely that the La Niña event that began in December 2008 is now over. The big question is whether an El Niño event will rapidly form in its place, in time for hurricane season. This did happen after the 1976 La Niña, which ended in April, with a weak El Niño beginning in September. However, it can take a few months for the atmosphere to adjust to the formation of a new El Niño, and there is no guarantee that a weak El Niño for the coming hurricane season would act to dramatically reduce Atlantic hurricane activity.The number of Atlantic hurricanes is typically reduced in an El Niño year, due to increased wind shear from strong high-level winds. Nearly all the model forecasts for the Niño 3.4 region predict neutral conditions for the August - October peak of hurricane season. Four out of 21 El Niño models are predicting an El Niño event for hurricane season; three are predicting a La Niña, and fourteen are predicting neutral conditions. Figure 1. The difference of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) from average for the Niña 3.4 region of the equatorial Eastern Pacific (the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W). La Niña conditions are defined as occurring when the 1-month mean temperature anomaly in the Niña 3.4 region cools below -0.5°C. La Niña conditions began in December 2008 and ended in late March 2009. Image credit: NOAA Climate Prediction Center. Tenth warmest March on record for the globe Global temperatures remained about where they've been the past two years, with the planet recording its 10th warmest March on record, according to statistics released by the National Climatic Data Center. The period January - March was the eighth warmest such period on record. An average March for the U.S. For the contiguous U.S., March temperatures were the 51st warmest in the 115-year record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The month had near-average precipitation, ranking as the 42nd wettest March. Three states (Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey) experienced their driest year-to-date period ever. In neighboring states, Pennsylvania recorded its second driest year-to-date period and Massachusetts and West Virgnia experienced their fourth and fifth driest, respectively. The below-normal precipitation averages led to the driest ever start to the year for the Northeast region. Record amounts of snow fell in North Dakota during March. Fargo received 28.1 inches, which was nearly 2 more inches than the previous March record set in 1997. Fargo also recorded 4.62 inches of precipitation which set a new monthly record. Runoff from the record precipitation led to the highest flood levels ever observed on the Red River in North Dakota. The river crested in Fargo at a record level of 12.4 m (40.8 feet), shattering the previous record of 12.2 m (40.1 feet) set in 1897. Through March, the U.S. has only seen about 50% of normal tornado activity for the year, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. There were just 9 tornado deaths through March, compared to 70 deaths through March of 2008, and the 3-year average of 44 deaths. On April 14, 2009, 17% of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-exceptional drought. This is a drop from the 21% figure observed January through March. Bahamas 2009 Weather Conference This week, many of the world's hurricane experts are gathered at the Bahamas Hurricane Conference. Check out their web site for short videos by some of the presenters. The 3-minute talk by NHC Director Bill Read and former NHC Director Max Mayfield on the inadequacy of our familiar Category 1-2-3-4-5 Saffir-Simpson scale is interesting. They make the point that no one scale will ever be able to capture the threats a hurricane poses, since these depend greatly on exactly what track the storm takes, and our forecasts will never be able to precisely pinpoint the track. Thus, introducing a new scale to quantify storm surge risk is not a complete solution to the inadequacies of the Saffir-Simpson scale. Coastal residents need to heed the detailed wind and storm surge forecasts for their area, regardless of what Category storm is approaching. Jeff Masters

