(Near) Real Time US Continental Wind Map

The effect of watching the wind swirling over the entire continental US in near-real time can be hypnotic. I can't wait until a global version is available.

Surface wind data comes from the National Digital Forecast Database. These are near-term forecasts, revised once per hour. So what you're seeing is a living portrait. (See the NDFD site for precise details; our timestamp shows time of download.) And for those of you chasing top wind speed, note that maximum speed may occur over lakes or just offshore. _Wind Map

Wind Map
The above image is a static screen capture from the website. The actual on-site image is dynamic, and zoomable for up-close looks at particular regions.

This is reminiscent of the "mirror world" concept of digitally augmented reality portrayals which can be mapped on top of the real world in real time. The amount of information expected to become available to ordinary people using such means is expected to be astoundingly large.

More: Second Earth: World Wide Sim (PDF)

If we learn to use this new wealth of knowledge to our benefit, we can be immensely richer for it.

When La Nina Comes Callin': Long Range US Forecast

Accuweather
Long-range weather forecasting is still an experimental art form, but some US and UK practitioners are getting better at it (Not the UK Met). Here is what the long range gnomes at Accuweather have to say:

The current La Niña is still going strong and expected to persist through at least the spring. AccuWeather.com long range forecasters think it could even last well into the summer or early fall.

So what does that mean in terms of weather for the coming months? What can people expect for the rest of winter and the upcoming spring? Will there be a continuation of non-typical extremes like we've seen over the last few months?

What to Expect in Coming Months

In short, AccuWeather.com Expert Long Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok says that we can expect to see more of the non-typical La Niñna events in parts of the country in coming weeks.

For example, he expects colder-than-normal conditions to continue affecting the East through the end of January and possibly the first half of February. In contrast to December, which was coldest compared to normal in the Southeast, the upcoming cold in the East is expected to be most extreme in the Northeast.

A blast of cold air coming to the Northeast the weekend of Jan. 22-23 is forecast to be especially brutal. A healthy snowpack covering much of the East now will help make upcoming cold outbreaks even more intense.

...In the Southeast, Pastelok thinks the cold that continues in coming weeks will be significant enough to make temperatures for the entire winter average out below normal for much of the region. This would be an impressive feat, considering that La Niña winters in the Southeast are typically warmer than normal.

In general, Pastelok also expects a continuation of stormy weather from the Tennessee Valley into the mid-Atlantic for much of the rest of the season. Storms that track through this zone can vary between producing snow, ice and heavy rain.

The bitter cold destined for the East will first blast through the Midwest. So more extreme cold is in store for people across that region as well.

...The Southwest started this winter off with cool temperatures but has recently experienced warming. That warmth is starting to spread eastward into Texas, and Pastelok expects most of the interior Southwest and Texas to stay warmer much of the rest of the winter.

Above-normal precipitation is expected for the Northwest for the rest of the season with higher-than-normal snowfall in the interior. Temperatures should average below normal for the rest of the season. _Accuweather

More on strong La Nina from Wattsupwiththat?!?

Weather-Making: Thunderstorms In Place of Desalinators

The Metro System scientists used ionisers to produce negatively charged particles ....

They have a natural tendency to attach to tiny specks of dust which are ever-present in the atmosphere in the desert-regions.

These are then carried up from the emitters by convection - upward currents of air generated by the heat release from sunlight as it hits the ground.

Once the dust particles reach the right height for cloud formation, the charges will attract water molecules floating in the air which then start to condense around them.

If there is sufficient moisture in the air, it induces billions of droplets to form which finally means cloud and rain. _DailyMail

DailyMail
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have been fiddling with Abu Dhabi's weather. Using the negative-ion generators pictured above, the scientists have been successful in creating rainfal and thunderstorms in the Arabian summer months of July and August -- when rain rarely falls naturally.

Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters which can send trillions of cloud-forming ions into the atmosphere.

Over four summer months the emitters were switched on when the required atmospheric level of humidity reached 30 per cent or more.

While the country's weather experts predicted no clouds or rain in the Al Ain region, rain fell on FIFTY-TWO occasions.

The project was monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the world's major centres for atmospheric physics.

Professor Hartmut Grassl, a former institute director, said: There are many applications. One is getting water into a dry area.

'Maybe this is a most important point for mankind.'

...Building an ionising system is about £7 million while a desalination plant would be £850 million and costs a lot more to run.

Some scientists are treating the results in Al Ain with caution because Abu Dhabi is a coastal state and can experience natural summer rainfall triggered by air picking up moisture from the warm ocean before dropping it on land.

But the number of times it rained in the region so soon after the ionisers were switched on has encouraged researchers.

