Update (January 3rd 2008): another record or near-record cold temperature, freezing citrus crops etc. Temporarily relevant link to Google News: Florida record coldYesterday, i.e. on Monday, the Yukon territory in Canada has seen its coldest November day on record: in -41 Celsius degrees which also happens to be around -41 Fahrenheit degrees, they could test some kinds of superconductors. Congratulations! ;-)
In Calgary, Canada, they're just approaching the record chill in the 110-year history. Nanaimo, British Columbia had a record daily snow for November and 56 cm for the weekend, and they are expecting a deep freeze.
In Vancouver, Canada where they broke the precipitation records two weeks ago, 30 centimeters of snow caused outages, a death, and flight cancellations. With an update, British Columbia that broke the snowfall record has seen four people killed by the cold so far.
Victoria, Canada has seen its record two-day snowfall on Monday and now it's time for a big chill.
Juneau, Alaska has broken the record low from 1985.
Oregon and Washington where they improved the record for the monthly rain in November are preparing for a winter storm and, together with Idaho, a deep freeze. Seattle has broken cold records for 11/29 by four degrees.
Sliding down icy SW 164th Street in Burien, WA, on Tuesday, before the cold really came to the town...
Monterey, California has near-record and near-freezing conditions on Wednesday and a real "freeze warming" is in effect for the interior valleys of San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas for Thursday morning. Sacramento is forecast to match or beat the 1880 record low of 30 degrees F overnight.
Winter chill will hit Arizona soon, too, and breach the previous record of 19 degrees by 3 degrees. Utah has seen its record low afternoon temperature and received it first snow. Salt Lake City broke its previous record cold temperature by 5 degrees and Nevada is not far from the record either. Most of the fresh seven Northwestern storm casualties died in Colorado. In Texas, they learn that temperatures can plummet by 30-40 degrees F in less than one day.
What was happening on the opposite hemisphere yesterday, for example in Antarctica? Employees from New Zealand are responsible for maintaining Scott's sleeping bag in the historic Antarctic hut. The four guys had to shovel 85 tons of snow which improved the previous record for a snowdrift by 33%.
Kashmir and India will receive heavy snowfall on Monday 12/4. Heavy winter rains will kill 22 people in Pakistan.
When you read these comments, you must be almost certain that the researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences must be right when they predict a new ice age for the next 60 years. Before you make this conclusion, notice that here in New England, people only go skiing on artificial snow. ;-) At the end of November, Massachusetts has normal temperatures but Norway and Finland have a kind of summer in November.
The cold weather from the West of the Northern America is going to move Eastwards. For example, Oklahoma will record single-digit record low temperatures on Saturday 12/2 and Colorado Springs will see another record low on 12/3 while Central Missouri will receive the largest snowfall in 60 years. On 12/4, Texas will break the record lows by eight degrees! On 12/8, Alabama will break the 1927 record and Tennessee will break the 1977 record. South Carolina will kill the 1968 record. On 12/9, Georgia will follow with the 1917 record.
Some places often get warm and other places often get cold. It has been like that for billions of years even though this is not the conclusion you would make after reading most of the newspapers these days. ;-)
Note that the DPA article under the previous "new ice age" link says that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences reported that it couldn't be said with any certainty what caused the recent warming: the long-term weather pattern remain largely unknown, they correctly write.
The only clear thing is that most of Northern America, including Manhattan, was covered by a mile-thick glacier in the period that ended 10,000 years ago, they argue. We will see whether the advocates of the action against the global warming can return the Earth to these natural and nice conditions before the evil capitalist species called homo sapiens (together with corrupt Mother Nature) started to ruin the planet. ;-)
The previous posting about record cold temperatures was focusing on Australia.
