Jet stream causing abnormal weather pattern

December 18, 2010 — An unusual bout of weather is sweeping over parts of northern Canada and Europe all thanks to the jet stream.

The jet stream is helping to generate record breaking temperatures across parts of Canada’s north and bringing cold conditions to countries in Europe.

“A huge ridge in the jet is bringing warm weather to places like Nunavut,” explains Patrick Cool a meteorologist from The Weather Network. On Friday, Coral Harbour Airport recorded a record high of 3.3°C. The last time the mercury came close to this was in 1963 when the thermometer climbed to 1.7°C.

Places like Kugaaruk Airport, Resolute Airport, Rowley Island and Shepherd Bay Island also climbed to new record highs.

Newfoundland and Labrador are also feeling the effects of the ridge. Rocky Harbour was the hot spot across the country on Friday when the daytime high soared to 10.1°C. Badger (8.5°C) and Carwright (6°C) were among several communities that shattered temperature records.

The warm conditions are expected to persist for Newfoundland throughout the weekend. “A retrograding low is bringing in a backdoor warm front. This helps usher in warm temperatures as it retrogrades south…” explains Dayna Vettese, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
“The trough in the jet is also responsible for the significant lake effect snow that has persisted for the last two weeks across southern Ontario,” notes Cool.

Meanwhile, the jet stream is having an opposite effect on parts of Europe. “The Greenland high is creating a deep trough in the jet. This is leaving an opening for Arctic air to flow across Europe resulting in colder weather and snow, ” says Cool.

Winter has tightened its grip on countries like the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy causing everything from flight cancellations to vehicle accidents due to icy roads.

“This pattern in the jet stream is expected to last over the next few days and then it will start to break down,” explains Vettese.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=jet_stream_causing_abnormal__181210?ref=ccbox_homepage_topstories

Arctic freeze and snow wreak havoc across the planet

Arctic air and record snow falls gripped the northern hemisphere yesterday, inflicting hardship and havoc from China, across Russia to Western Europe and over the US plains.

There were few precedents for the global sweep of extreme cold and ice that killed dozens in India, paralysed life in Beijing and threatened the Florida orange crop. Chicagoans sheltered from a potentially killer freeze, Paris endured sunny Siberian cold, Italy dug itself out of snowdrifts and Poland counted at least 13 deaths in record low temperatures of about minus 25C (-13F).

The heaviest snow yesterday hit northeastern Asia, which is suffering its worst winter weather for 60 years. More than 25 centimetres (10in) of snow covered Seoul, the South Korean capital — the heaviest fall since records began in 1937.

In China, Beijing and the nearby port city of Tianjin had the deepest snow since 1951, with falls of up to 8in and temperatures of minus 10C. In the far north of China, the temperature fell to minus 32C. More than two million Beijing and Tianjin pupils were sent home and 1,200 flights were delayed or cancelled at Beijing’s international airport.

The same far-eastern weather system took its toll of Sakhalin, the Russian island off Siberia, which was hit by blizzards and avalanches. Farther west, in northern and eastern India, more than 60 people, mainly homeless, died of exposure. Thousands of schools were closed. In Uttar Pradesh, the state neighbouring Nepal, the authorities spent £1.3 million on blankets and firewood for needy households.

Western Russia suffered a deep freeze as snow swept across the Baltic and north-central Europe, leaving the worst devastation in Poland, where 13 people died, bringing the toll from the cold this winter to 122.

Up to ten skiers died or were missing in avalanches. The worst incident was in the Diemtig Valley in Switzerland on Sunday, when avalanches hit a group of skiers and then the rescuers who went to their aid. Eight people were pulled from the snow alive, but four died, including an emergency doctor, and three more were missing.

In Italy, emergency services struggled with rare cold and ice. Motorways in the northeast were closed and military helicopters were sent to Sicily with medical aid.

In the United States, heavy snow fell again on the northeast.

In Burlington, Vermont, a record 33in of snow fell in a weekend storm. The previous record in a three-day period was set in 1969. Residents of the Northern Plains were warned to expect lethally cold temperatures of about minus 30C.

The icy conditions of Western Europe, which broke records in half a dozen countries in December, are expected to last for at least another week.

Guo Hu, the head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, linked this week’s conditions to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.

Meteorologists were also trying to find a pattern in the heavy rains that have hit equatorial regions and the southern hemisphere in the past week.

At least 20 people have been killed in flash floods in Kenya after torrential rains made thousands homeless.

In Australia, the authorities declared a natural disaster along the Castlereagh River as it peaked after torrential rain, forcing 1,200 residents to abandon their homes for high ground.

In Brazil, the death toll from flooding and mudslides over the past four days rose above 80.

