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'Historic' Winter Storm Could Bring up to 2 Feet of Snow to Central and Western USA

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @02:29PM   
from the Brrrr! dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/09/winter-storm-aubrey-historic-snow-cold-forecast-central-us/3918343002/

A "potentially historic" winter storm will slam the north-central USA over the next few days with up to 2 feet of snow possible in some areas.

Snow will accumulate from eastern Washington and Montana to Colorado, the Dakotas, Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, the Weather Channel said. Record low temperatures are also possible Thursday and Friday across the western USA.

The system will produce severe storms and heavy rain Thursday in the southern Plains and critical-to-extreme fire weather threats from the central and southern Rockies to California, the National Weather Service said.

The size and intensity of this snowstorm are unheard of for October, according to AccuWeather.

[...] A slew of winter storm warnings, watches and freeze warnings were in effect across parts of seven states as the storm ramped up Wednesday, AccuWeather said.

[...] The storm will have two parts, the first of which is targeting the northern and central Rockies and High Plains on Wednesday into Thursday. The second part will bring snow to the eastern and central portions of the Dakotas and western Minnesota by week's end.

"Near-blizzard to full-fledged blizzard conditions are possible across portions of central North Dakota Friday afternoon into Saturday morning," the weather service in Bismarck said. "Expect high impacts and dangerous to impossible travel conditions."

The weather service called it a "potentially historic October winter storm."

Meanwhile, locations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, and Australia (among others) reported temperatures well over 100°F (38 C)!

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Original Submission

• Re:Bring on the snow! Re:Bring on the snow! (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @07:52PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @07:52PM (#906015)

  Decades of NASA data show the Earth is warming. According to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, the Earth has warmed about 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 40 years. But the poles are warming even faster; the Arctic has warmed by more than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the same time period.

  https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warmingpoles.html [nasa.gov]

  So we observe 2.4x faster when we would expect about 3-4x just from basic algebra and geometry. That means something may actually be reducing the gradient, transporting energy away from the poles.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	0		points
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• Re:Bring on the snow! Re:Bring on the snow! (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @09:01PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @09:01PM (#906047)

  Yes. It's called the atmosphere and the ocean.

  Parent

  • Re:Bring on the snow! (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @10:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @10:07PM (#906073)

    The parent apparently thinks energy was being (net) transported to the poles via the atmosphere and oceans. This indicates the opposite is happening (or some other assumption is wrong, eg CO2 is not actually well-mixed).

    Parent

• Re:Bring on the snow! (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:13AM

  by khallow (3766) on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:13AM (#906197) Journal

  My take is albedo change from less snow cover.

  Parent