On a lighter note...

Folks are having a lot of fun at Florida's expense with the recent cold snap down there. 

Read the rest here.

Want to work for National Weather Service? Be ready to explain how you agree with Trump

As the National Weather Service scrambles to hire up to 450 people to restore deep cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, potential applicants are being asked to explain how they would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda if hired.

A posting from the weather service’s parent agency seeking meteorologists asks applicants to identify one or two of Trump’s executive orders “that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

It’s among screening questions added to government job applications as part of a “ merit hiring plan” that Trump announced at the outset of his second term, and it’s not unique to the weather service positions. But some experts said they are alarmed at the prospect that a candidate’s ideology could matter for jobs in science.

Read the rest here.

GAS!

It's a little past 2AM and I made some phone calls and found a Shell station that just got an emergency shipment in. I now have enough to get me to the Georgia state line or very close.

Dorian... boo hiss. 

(Update) Well that looks like a waste of a good night's sleep. Prayers for those up north now in the cross hairs.

Foul Weather

In my hometown of Binghamton NY they were told to brace for between 8-14 inches of snow between last night and tomorrow morning. My sources inform me that they are currently at about 30" and it's still coming down at 2-4 inches per hour.

Feds: After wettest winter in at least 20 years drought appears over in California

Dodging a Bullet

So I'm sitting here in the southwest corner of the Sunshine State under overcast skies with a stiff breeze pondering what might have been, and how very lucky we have been (so far). My part of the state was never in the projected danger zone so the worst I have had to deal with has been a sharp uptick in traffic and large crowds of temporary evacuees from the other side of the state. To whom I say welcome and enjoy your stay.

But all of this brings to mind those who proudly declared they would not evacuate despite being told they were potentially in the path of a category 4 hurricane. I'm going to hazard an educated guess that most of these morons have never been in anything close to a major hurricane in their lives. No rational person with a clue about the real danger of something as powerful as Matthew was when I went to bed last night (sustained winds of 140 mph) would deliberately put themselves in front of one. It's rather akin to being told there is a Great White Shark swimming just off the beach and going in for a dip anyways. Maybe the hurricane will miss you. And maybe the shark has moved on or isn't hungry.

Okay, I will concede an exception for those seeking a novel method for self murder. Suicide by hurricane would provide an interesting topic for gossip among neighbors and relatives.

But I doubt that was the intent here. In many cases this was just for bragging rights.  My guess is that a lot of these folks will be found in their favorite watering hole this weekend telling everyone within earshot about how they rode out Hurricane Matthew and that it was no big deal.

Except they didn't.

That's because Hurricane Matthew has thus far not hit land in the United States (Deo gratias). If it had hit land as a cat 4, anyone in it's immediate path along the coast would would have been fortunate to survive. And if they did, my guess is that whatever tales they told would have begun with something along the lines of "what a  bleeping idiot I was!" (I don't think they would use the word bleeping.)

The worst thing is that this dodged bullet is likely to reinforce the bone crushing stupidity exhibited by these people and encourage others to do the same the next time we have a dangerous storm rolling in our direction. And there will be a next time. Florida is geographically pretty much a natural bulls-eye for hurricanes. That we have not had a big hit in more than a decade is a small miracle that I fear has also given a false sense of security to many. More than two million have moved here since the last hurricane (including yours truly) and most probably lack an appreciation for just how devastating a bad one can be. Last night Matthew was more or less the same size and power as the Great Hurricane of 1900.

There are times I think everyone who wants to live within ten miles of the Atlantic coast south of Cape Hatteras, or anywhere at all along the Gulf of Mexico should be required to watch this or something similar.

DC Paralyzed By Winter Storm (3") - Boston Sneers

Another piddling snowfall. Another huge shutdown. Another round of merciless mocking.

This is Washington’s winter weather cycle, as predictable as partisanship and twice as bruising.

The Monday night storm, a powderball that delivered two to six inches of snow to the area, shuttered schools, stuttered Metro, halted bus service and brought the federal government to its knees.

Then the eye-rolling began. Nowhere more so than among those with Boston ties.

Read the rest here.

Most of the beltway got around 3" of snow. When I was growing up in the Northeast normally that would not even rate a mention on the local news. The weather report would read "flurries or light snow." My first year of Grad School in Albany we got 111" of snow with no intervening melt off. I couldn't tell where I was a lot of times when driving because the snow banks were so high you could not see the houses on the other side and the street signs were all buried. I would have to pull over and climb a snow bank to get my bearings.

Waiting for the storm

So all week we have been warned to start building an ark here in California. The biggest storm in forever was supposed to roll in last night and just dump water on us for days. As of 12:30 PM today it's breezy, overcast and bone dry. I don't think I have been this disappointed since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault.

Update: OK, we got some rain. Big deal. It looks like folks up north took a hit though.

Snow Tsunami Slams Buffalo NY

I am a native New Yorker and as such am no stranger to snow and ice. Those who live in Buffalo however take a certain perverse pride in their weather. This westernmost of New York's big cities is practically synonymous with ugly winter storms that roll in from the Great Lakes dumping a foot or more of snow at a time... with unpleasant regularity and near daily snow squalls dropping an inch or three. In Buffalo it has been said that there are two seasons, winter and the 4th of July. And one can well believe it with annual snowfalls often topping 100(!) inches. So let's just say that these people are not in the habit of fainting at the first sight of the white fluffy stuff.

But the storm now battering these hardy folk is one likely to be long remembered. Over the next 48 hrs or so Buffalo is expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of six feet of snow (70+ inches in various places). How bad is that? It is bad enough that Buffalo is paying this storm their ultimate tribute.

They are giving the kids a day off from school tomorrow.

