from the build-more-wind-farms-to-push-it-back dept.
Punishing blasts of potentially record cold will bring an early winter preview to millions of people in the central, eastern and southern U.S. over the next few days.
The core of the first round of cold will gradually shift from the north-central U.S. into the Great Lakes and Northeast Wednesday through Saturday, making it feel more like the middle of winter rather than early November in some places, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Jake Sojda.
As the cold sweeps east, some snow is also likely in portions of the interior Northeast Thursday into Friday. The heaviest snow should fall in northern New England, where some spots could pick up half a foot.
Possibly related: The sun has been blank for over a month now: http://www.sidc.be/silso/dayssnplot
(Score: 5, Informative) by istartedi on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:01AM (4 children)
California's rainy season is set to begin at least two weeks later than normal. The Kincade fire would have been mostly extinguished by rain in a normal year, or perhaps not even started. The ridge pushes the jet stream north, making California warmer and dryer. The east gets the wrap-around flow and more cold air. If this pattern persists, California will be back in drought soon.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:47PM (1 child)
The touted out of drought rain came too early in the season, and while the volume looked at in spreadsheet terms was correct, its actual on the ground effect was heavily diminished. It only took a week or two after their announcement that 'California is out of the drought!' for the ground on my property to be bone dry again (slightly less than last year, since it didn't visibly crack.) The long and the short of it is that gardening was unsustainable again this year, and everything from grass to privets turned brown. Even NATIVE trees were shedding their leaves multiple times over the year due to the severity of the lack of CONSISTENT rainfall. Ground doesn't magically absorb all the water that pours down on it. Without a consistent month to month volume of water, or a more comprehensive canopy to hold it in, the environment will dessicate immediately after the water stops flowing, not unlike the Oklahoma dustbowl of decades past.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @03:47AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @03:19AM (1 child)
> The east gets the wrap-around flow
Yeah, we got some wet snow in Buffalo NY today, but nothing stuck to the roads. Temps about freezing, not really that unusual for this time of year. Supposed to be in low 20F range tonight, we put heavy sheets over the 5 x 10 foot raspberry patch to see if we can save the fall crop (summer crop was great this year). These plants are pretty hardy, I think they have a chance.
A couple of weeks ago we had a light frost in my immediate area (other parts of the region didn't have this frost). The result is that we have beautiful bright fall color for leaf peeping here, while my friend up north of Niagara Falls (20 miles) has drab colors this year.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday November 08 2019, @04:35AM
Soak the plants and surrounding soil with water. The freezing water can keep the temperature around the plants just high enough to get them over if it isn't too far below freezing for too long.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:16PM (4 children)
I was told a simple trick for when you go out to your car and the doors are frozen shut. You need to defrost the handle using your body heat.
So go up to the car, pull down your pants a bit like you are going to moon the car, and back up until the warmest part of your ass is touching the handle. Stay in that position for a few minutes until the handle thaws.
Unfortunately I moved south so couldn't try this for myself. If anyone tries it let us know if it works.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:34PM
I heard it works better with your front bits because of higher coefficient of conductivity. Needs an experiment methinks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pdfernhout on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:09PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen%2C_Be_Seated! [wikipedia.org]
(Spoiler) "The story tells of a visit to a tunnel on the surface of the Moon which goes awry when a pressure seal fails, trapping three men (a supervisor, a reporter, and a tunnel worker). The title of the story derives from the way they plug an air leak while awaiting rescue: by sitting on it."
Just remember that flesh can stick to really cold metal... Witness those people with their tongues stuck to flagpoles...
https://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Stuck-Tongue-from-a-Frozen-Surface [wikihow.com]
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:35PM
>Just remember that flesh can stick to really cold metal...
I don't think so - not quite. Besides, if your flesh (rather than skin) is being exposed to really cold metal, you probably have bigger problems.
*Water* can stick to really cold metal though as it freezes, and to skin as well. And your tongue is normally covered in water. If you've been sweating heavily other areas might also be wet enough to freeze to cold metal surfaces, but unlike your tongue most of your body's surface is covered in many layers of dead skin cells that can flake away to release you. Rather like wax paper - most things actually stick to wax paper reasonably well, but the wax doesn't stick to itself well, and so you can pull the paper away easily, leaving a thin layer of wax still stuck to your food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @03:24AM
Wouldn't have a chance with the Corvette we had on loan in the early 80s (I work in automotive engineering). The plastic/fiberglass doors collected moisture against the door jambs and they really froze solid. About a half hour with a hair dryer was needed to get into that car after a rain and a good overnight freeze.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:55PM (3 children)
Will the coming ice age too get blamed on eevil hoomanz making eevil CO2? Make your bets!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 08 2019, @03:11AM (2 children)
You're obviously a troll, but for the benefit of anyone nearby:
Global warming does not result in simple increase of temperature across the planet because we do not live on a barren, featureless, uniform ball of rock with no atmosphere. We have an ocean-atmosphere system which functions as a tremendous heat pump, and heat naturally moves from where there's more of it to where there's less of it. What we end up with is a system made mostly of (chaotic approximations to...) harmonic oscillators, with negative-feedback features that tend to damp down extremes.
Think of it as something like a heavy weight on a spring, and the amount of energy in the system is analogous to how hard you pull on the spring. At some point, if you apply too much force, the spring will deform or snap; this is what will happen when too much incoming energy is trapped and the capacities of the planet's natural heatsinks--the cryosphere and the ocean itself--are exceeded. We're already seeing extreme oscillations, and the jetstream and ocean currents are being affected. When that system "snaps," say when the Gulf Stream shuts off, change will happen chaotically, violently, and above all *quickly.*
Yes, Europe may very well experience a localized Ice Age while most or all of the rest of the planet cools--remember that Britain is at the same latitude as *Siberia* and Rome is about level with New York City. The Gulf Stream shuttles huge amounts of heat from the tropics up to Europe. THAT is how you get a (local) Ice Age in the middle of global warming; the total heat energy budget is higher, it's just not getting any of it moved north to Europe any longer. It won't disappear. If the Gulf Stream shuts down, you can expect blasphemously-huge hurricanes, among other phenomena.
I know you're not going to read this, that you wouldn't recognize a heat engine if it fell on your empty head, but again, it's not for you; it's for anyone who stumbles on your idiotic trolling. It's worth the effort. Someone who might have become that little bit more ignorant or apathetic instead receives a quick capsule summary of climate dynamics, and instead becomes more aware of how the world they live in works.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @12:39PM (1 child)
So, global warming theory predicts the exact same thing as the cyclical ice age theory.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 09 2019, @01:04AM
No? Global warming predicts that one consequence in the short to medium term is powerful *localized* cooling. The planet's energy budget is still going up, it's just possible that a few specific places won't immediately see it. Energy moves, and one such way it moves in the current milieu is a big northward heat pump called the Gulf Stream. Shut that down, and ALL that heat stays in the tropics.
When we get to the point where the entire planet *does* start uniformly warming, we are irrevocably screwed, because that means every single moderating negative feedback provided by the ocean-atmosphere system has been overwhelmed.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...