Professor Peter Wilderer witnessed the experiments first hand and is backing the breakthrough. _DailyMail

Local and regional control of weather and climate has long been a goal of visionaries and utopians. An entire arsenal of weather devices will be needed, for dealing with the extremes of any season. In this case, the ability to trigger rainfall can substitute for more expensive desalination plants -- for freshwater. In other situations, seasonal weather might be modified to create ideal growing seasons for highly valued crops.

In this modern age of global warming cooling climate change, it's best to be prepared for anything.

Winter is Not Finished With North America Yet

Cold building up above western Canada is poised to move across the US border without registering with border agents. Expect more snow in the mid-west and east.

Cold is again building in western Canada and will come east and south the next few weeks. Look for more snow and cold in the news in the weeks ahead across many areas of the northern United States. This too is classic La Nina, cold Pacific Decadal Oscillation weather. Snow fell heavily in the Pacific Northwest as we often find in La Ninas. In fact in some places in Oregon, heavy enough (eighteen inches on top of 6 feet of snow already there) to cause roofs to collapse. See Idahna, Oregon Buried in Snow; Mayor Asks for Emergency Help. This story has some amazing video.

As some of the cold air first makes an appearance across the northern tier the next few days, rain will change to snow with heavy amounts once again from Chicago across the great lakes into New York State and New England. ____story

Icecap
Globally, this January was the 2nd coldest in the past 15 years. Cyclic ocean patterns such as the la nina/el nino, have a large effect on global weather.

Since about the year 1800, the Earths "average temperature" has been on a natural upward average trend of 0.5 degree Celsius per century. This "natural rise" or recovery from the Little Ice Age, when subtracted from estimated 0.6 degree Celsius rise over the past century, leaves almost no rise at all for anthropogenic effects, including green house gas.

China News: Black Monday in Shanghai, Freezing Winter Catches China in Power Crisis

Continued sharp declines in Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets are making a cold Chinese winter even colder. It does not help that energy supplies--including coal--are running low.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended the day down 1,068.76 points, or 4.25 per cent, at 24,053.61. Turnover was 107.7 billion Hong Kong dollars.....Shares fell even more sharply on the Shanghai stock exchange in what Chinese media called a "black Monday."

For the second time within a week, the Shanghai Composite Index dropped by more than 7 per cent in a single day, closing at 4,419.29, down 7.19 per cent....The Shenzhen Composite Index fell 6.85 per cent to 1,335.96 in the ongoing turmoil reflecting stock market developments around the Asian region. ____BangkokPost

The bad economic news comes at a time when China's energy infrastructure is stressed by cold, snow, and ice.

China's premier Wen Jiabao said the country's energy shortage, including coal and oil, will continue or even become worse due to the recent heavy snow and rain in Southern China....Mr. Wen urged local authorities to secure production and supply and added that the bad weather in southern China will continue for the next 10 days, which will have a serious impact on people's living and energy supply.

He said areas facing a power shortage should cut the supply to power-hungry firms. Mr. Wen's comments were posted on the government's Web site yesterday....China is facing a nationwide power shortfall because a drop in coal inventories is forcing power stations to cut output and heavy snowstorms have damaged the power grid. Southern China's coldest, snowiest winter in decades has left millions of Chinese without heat and running water, causing mounting losses from power shortages and other damage.

The government has issued a wide-reaching order to speed food shipments. The order calls on police, railway bureaus and even gas stations to do all they can to ensure timely delivery of food supplies after snow and ice storms clogged roads, cut electricity and delayed deliveries.____WSJ

Extensive Snow and Ice: North, and South

Snow cover for the current Northern Hemisphere winter is 2% above normal, and the highest for the past 5 years.

With a major snowstorm in China and snow covering much of Asia and parts of the middle east and a decent snowpack in North America (recently NASA reported 60% of the lower 48 states and all of Canada was snowcovered), our Northern Hemispheric snowcover is now 2% above normal and the highest level in at least 5 years. A rather amazing 25% of the northern Hemispheric is snow and ice covered....December sea ice extent in the Southern Hemisphere was a remarkable 15% above normal and the highest of the entire record as was the case in the late winter (it is now mid-summer and the sea ice is diminishing but is still well above normal).____IceCap

Also linked by Tom NelsonPredictions for further snow this winter:

A briefly bitter cold start to January gave way to a record second week warm spell. Frigid air returned in week 3 concentrated in the central states. It has moderated this weekend in the central and will by early week with some rains in the east but another shot of cold will be felt this week mainly across the north....We are entering a phase of the MJO that favors a series of storms for the west and central states that will bring very heavy snows to many areas there (focused mainly on the Midwest in areas like Des Moines, IA, Chicago IL and Madison, WI).