More Evidence of Global Warming

All 50 states are currently experiencing sub-freezing temperatures. Yes, even Hawaii.

If California doesn't get rain this winter ...

Each year from October to the following September, California measures its rainfall and snow accumulation.

This past season didn't take much figuring. It turned out to be the fourth driest year ever for the state, as it only got around 60 percent of the average precipitation.

As California starts a new water measurement cycle—and faces a fourth year of severe drought—another dry winter could be a tipping point for the country's top agricultural producer.

"This year is crucial," said Michael Hanemann, professor and environmental economist at the W.P Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

"A third winter of low rain would be extremely painful," he said. "If we have one or two dry winters we can get through that. But the lack of water this winter would have a significant economic impact on agriculture that hasn't been felt before."

Read the rest here.

Western US braces for worst drought on record

LOS ANGELES — The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply.

With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days. State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

State officials said they were moving to put emergency plans in place. In the worst case, they said drinking water would have to be brought by truck into parched communities and additional wells would have to be drilled to draw on groundwater. The deteriorating situation would likely mean imposing mandatory water conservation measures on homeowners and businesses, who have already been asked to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent.

Read the rest here.

Attention All Preppers

On a cool September night in 1859, campers out in Colorado were roused from sleep by a “light so bright that one could easily read common print,” as one newspaper described it. Some of them, confused, got up and began making breakfast.

Farther east, thousands of New Yorkers ran out onto their sidewalks to watch the sky glow, ribboned in yellow, white and crimson. Few people had ever seen an aurora that far south — and this one lit up the whole city.

At the time, it was a dazzling display of nature. Yet if the same thing happened today, it would be an utter catastrophe.

The auroras of 1859, known as the “Carrington Event,” came after the sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection, a burst of charged plasma aimed directly at the Earth. When the particles hit our magnetosphere, they triggered an especially fierce geomagnetic storm that lit up the sky and frazzled communication wires around the world. Telegraphs in Philadelphia were spitting out “fantastical and unreadable messages,” one paper reported, with some systems unusable for hours.

Today, electric utilities and the insurance industry are grappling with a scary possibility. A solar storm on the scale of that in 1859 would wreak havoc on power grids, pipelines and satellites. In the worst case, it could leave 20 million to 40 million people in the Northeast without power — possibly for years — as utilities struggled to replace thousands of fried transformers stretching from Washington to Boston. Chaos and riots might ensue.

That’s not a lurid sci-fi fantasy. It’s a sober new assessment by Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market. The report notes that even a much smaller solar-induced geomagnetic storm in 1989 left 6 million people in Quebec without power for nine hours.

Read the rest here.

My Five Day Forecast...

Oklahoma City Suburb Leveled; Dozens Killed by Tornado

Rescue crews searched Tuesday for survivors and victims of a massive tornado that devastated a suburb of Oklahoma City, grinding up entire neighborhoods and pulverizing two elementary schools.

A total of 24 people were confirmed dead as of Tuesday morning, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. The toll was considerably lower than the 51 fatalities reported in the hours after Monday’s twister, but Elliott cautioned that the numbers were still preliminary and were likely to rise as search and rescue efforts continued.

Read the rest here.

Massive Tornado Strikes Oklahoma City

This is breaking news. Text and details reported below are likely to change.

A monster tornado ripped through southern Oklahoma City and the suburb of Moore on Monday afternoon, leaving homes and schools in ruins and fires burning out of control.

There was no immediate word on casualties, but aerial footage showed major destruction: homes in rubble, cars flipped over and crushed, residents milling around in shock or combing through debris.

"A large part of the community has been affected," Jayme Shelton, a spokesman for Moore, told MSNBC.

A forecaster for NBC station KFOR said the tornado was kicking up a debris cloud about 2 miles wide as it tracked east into residential neighborhoods in the Moore area.

Forecasters said the twister could be an EF5, the most devastating category of storm with sustained wind speeds topping 200 mph and “incredible” damage. The National Weather Service will confirm the storm’s intensity.

Read the rest here. Live coverage on most news channels. There are reports that at least one school took a direct hit.

Prayers for all effected.

Northeast Braces for Blizzard

A crippling and potentially historic winter storm barreled toward the Northeast on Thursday, threatening tens of millions of people with 2 feet of snow. Boston canceled school and braced for one of its worst blizzards of all time.

Airlines encouraged fliers to change their plans and get out of the way. There were already delays of more than two hours at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, where tangles can snarl air traffic across the country, and hundreds of flights were canceled.

Read the rest here.

Let it snow let it snow

Hunkered down for the storm. Looks like we are going to get around a foot of the white stuff. I have to go home every few years in the dead of winter to remind myself that there are some (not many) advantages to living in California.

Sandy Hits The East Coast

Scene from a Manhattan parking garage as the ocean pores in.

New Jersey and Maryland are getting pasted. Atlantic City is mostly underwater as are large tracts of lower Manhattan where there are reports of cars floating down the concrete canyons of the Financial District. Power is out for millions. Sea water is flooding the construction site at Ground Zero and many of the tunnels leading into and out of New York.

Mid-Atlantic Braces For Rare Late Season Hurricane

Evacuations have been ordered and many schools and businesses will be closed in preparation for the unwelcome arrival of Hurricane Sandy which is expected to hit the middle Atlantic states near Philadelphia tomorrow. The storm is so large it is likely to dump devastating amounts of rain coupled with high winds over an area of many hundreds of miles as it moves inland. The New York Stock Exchange will be taking a very rare weather related day off as New York City has already shut down most public transportation. In Washington where up to seven inches of rain is expected, most government offices will be closed or operating with greatly reduced staff.

And of course, yet again, my family seems to be more or less directly in the path. Over the last seven years they have just gotten pasted by weather related events. To be frank this is starting to get old.