Dont know if you seen this but i will post it just in case Since my last post designating arctic sea ice loss as the top climate story of 2008, I've heard a lot comments like this one: "Jeff, you just can't seem to understand the that man-made global warming is a fable and complete hoax. In all that blathering about the falsified IPCC reports and the study of the arctic ice sheet, you somehow neglected to mention that the ice recovered not only what it lost last year, but is now larger than the previous known record measured in 1978". Well, I can understand this point of view, given complexity of the climate change issue, and the large amount of conflicting information one sees in the media. Let's look at the facts about global sea ice. You can look at the data yourself at the excellent University of Illinois Cryosphere Today web site. Reliable sea ice records go back to 1979, when satellite measurements began. Antarctic sea ice reached its greatest extent on record during the winter of 2007. Summertime ice coverage also increased in 2007-2008 compared to 2006 levels (Figure 1). However, as one can see from Figure 1, there is high variability in antarctic sea ice from winter to summer, and antarctic sea ice can best be described as having stayed constant since 1979 (as stated in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC did find that there had been a significant decline in arctic sea ice, in all seasons, between 1979-2006. Despite this decline, there have been three periods during the past two years when the sum of the arctic and antarctic sea ice was the same or even higher than it was at the start of the satellite era (1979). An article published January 1 on Daily Tech noted that "global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago". This was pretty close to the truth on December 31, 2008, despite the fact that arctic ice was 1 million km^2 below 1979 levels, since antarctic ice was 0.5 million km^2 above 1979 levels. Although arctic sea ice extent has steadily declined since 1979, especially in summer, this decline is not as great during the winter months. One can find periods in winter when summing together antarctic and arctic sea ice area makes it appear that arctic sea ice loss is no big deal. However, this is the wrong way to look at the issue. We don't care much about global sea ice in winter. We care about arctic sea ice in the summer. Sharp declines in summertime arctic ice are likely to cause significant and damaging alterations to Earth's climate. Cleverly quoting irrelevant facts about global wintertime sea ice data to hide the summertime loss of arctic sea ice is a tremendous disservice. It's like hiding the potential impact of a major hurricane in a one-week forecast by saying, "the average peak wind speed for the next seven days will be 17 mph", and neglecting to mention that the wind will be calm six of those days, but 120 mph on the other day. The loss of arctic sea ice the past two summers, is, in my view, the most important human-caused climate change event yet--even more significant and dangerous than the opening of the antarctic ozone hole in the 1980s. It's great that we're not seeing loss of sea ice in Antarctica. But, both the Antarctic and the Arctic can be thought of as important internal organs in our living Earth. The fact that the Antarctic has not undergone significant warming and sea ice loss in no way diminishes the urgency with which climate scientists view the diseased state of our Arctic. Fully 88 presentations on arctic sea ice were made last month at the world's largest scientific climate change conference, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco. None of these scientists averaged together the arctic and antarctic sea ice together to show that the overall state of Earth's cryosphere was a healthy one. There was widespread concern for the health of the Arctic among all the scientists I spoke with, and none of the speakers at the talks I attended expressed the idea that the recent melting of arctic sea ice was predominantly natural, with human-caused climate change an insignificant factor. One view (Stroeve et al., 2007) is that human-emitted greenhouse gases are responsible for 47-57% of the arctic sea ice loss since 1979. Heat-absorbing black soot from fires and pollution settling on the white ice is thought to also be a significant contributor. Figure 1. Antarctic sea ice area as observed via satellite since 1978. The maximum area in winter has ranged between 14-16 million square kilometers, about the same amount of ocean that the Arctic ice covers in winter. However, the antarctic sea ice almost entirely melts away in summer, something the Arctic sea ice does not do (yet). Antarctica is a huge continent that rises thousands of feet above the ocean. It holds about 90% of the world's fresh water, locked up in its massive ice cap. The presence of such a titanic block of ice at the bottom of the world completely dominates the weather and climate of the region, and the year-to-year