Closer to home, forecasters have warned Britons to brace themselves for a freezing cold, bleak new year — this winter is set to be the coldest for more than 30 years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6975867.ece

2010 Predictions

Massive flooding throughout North America and Europe, due to the winter’s above-normal precipitation. The UK is going to have horribly strange weather patterns, as are areas such as Oklahoma, Missouri and North Carolina.

A series of SMALL earthquakes will rattle the Midwest area, with people becoming nervous about it. I dont think it is the big one, but it will cause nervous feelings.

Hurricane will hit Eastern Canada in the summer.

I do not anticipate disclosure in 2010. What I do expect is that people in the “know” regarding aliens and UFOs will have their beliefs solidified.

Another spiral-type light in the sky, in the Northern US.

Anger is starting to reach the boiling point. We are getting to the point of no return. The populace will demand their voices be heard, even via violence.

That is all I have…for now.

Wicked: Coldest Temps In Over A Decade

With temperatures hovering below 0, Grant Park was not a very hospitable place Thursday morning.

The low is expected to be less than -10 in Chicago Thursday, for the first time since 1996.

The typical exercise of bundling up for winter won’t cut it on Thursday.

It’s time to break out the long underwear and the electric gloves, for what is expected to go down as the coldest day in more than a decade.

The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill warning until noon Friday. The forecast high for Thursday is expected to linger in the negative range at -2, dropping to -15 overnight. Strong northwest winds are producing wind chill factors of -25 to -40.

CBS 2′s Ed Curran says as of 5 a.m., it was -7 at O’Hare International Airport and -5 at Midway Airport. In Waukegan it was -9, in Joliet it was -11, and in Aurora, the mercury was reading -20.

But with winds of 14 mph at O’Hare wind chills were far more brutal, at a reading of -28 at O’Hare, -26 in Joliet, -33 in DeKalb, and -42 in Aurora.

As CBS 2′s Joanie Lum reports, the temperatures could result in frostbite or hypothermia and may even lead to death if precautions are not taken.

The last time the low was colder than -10 was Jan. 5, 1999, when it was a bone-chilling -16. Highs Thursday afternoon may also remain just below zero. If the high fails to reach zero, it would be the first time since Feb. 3, 1996, when the high was -5.

On Wednesday night, CBS 2′s Suzanne Le Mignot tagged along with city Department of Family Support Services Commissioner Mary Ellen Caron, who took to the streets Wednesday night. She wanted to persuade people to come in for the night – at least until Friday.

Some people do not like the idea of going to a shelter, but Caron was able to convince some of them that the weather was dangerous.

“We are very concerned about the cold right now, and just getting people into warm places for tonight,” Caron said, “and so that’s is our main purpose for being down here, and for hopefully moving people into shelters.”

“Everybody homeless should go and try to get themselves together, and it’s cold out here tonight, and I hope everybody gets a shelter tonight,” said Fonta Wright, who is homeless. “I hope everybody goes inside tonight, because it’s going to be too cold to be hanging out.”

Wright himself went to a shelter Wednesday night, and said he would probably do the same on Thursday night.

Caron said the shelters will not close in the morning as they usually do.

Additionally, several schools are closed throughout the Chicago area, although Chicago Public Schools remain open.

Meanwhile, city health officials are also issuing reminders of the warning signs of frostbite and hypothermia.

When exposed to the extreme cold, your body begins to lose heat faster than it can be produced. That’s when hypothermia can set in.

“People should notice the change in their mental status – confused, disoriented, almost like they’re drunk – but they haven’t had anything to drink,” said Cmsr. Dr. Terry Mason, Chicago Department of Public Health.

Some other warning signs of hypothermia are drowsiness, confusion and memory loss.

“The main thing we want to make sure is that seniors, children – the extremes of ages are the ones that are very, very vulnerable to this – so, we want to make sure that they are well-protected and supervised,” Mason said.

Warning signs for hypothermia in an infant are bright red, cold skin and a child with very low energy. Anyone with a temperature below 95 degrees should get medical help right away because a body temperature that low is an emergency situation.

While this will likely be the coldest day in more than a decade, it is not close to setting a record. On Jan. 18, 1994, the low for the day in Chicago was -21, and the high was only -11.

In December 1983, a brutal cold snap culminated in a frigid Christmas holiday where the temperature did not crack 0 from Dec. 22 until Dec. 26. The low that year was -24 on Christmas Eve and -17 on Christmas Day, and in a CBS 2 weather forecast at the time, meteorologist Harry Volkman was warning of overnight wind chills of -75 and air temperatures of -30 in the western suburbs.