You will see stories in the news about these snow events through the next few weeks. These storms will ride up through the northeast but those storm track usually mean rain for the east with the exception maybe in some events for the higher elevations up north and west (northern New York and northern Vermont). With time (in a few weeks) the storm track will shift east and assuming there are bullets left in storm gun, the east would get its shot at more snows, in time for ski areas to recover for the important President’s Day week.-----IceCap

Of course, this is only weather. Weather does not become climate until a trend persists for 25 years or more. Weather is driven by the sun, and ocean oscillations. The solar cycles and the cycles of ocean oscillations combine to create longer term climate.

For over a decade, opportunists in politics, the media, certain industries--even in science--have been trying to frame every short term weather event in terms of "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" (CAGW). A lot of weather events that did not fit the orthodox dogma were either ignored or minimised. But it is now time for everyone to start the clock ticking on the GCM projections of Hansen etc.

Unfalsifiable theories are not science. Up to this point, all we have from Gore, Hansen, etc. is unfalsifiable assertions. Given the public respect and adoration these men have been given (thanks to an uncritical and largely ignorant-of-science media), they should show the courage to lay out a timetable of climate phenomena that would falsify their CAGW theories.

Before the Start of Winter--A Relentless Southward March of Snow and Ice

There is no bargaining with winter. Nearly a million in the dark across 7 US states.

Over the next week, two more systems will bring more precipitation in this area and in the end expand the area of snowcover to the south. Colder air will build in behind the latest system, the warmest of the series and then be reinforced later this week with a moderate precipitation event, this one mainly frozen with areas including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City and perhaps Boston and Providence. The third system this weekend could become quite a major snowstorm for many areas depositing a foot or more of the white stuff. It is a little early to determine exact track and where the heaviest snow will fall but places from the nation’s capitol to New York City and Boston could be included although the chances will be greatest inland as is often the case with December storms. Very cold air will follow in the storm’s wake into the east well into next week.

Icecap
While a narcissistic Iowa preens itself in the glow of nationwide stagelights, US presidential candidates and their retinues try in vain to flex their greased political muscles for the crowds.

The savage ice storm ground the intense campaigning in the presidential race to a halt in Iowa, where the first vote on party candidates takes place on January 3.

Former president Bill Clinton was forced to postpone campaign events in Iowa for his wife, Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The storm also disrupted the plans of surging former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who had been due to return to Iowa on Tuesday ahead of a Republican debate on Wednesday.

The airport in the state capital, Des Moines, was closed due to the weather, scuttling plans by Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic challenger Barack Obama, to campaign in the state on Tuesday.

source
As an early winter marches relentlessly south to conquer North America, back in the Southern Hemisphere, the ice has not receded since the record southern winter.

Southern Hemisphere’s ice cover now is at the same level as last June, i.e., a level seen during the last winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Besides, there are two more millions square kilometers of ice now compared to December 2006. And the large positive anomaly has persisted since September.

... In the Northern Hemisphere, the ice and snow cover have recovered to within 1% (one snowstorm) of normal with the official start of winter still more than 12 days away

Icecap

Most of us remember the confident predictions by climate "scientists" that 2007 would be the warmest year ever recorded! But already, we are back to the 1990s. Before this cold northern December is over, we may have to go back further in the records.

In his haste to visit Oslo and Bali, Al Gore forgot to warn North Americans that in the end, nature will have its say. Computer models are one thing. Reality is quite something else.

Doing Something About the Weather At Last, Sam

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. But now engineer and inventor Stephen Salter is suggesting that maybe it wouldn't be so hard to do something about the weather at all.

In his scheme, seawater will be sucked up from the ocean into pipes within the blades. Nozzles at the ends of these pipes will turn the water into an aerosol and spray fine droplets from the trailing edges of the blades 5 to 20 metres above the sea surface into the turbulent wake of the rotor.

This, Salter points out, will hugely increase the surface area of water that can be turned into water vapour. The turbine will also overcome one of the main brakes on evaporation from the ocean, he argues. The problem is a wafer-thin layer of stagnant, humid air that clings to the surface of the sea and prevents water molecules from escaping.

Salter calculates that with a wind speed of 8 metres per second, each "spray turbine" could lift more than half a cubic metre of water a second to a height of 10 metres. Hundreds or even thousands of the machines in hot areas of the world could make enough rain to prevent droughts, he estimates. "The successful large-scale deployment of spray turbines could reduce the number of people who are short of water by several billion."

Source

Read more at Fatknowledge Blog, a very fine blog indeed.

While Salter's "ocean mist" scheme may be tagged as a way to combat global warming, in reality it is a way to stir up the weather considerably, and hopefully to reduce drought and bring fresh water to many people who are presently without it. The lack of clean fresh water is a far greater environmental problem than the more fashionable CAGW. We should never forget that water vapour is the most meaningful greenhouse gas, but that water in the atmosphere performs a very complex function that is not amenable to current climate models.