fluctuations of sea ice don't have a lot of impact on temperatures there. Image credit: University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. What is the current state of Antarctic climate? At the December 2008 AGU meeting, scientists gave Antarctica a mixed bill of health. Isabella Velicogna of UC Irvine reported that satellite gravitational variation measurements of Antarctica's ice cap showed significant loss of ice between 2002-2008, but that the large natural variations in melting with the seasons made it difficult to be confident of the results. A somewhat different result was reported by J. Zwally of NASA. Using data from a higher-resolution satellite-borne laser altimeter, he found that there was no major loss of Antarctica's ice sheet between 2003-2007. Regardless of which data set is correct, Antarctica is in better shape than the Arctic because Antarctica has stayed relatively cool in recent decades (Figure 2). For example, the surface temperature at the South Pole cooled 0.05° C between 1980 and 1999 (Kwok and Comiso, 2002). The majority of Antarctica has shown no statistically significant warming over the past 50 years (Turner et al., 2005), and cooling has just been dominant between 1982-2004. In the period 2004-2007, much of the Antarctic warmed (Figure 3), but it is too early to say if this is the beginning of a warming trend. Check out the January 22 issue of Nature when new results about whether or not Antarctica is warming will be published. Figure 2. Antarctic surface temperatures as observed via AHVRR satellite measurements between 1982 and 2004. Much of Antarctica cooled during this period. Image credit: IPCC The Physical Science Basis, Figure 3.32. Figure 3. Antarctic surface temperatures as observed via AHVRR satellite measurements between 1981 and 2007. Note that the cooling trend observed from 1982-2004 reversed, thanks to warming from 2004-2007. Image credit: NASA Why did Antarctica cool between 1982 and 2004 if there was global warming going on? The weather of the Antarctic is dominated by a strong band of westerly winds that blow around the pole. This circumpolar vortex extends from the surface to the stratosphere, and can attain very high wind speeds, thanks to the absence of large land masses to slow it down. This vortex tends to isolate Antarctica from the rest of the globe, keeping global warming from influencing Antarctica's weather, and allowing the surface to cool. The Antarctic Peninsula, which sticks out from Antarctica towards South America, frequently lies outside the vortex. This has allowed the peninsula to warm significantly, compared to the rest of Antarctica (Figures 2 and 3). The antarctic circumpolar vortex has strengthened in the past 25-30 years, forming an even stronger barrier than usual. Tree ring records (Jones and Widman, 2004) suggest that the circumpolar vortex has shown similar strengthening in the past, so the current cooling trend in Antarctica may be natural. Another possibility, favored by climate modelers, is that the strengthening of the circumpolar vortex and recent cooling in Antarctica are primarily due to a combination of the recent increase in greenhouse gases and the opening of the Antarctic ozone hole. The ozone hole opened up at about the same time as the recent cooling began. Ozone absorbs UV radiation which heats the atmosphere around it, so the absence of ozone has led to cooling in the stratosphere over Antarctica. This cooling has been about 10° C in October-November since 1985 (Thompson and Solomon, 2002). This has acted to intensify the circumpolar vortex, leading to surface cooling. If the climate modelers are right, the circumpolar vortex will weaken as the ozone hole diminishes in coming decades. This will allow the Antarctic to begin warming with the rest of the globe, in a decade or two. References and resources Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007, The Physical Science Basis. Jones, J.M., and M. Widman, "Atmospheric science: Early peak in Antarctic oscillation index," Nature 432, 290-291 (18 November 2004) | doi:10.1038/432290b; Published online 17 November 2004. Kwok, R., and J.C. Comiso, "Spatial patterns of variability in Antarctic surface temperature: Connections to the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode and the Southern Oscillation", GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 29, NO. 14, 10.1029/2002GL015415, 2002. Thompson, D.W.J., and S. Solomon, "Interpretation of Recent Southern Hemisphere Climate Change", Science 3 May 2002: Vol. 296. no. 5569, pp. 895 - 899 DOI: 10.1126/science.1069270. Stroeve, J., M.M. Holland, W. Meier, T. Scambos, and M. Serreze, Arctic sea ice decline:Faster than forecast", GRL 34 L09501, doi:1029/2007GL029703, 2007. Turner, J. et al., 2005, "Antarctic climate change during the last 50 years", International Journal of Climatology, Volume 25, Issue 3, pp 279-294. Arctic sea ice "Antarctic cooling, global warming?" RealClimate.org post, 3 December 2004. from jeff masters blog