But the coldest day ever in Chicago came on Jan. 20, 1985, when the mercury bottomed out at -27.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/brutal.cold.day.2.908889.html

Madrid travel snarled by deepest snow in years

*Let it snow.*

MADRID (Reuters) – One of the heaviest snowfalls in decades closed Madrid airport and brought traffic in the Spanish capital to a standstill on Friday. Airports operator AENA said all flights were halted at Barajas airport from 11:50 a.m. (5:50 am. EST), adding to the misery of passengers already suffering weeks of delays and cancellations due to industrial action by Iberia pilots.

Iberia operates 600 flights a day in and out of the four-runway airport, which handles more than 50 million passengers a year.

Madrid’s regional government convened a meeting of its crisis committee and raised its warning level to orange — the second highest — as snow fell through the day and settled on the capital’s streets for the first time since February 2005.

A transport department spokesman said all Madrid’s major highways were jammed as a result of the bad weather.

The National Meteorology Institute said 10 cm (4 inches) was expected to fall in Madrid on Friday and further snow would fall over much of the country during the weekend.

The high north and central Spanish plateau sees deep snow every winter, but although Madrid sits at 650 meters above sea level, the city’s heat makes snow a rarity.

Television pictures showed a lone cross-country skier in San Sebastian taking advantage of the wintery conditions across the country, using the northern town’s main beach as a trail.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090109/wl_nm/us_spain_snow

Weird weather December 15th

Record low in Denver:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/validProds.php?prod=RER&node=KBOU

Montana -29

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20081214/NEWS01/81214005

As weather.com mentioned on Friday, an arctic air mass has invaded the Northwest, the Rockies and the Plains. Temperatures are bitterly cold. We’re not just talking subfreezing temperatures or teens or even single digits.

We’re talking about temperatures that are falling into the teens and twenties below zero. This is dangerous cold to say the least.

Here is a list of record lows from Sunday:

Record Lows
City: Record Low (previously held)

Billings, MT: -18 (-13/1945)
Lewistown, MT: -29 (-24/1951)
Dillon, MT: -16 (-15/1967)
Fort Benton, MT: -23 (tied with 1948)
Sheridan, WY: -13 (tied with 1940)
Camarillo, CA: 32 (33/2007)
Casper, WY: -18 (-9/1967)
Rock Springs, WY: -10 (-3/1987)
Denver, CO: -18 (-14/1901)
Boulder, MT: -20 (tied with 1967) Great Falls, MT: -25 (tied with 1922)
Gold Butte, MT: -33 (-23/1922)
Havre, MT: -32 (-24/1975)
Martinsdale, MT: -23 (-18/1901)
Simpson, MT: -24 (tied with 1975)
Townsend, MT: -15 (-12/1967)
White Sulphur Springs, MT: -29 (-17/1922)
Yuma, CO: -10 (-9/1963)

That same bitter chill is still on the move this morning; helping to push temperatures down, down, down.

Cities that were near their record high yesterday or even broke their record high are experiencing a huge cooldown today.

Record Highs
City: Record high (previously held)
Tulsa, OK: 75 (74/1933) Mon forecast: 28
San Angelo, TX: 82 (81/1924) Mon forecast: 46
Joplin, MO: 71 (70/1975) Mon forecast: 22
Fayetteville, AR: 68 (67/1975) Mon forecast: 26
Childress, TX: 76 (75/1995) Mon forecast: 33
Wichita Falls, TX: 81 (80/1933 & 1975) Mon forecast: 38

Warm in the east, but this won’t last.

As much as 15 cm of snow to blanket Ottawa

Ontario’s first winter storm of the season is expected to slam into the nation’s capital Tuesday, blanketing Ottawa with about 15 centimetres of the white stuff, Environment Canada is warning.

Residents in western Quebec and eastern Ontario can expect to see heavy rain become thick white snow beginning Tuesday evening.

“Expect the change sometime around 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening,” said CTV Ottawa meteorologist J.J. Clarke.

By the time residents wake up on Wednesday, a blanket of snow will cover the ground in the regions between Ottawa, Renfrew and Algonquin.

Areas under a winter storm watch include: Prescott, Russell, Cornwall, Lancaster, Maxville, Alexandria, Plevna, Sharbot Lake, western Lanark County, Renfrew, Pembroke and Barry’s Bay.

The storm system, which is intensifying over the eastern U.S. seaboard, will bring with it northwesterly winds gusting up to 70 km/h, causing whiteout conditions and dangerously low visibility for drivers.

The fall storm will hit as many bright coloured leaves still hang on Ottawa trees. Large amounts of packed wet snow may bring down tree trees limbs and power lines, warned Environment Canada.

Last year, the first major snowfall hit the area on November 16. The winter of 2007-08 was one of snowiest in recent memory, with snowfall levels approaching the 1970-71 record of 441.1 centimetres.

