California clobbered
December 17th, 2008 at 3:06 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
I wanted to give you an idea of the strength of the storms that’s are coming at Michigan from out west. Look at these snow totals in the California Sierras: Pascoes – 58″, Alpine Meadows – 52″, Mammoth Mt. – 51″, Kirkwood – 48″. Blizzard conditions were reported on I-5 north of Los Angeles. The expressway was closed. The Thursday Night storm could be as much as 6-12″ of snow for Lower Michigan. Ludington has already had nearly 46″ of snow for the month of December. The high of 18 in Grand Rapids on Tuesday was 15 degrees colder than average and 32 degrees colder than the high on Monday (which occurred at 2 AM). Much of the country is cold. On Tuesday the afternoon high temp. at the southern tip of Texas at Brownsville was only 42 – the average high there is 70. Fort Worth, TX stayed below freezing for the 2nd day in a row. So did Seattle with a high of 31. Los Angeles only made 55 and Phoenix, AZ had a high of 56. Get this…over 50% of the Lower 48 states has a snow cover now (50.4%). Much of the world appears cold now…the Arctic icecap has grown significantly in 2008 (contrary to what you may have heard), the Antarctic icecap is near a historical maximum and Siberia is amazingly cold. Verkoyansk reached -72F on Monday – that’s 4 of 6 days with lows of -70F or colder.
WOW, these are strong winter storms that are heading our way.
And so goes winter…….glad to hear that the ice cap is growing again, I’m sure Al Gore will take responsiblity for that, and he can help with the heating fuel for everyone, and maybe gas for the snow plows. I can only remember one winter when the lakes froze up this early – I’m thinking back in 1985 or 1986, Bill should be able to verify that. I know we will have a white Christmas – If it snows on my birthday (Dec. 19th)- we have a white Christmas. Last year was the one of the rare years this did not hold true.
Sounds like we will be busy digging out Friday/Saturday from this one.
Lynne – watch out, Bill will tell you that it isnt technically winter yet! LOL. According to me, if it is snowing, it is winter.
Im in the 16″ area for 120 hour total. Nice! Only got about 3-4 from last nights storm.
Bill,
Check out this story from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/16/melting.ice/index.html
It looks like they posted this story at the wrong time of year or there are some political influences involved…
Steve, I saw this too. It is a proven fact that the glaciers are melting and the ice shelves that have been around for hundreds (maybe thousands)of years are breaking away. I’m not an expert so don’t know if its due to global warming or cyclical weather patterns. Even the permafrost in Siberia has been disappearing so I’m glad to see the ice recovering. Sounds like maybe some of our environmental policies are starting to work.
Bill, is this storm moving more east now? It looks like the probability maps have shifted now.
What do you think?
Where’s Bill? Vacation? Ill? Florida? Sabatical. We miss your face and forecasts. Come back soon.
22° here with light freezing drizzle….You know what makes weather (and climate) such an interesting science is that its a rather unpredictable exact science. So that for this or any other system to come together a lot of things have to come together at the right time…Remember it was only a few weeks ago that there were forecasts of a storm of the century that did not turn out that way…so for now I would just say this system has the “potential” to be a major storm if it turns out that way only time will tell. One problem I have is if the models keep calling for the dam to break and it never breaks then the public will start to ignore the calling, and will be unprepared when the dam dose break!
SlimJim
Bill-
Did you see that Vegas had winter westher advisories (for the valley, not the mnts) on Monday and Tuesday? Very cold air mass.
laurie…sorry I don’t think we have anything to do with the caps shrinking or growing ice caps….when Mt. St. Helen erupted…how much pollution was introduced in the air????? millions of tons…..did anything happen to the world enviroment besides a little acid rain….think of all the thermal nuclear bombs that were tested in the 40’s, 50’s and the 60’s..don’t get me wrong we should be respectful of the earth, but you are giving mankind superman strength….that’s why when Al Gore made the claims he did, quite a few respected scientists were shocked, using real data, it is hard to show the connection….in 1998 something happened that the global climit jumped up quite high, no one knows what caused it, if it was caused by mankind’s pollution it should have gained slowy….. and you should check were he has invested his money in…..setting up Carbon Share Companies……guess what Obama has stated on the campaign trail….he wants to force coal fired plants to buy extreme large amounts of Carbon Shares if they want to stay in business (he wants them out of business)…………..If you think it’s for the enviroment…your wrong……another way to pay off politician for their support or future support, talk about pork spending!!!!!…..what a sham!!!! It great that the ice caps are on the rebound, scientist have always looked at the data and thought we were headed to a mini ice age, maybe the extra heat helped us from one??? you never know….but as for me, I like it cold rather than hot…let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!!!!
Zeelander, as I stated, I’m not an expert and there is much to debate on both sides. After seeing the smog over Beijing this past summer, I’m inclined to believe that mankind does have something to do with the warming trend. I don’t believe I made a political statement, just an observation on some improvements in our environment. As for scientific evidence, that seems political too, as some are saying global warming is a reality and others say not. Oh well, I just hope we leave our planet Earth healthy for the next generations.
Please express to Terri DeBoer that she really needs to have her hair done professionally. Her hair has been looking ragged and unkept lately. Not a good look for a TV personnalilty. Or if she doesn’t have it done professionally, at least tie it all back to resemble a kept look…..just a suggestion.
The funny thing about global warming is that it does not make any sense. Think about this for a minute. Conventional wisdom(Simplified)says that CO2 is released into the atmosphere thus trapping the heat. In my mind there is a fundamental flaw with this theory – CO2 is a heavy gas. How does it get -and stay in the lower status sphere? In mining and other industries one must use extreme caution when entering into a mine shaft or other dwelling that is low in elevation. Otherwise they will be overcome by CO2 and other hazardous gasses. This is because CO2 being heavier than other planetary gasses will settle in the lowest place possible. This is just one of many inconsistencies with this theory. Last week Hundreds of scientists came forward renouncing global warming ( I wonder why that was not a headline? ) I hope that people take it upon themselves to do their own research – instead of regurgitating what they have been told as fact.
I am in this storm right now as I live in Southern California and actually got snowed it! I’m amazed! I was supposed to fly out of Las Vegas to visit my family in Caledonia as the flights were cheaper but the passes were all shut down with snow.
Driving up in elevation on the 5 was the coolest thing as you could see where the rain turned to snow on the mountain tops…you could literally see the blizzards! It was very pretty. Even if I would have gotten through (which is unlikely as 100s of people are stranded in the passes) my flight was canceled in Las Vegas due to ice and snow anyways.
The funny part is, I will get to see this storms aftermath again when I get back to Michigan on Saturday! *crossing fingers it is done by then*
What ever happened to the hearty souls of Christmas past? I love this weather!!! It reminds me of Michigan of the 50’s when we had snow piled up high at the end of our driveways. Does’t anyone ski, sled, ice skate, and make snow angels anymore??? You’ve forgotten we live in the winter wonderland.
Glad you’re back, Bill. Nothing against your colleagues, but it is a little more comforting to have someone with your vast experience and knowledge of fickle West Michigan weather at the helm of the weather office when we are facing storms like the one impending. Merry Christmas to you and the whole crew at TV 8.
I spoke to by brother last night who lives in Crestline, California. He said he has over 5 foot of snow. He’s never seen anything like it!
Sarah,
Sarah,
I would believe Bill would tell you Meteorological Winter began December 1st.
this snow is so high we can not even go down the road with out getting stuck and it is getting even higher it is so not cool