1956: RADAR/VISUAL JET CHASE OVER BENTWATER, UK http://www.ufologie.net/htm/bentwaters56.htm

This is a good paranormal channel if you have missed certain episodes http://www.youtube.com/user/ParanormRUs1

Weather modification?who knows http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=89c_1235734713

This is a weird one i did not know where to post it,so move if its the case,you may know the story ,you may not: Here's one. It's called the Dyatlov Pass Accident. Oh my God, yes. I stumbled over this delicious tale just recently over at Metafilter and it's one of those stories that contains all the best elements of a deep, resonant creep-out. Inexplicable behavior. Bizarre factoids. Inconclusive evidence. Missing body parts. And not a single clue, almost 50 years later, as to what really happened. The nutshell: In 1959, nine experienced Russian cross-country skiers — seven men and two women, led by a man named Igor Dyatlov — headed to the Ural Mountains, to a slope called Kholat Syakhl (Mansi language for "Mountain of the Dead," ahem) for a rugged, wintry trek. On their way up, they are apparently hit by inclement weather and veer off course and decide to set up camp and wait it out. All is calm. All is fine and good. They even take pictures of camp, the scenery, each other. The weather is not so bad. They go to sleep. Then, something happens. In the middle of the night all nine suddenly leap out of their tents as fast as possible, ripping them open from the inside (not even enough time to untie the doors) and race out into the sub-zero temps, without coats or boots or skis, most in their underwear, some even barefoot or with a single sock or boot. It is 30 degrees below zero, Celsius. A few make it as far as a kilometer and a half down the slope. All nine, as you might expect, quickly die. And so it begins. Why did they rush out, unable to even grab a coat or blanket? What came at them? The three-month investigation revealed that five of the trekkers died from simple hypothermia, with no apparent trauma at all, no signs of attack, struggle, no outward injuries of any kind. However, two of the other four apparently suffered massive internal traumas to the chest, like you would if you were hit by a car. One's skull was crushed. All four of these were found far from the other five. But still, no signs of external injuries. Not good enough? How about this: One of the women was missing her tongue. Oh, it gets better. And weirder. Tests of the few scraps of clothing revealed very high levels of radiation. Evidence found at the campsite indicates the trekkers might've been blinded. Eyewitnesses around the area report seeing "bright flying spheres" in the sky during the same months. And oh yes, relatives at the funeral swear the skin of their dead loved ones was tanned, tinted dark orange or brown. And their hair had all turned completely gray. Wait, what? The final, official explanation as to what caused such bizarre behavior from otherwise well-trained, experienced mountaineers? An "unknown compelling force." Indeed. Here's the problem: All the convenient, logical explanations — avalanche, animal attack, secret military nuke test — fail. Russian authorities held a three-month investigation. Rescuers, experts picked through every piece of evidence. There were no signs of natural disaster. And if it was just an avalanche, why was the area closed off for three years following the event, and all related documents put in a secret Russian archive until 1990? If it was some sort of weird nuclear megablast (which I suppose may tint you orange, but won't turn your hair gray), what the hell happened to her tongue? I love stories like this. I hate stories like this. Sure, you want to go for the logical. Hell, who knows what hellish weaponry they were testing in the mountains in Khrushchev's Russia in the late '50s? Who knows what dark mysteries are buried in the landscape by the world's militaries as they test their dark deeds? The rule goes like this: Any weapon of horror and death man's mind can conceive, odds are gruesomely good the government or military has considered it. Or even built it. Then again, maybe not. The "horrifying military experiments" theory, spawn of a thousand movies and conspiracy theories, has one fatal flaw: proof. What, 75 years of high-tech military advances and hundreds of billions of dollars spent and a million people working in various sinister branches of the military, and yet not one scrap of truly bizarre or outrageous military weaponry has popped up in the public sphere, been leaked or revealed or unearthed? This is the Internet/YouTube/nothing's-secret age — you'd think we'd get at least one piece of irrefutable evidence proving how the Pentagon has been testing 10-story remote-controlled radioactive spiders with lasers for eyes. Or something. Not that I trust the government, per se. They just aren't that smart. This is both the joy and horror of stories like Dyatlov — they make your mind jump and bend and struggle. Logic fails quickly. Easy explanations don't work. Complicated ones feel incomplete. The creepiness takes hold, begins to burrow, make you squirm. So of course, you jump further. You reach for the paranormal, metaphysical, unknowable, to things like UFOs and spirits and ghosts, dark forces and mysticism and the occult, because, well, that's where the action is. That's where we get to touch the void, dance on the edge of perception, realize how little we truly know of anything. After all, if you really think all there is to this world is what your five senses show you, if you think there's always got to be a logical, earthbound explanation for stories like Dyatlov, well, you might as well just join a megachurch and wipe your brain and your intuition and your deep, dark curiosity clean right now. As Dyatlov himself might say, his skin orange and hair gray and eyes wide wide wide, you think you know, but you have no idea.