Sidewalks and front porches should be all clear for trick-or-treaters on Halloween night as sunny sky and warm temperatures are forecast for the region on Thursday and Friday.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081028/Ottawa_storm_081028/20081028?hub=TopStories

Kenya turns white in freak storm

PARTS of Kenya have been turned white following a massive hailstorm, stunning residents who have never experienced such freak weather conditions before.

The country, which is situated on the Equator, has seen hailstorms before but the ferocity of this one, 158 miles north west of the capital was unprecedented.

There have been reports that villagers have been eating the ice that has fallen over 30 acres from the sky and have pelted each other with snowballs. “We thought a big white sheet had been spread, so we decided to come and see for ourselves. We thought it was Jesus who had come back,” one villager is reported as saying.

“We have never seen anything like this. We like the ice so much because with the sun being hot, you take it and you feel satisfied,” another resident has said.

Weather experts said the storm was caused by the convergence of cold air from the Indian Ocean and warm air from the Congo.

http://www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk/strange-but-true/Kenya-turns-white-in-freak.4455946.jp

Flood alert as storm poised to hit UK

Britain will be buffeted by heavy rain and strong winds today as the first major storm of the autumn gets under way.

Parts of the UK have been warned to expect more than two weeks of rainfall in 24 hours, and forecasters say there is a risk of localised flooding across the country.

South-west England and south Wales have been battered since the early hours and the rain is expected to head north east throughout the day, hitting Northern Ireland and the south of Scotland by mid-afternoon.

Paul Mott of MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, warned that up to 50mm of rain was expected in the next 24 hours, as much as would be typically seen in a fortnight in September.

Experts warn that after an unusually-wet August the ground is saturated the risk of flooding is increased across the UK

Gusts of up to 50mph will make it a “thoroughly miserable” day according to Mr Mott, who advised commuters to leave extra time for their journeys because of the weather.

Mr Mott said: “For most areas it will be a wet and miserable day, and we would advise people to take care on the roads and allow extra time for their journeys.

“There will be some localised flooding in Wales and the north east in areas that are prone to it, but we’re not expecting widespread flooding.”

“It’s going to remain unstable over the weekend. There will be rain, sometimes heavy rain, through the UK with northern England bearing the brunt of it.

People in Gloucestershire are bracing themselves for another night of heavy rain after storms swept into the region, causing flash floods.

Downpours overnight and this morning led to road closures in the county and firefighters had to pump out floodwater from homes.

Residents are now preparing for the possibility of more flooding after forecasters predicted downpours to continue throughout the night and into the morning as the South West feels the brunt of a storm coming in from the Atlantic.

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for the region until this evening and say around 2in of rain is expected.

Severe weather warnings are also in force for Wales, the north west, north east, south west and south east of England as well as London.

Gloucestershire County Council has put services on high alert after learning from the lessons of the major floods which wreaked havoc throughout the county in July last year.

Around 13 houses in Lakeside Avenue, Lydney, have been affected by flash flooding and householders say it is the second time this year the street has been deluged.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/flood-alert-as-storm-poised-to-hit-uk-919930.html

Hurricane-force winds, heavy rain hit Phoenix area

PHOENIX – A series of fast-moving thunderstorms packing winds of up to 100 mph plowed through the Phoenix area, leaving tens of thousands without power, briefly shutting down the airport and ripping the roof off a brand-new college football facility.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from Thursday’s storms.

Arizona Public Service Company said Friday morning it still had 32,000 customers without electricity, while Salt River Project estimated 11,000 of its customers were without power. At the height of the storm, about 100,000 homes and businesses without power.

Power for many downtown traffic signals was still out as the morning rush began, and some traffic delays were reported.

The storm swept into the city at about 9 p.m., dumping up to a 1 1/2 inches of rain and three-quarter-inch hail in some areas.

Sky Harbor International Airport was shut down for about an hour during the height of the storm, which blew out of the area by about midnight. Flight delays continued early Friday as crews worked to remove debris blown onto the runways.

National Weather Service meteorologist Leslie Wanek said Sky Harbor recorded peak winds of 75 mph, but radar indicated gusts of up to 100 mph in parts of the metro area.

In Tempe, Arizona State University officials said the storm damaged the school’s new $8.4 million indoor practice facility that’s mostly used for football.

A witness said the fabric roof on the structure was shredded and the bubble dome had completely deflated.

The 103,500-square-foot facility was completed this month.

Hundreds of trees in central and uptown Phoenix were downed, and a large section of roofing from a new condominium complex was torn off and thrown hundreds of feet, landing on the lines powering the city’s soon-to-open light rail line.

Windows were blown out of at least one high-rise building downtown.

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=national&id=20080829/48b77440_3421_1334520080829490125454