The top U.S. weather story of 2008 was undoubtedly Hurricane Ike. The National Hurricane Center has released its summary of Ike, and here are some of the highlights: Ike did $19.3 billion in damage to the U.S.--fourth costliest hurricane on record, behind Katrina, Andrew, and Wilma. Ike did an additional $4.4 billion in damage after it became extratropical. Hurricane-force wind gusts were reported in Cincinnati, and 2.6 million people lost power in Ohio. The $2.2 billion in damage to Ohio rivaled the 1974 Xenia tornado as that state's costliest natural disaster ever. Ike's remnants also caused Kentucky's most widespread power outage in history (600,000 customers). Figure 1. Ike's tremendous storm surge wiped most of the Bolivar Peninsula north of Galveston clean. Image credit: Nationa Weather Service, Houston/Galveston Office. Figure 2. Standard 20 foot high utility pole on the Bolivar Peninsula, with debris caught about 18 feet high. The pole stands about 2 feet above sea level. The combined action of the storm surge and waves on to of the surge (wave run-up) deposited the debris at the top of this pole. Image credit: an email that I got that I will find and post the credit for later today. Ike produced a 15-20 foot high storm surge along the east side of Galveston Bay and along the Bolivar Peninsula just to the north of Galveston. This was the second highest storm surge recorded in Texas, behind the 22.1 foot surge of Hurricane Carla in 1961. It is likely that the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and and the 1915 Galveston hurricane had higher storm surges, though, since they were both Category 4 storms. Although Ike was a strong Category 2 hurricane at landfall, its storm surge was characteristic of a strong Category 3 hurricane. Ike's 10-13 foot storm surge pushed 30 miles inland in Southwest Louisiana, reaching the town of Lake Charles. Isolated areas in Jefferson County, Texas, and Cameron Parish, Louisiana, had surge heights up to 17 ft. Ike's storm surge was 11 feet at Port Arthur, Texas, Ike killed 20 people in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Another 34 people from Galveston and the hard-hit Bolivar Peninsula remain missing, according to the Laura Recovery Center, putting Ike's presumed U.S. death toll at 54. This makes Ike the 30th deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. An additional 64 indirect deaths occurred in Texas as a result of electrocution, carbon monoxide poisoning, and pre-existing medical complications. At least 28 direct and indirect deaths were reported in Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Michigan, and Pennsylvania from Ike's remnants. This makes the total death toll from Ike 146, due to direct and indirect deaths, with those people missing presumed dead. Ike disrupted power to 7.5 million people--the highest ever for a hurricane (Hurricane Frances of 2004 and Hurricane Isabel of 2003 are in second place, with 6 million people affected). The "Superstorm" Blizzard of 1993 (10 million people affected) was the only weather-related disaster to knock out power to more people than Ike in the U.S. Texas and Louisiana had 2.6 million affected, Ohio 2.6 million, and Kentucky 600,000. Power outage figures are difficult to verify and collect, so if anyone has a better list of power outage figures from major weather disasters, I'd like to hear them: jmasters@wunderground.com. The oil industry was hit hard, with ten offshore rigs destroyed, two large pipelines damaged, and fourteen refineries forced to close. Damage to the Ports of Galveston and Houston, as well as debris in Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel, kept those ports closed after the storm for several days, leaving almost 150 tankers, cargo vessels, and container ships waiting offshore. Ike damaged Galveston's 14-17 foot high protective sea wall, exposing wooden pilings that support its older sections. The storm also washed away the 70-foot wide beach that helped protect the seawall. As a result, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is undertaking the seawall's first major repair job in its 105-year history. About $10 million will be spent repairing the seawall, and an additional $10 million will be spent dumping 400,000 cubic yards of sand to replenish the lost beach. Outside the U.S. Cuba suffered $3-$4 billion in damage, and 2.6 million people were forced to evacuate (23% of the population). The Southeast Bahamas suffered $50-200 million in damage. Additional heavy damage occurred on the nearby Turks and Caicos Islands. Haiti probably suffered the most from Ike, with 74 deaths and ruinous flooding. I'll have a new post Friday. Jeff Masters

Recent footage tornado: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a1_1234388807

Guttering is overflowing and its a tropical 8.6c/dp7.8c,good job i think cause im going to have to swim to the car :lol:

Just opened the front door and it was like getting off plane in spain,the warmth was amazing compared to a few hours ago

Temp here is 2.6c/dp 2.0c/SLP 986mb falling

Well thats that then,if the man on the hill says no,then im throwing the towel in

Do you mean thats it for tonight,or you going to the nearest train track?There will be more sometime just hang on in there

You s**t the life out me then, i knocked me bottle of wine over getting to the window

3.2C DP 1.0C and belting it down,sleet in heavier bursts,im sure there is some sort of conspiracy going on down here,perhaps it something to do with that laser testing at Fort Halstead,ive heard the rumors

temp here is 5.0c and dew point -0.5c

The difference between sun/mon episode to todays is both ends of the snow spectrum,Sunday eve there was no need to go whistling around hilltops and that for me was the the thing that brought back the good old memories,you cant beat a good old easterly to deliver to the low ground.

M25 swanley looks good,bit of height and your away

Temp 1.9 dp 0.7 Its getting there slowly,i know we run the risk south east of london of the ppn fizzling out but any thing sooner would be rain anyhows,i wonder if the small disturbance east of Scotland holds itself together whether it will come down the North sea?

Two extremes of conditions on the M25,one at South Mimms,to the north,and one of M25 South at Westerham

Temp 2.4c / dp 1.6 ,dull as ditch water,no snow left,pretty dismal

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,poor John Hammond ,[WARNING] swearing. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d1_1233832009

I came home and she had only put my ray-bans i got for Christmas on him ,'you can get them right off i says' cheek :lol: