'Snowmageddon' : Mid-Atlantic Shuts Down Ahead of Huge Snow Warning

[steven johnson]

Source: Associated Press

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 6, 2010
Filed at 1:51 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Life in the nation's capital ground to a halt Friday as steady snow fell, the beginning of a storm that forecasters said could be the biggest for the city in modern history.

A record 2 1/2 feet or more was predicted for Washington. More than 8 inches had already fallen in some D.C. areas by midnight and 10 inches was reported in Pittsburgh as the blizzard blew into the Mid-Atlantic region, reducing visibility. Big amounts of snow were expected throughout the region.

The region's second snowstorm in less than two months could be ''extremely dangerous,'' the National Weather Service said. Meteorologist Kevin Whitt in Sterling, Va., said 4 inches had fallen in the Baltimore area and forecasters expect snowfall rates to increase overnight, up to 2 inches per hours, until daybreak.

Airlines canceled flights, schools closed and the federal government sent workers home, where they could be stuck for several days in a region ill-equipped to deal with so much snow. Some area hospitals asked people with four-wheel-drive vehicles to volunteer to pick up doctors and nurses to take them to work.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/06/us/AP-US-Winter-Weather.html?_r=1&ref=news

[RubyDuby in GA]

1. Did anyone hear the flaming idiot on the Weather Channel this morning blaming this on Obama?

That's right. She actually said that people are blaming this on President Obama because last year he kidded the people of DC that they couldn't handle a little snow like the people of Chicago could.

Un-freaking-believable! It's one thing to blame the ineffective response of natural disasters on a stupid president who didn't respond for days on end and went to eat cake with an asshole from Arizona, but it is entirely ludicrous to blame someone for record amounts of snow. I think I'll blame Obama for me being "Rubenesque" and short.


On edit:
p.s. We would love to have some of this snow down South. We're sick to death of rain!

[tomm2thumbs]

2. egawd - what a dolt

keep that idiot away from a lightning storm - she's one in a million and you know how that goes

[Cha]

3. She's highlighting the stupidity of people ..is that

what they pay her for at the weather channel?

What's her name..she should hear from people?

[gristy]

4. Blaming what on Obama?

[RubyDuby in GA]

11. The massive blizzard.

Personally, I would rather have the power of fire, but snow is cool.

[gristy]

19. A public media person blaming the President for the weather?

That just makes no sense. Surely the media person was misunderstood?

[bread_and_roses]

24. Robert Frost on that:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost

[twitomy]

5. Sounds just as stupid as Danny Glover

blaming the Haiti earthquake on the lack global warming summit..

One thing about "nuts"; they come in all different shapes and sizes...

[KamaAina]

8. Aww, don't blame Obama

some of us like Rubenesque and short. :loveya:

[RubyDuby in GA]

10. .

:hug:

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. "We're sick to death of rain!"

I like to think of our rain as pre-melted snow.}(

[RubyDuby in GA]

13. Oh no! If it's going to be wet, I want the whole package.

Besides, people look at you funny if you stand in your front yard in the pouring rain. They tend to overlook it if you are standing in the falling snow.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. good point.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

23. she should be fired and hung for treason

[24601]

33. Treason? Read up on the Constitution - not only the definition of

Treason, but that pesky 1st Amendment.

So, as you have placed politics above the constitution, I'll defend it.

There is no clear and present danger blaming the President for the weather now, is there? If you say there is, then let me grab a beer and sit back because I love comedy.

One also could look at it this way for humor:

1. The President is battling Global Warming isn't he?
2. So, is he just ineffective, or complicit? You can't have it both ways.

Now, take a deep breath and chill out. It just doesn't fucking matter what's said on TWC.

[barb162]

27. Oooh, an idiot deluxe. n/t

[sakabatou]

32. Really?

Asshat.

[tom_paine]

6. "Snowmageddon"? Our National Dialogue is infantile and ridiculous. n/t

[KamaAina]

7. "Snowpocalypse" was already taken

by the storm in December. :eyes:

[MiniMe]

16. I like SnowMyGoodness personally

And living in the DC area, I can tell you it is a mess. I shoveled the walks, but I'm hunkered down in the house now.

[Posteritatis]

18. "Arctocalypse" flows better wanyway. (nt)

[ThomThom]

9. Does this mean god is listening to Obama and not the republicans?

;-)

[madrchsod]

14. it`s not the amount of snow that is the problem....

it`s how fast it melts

[DCBob]

15. Except for the crazy snow ball fight at Dupont Circle.

:)

[TrogL]

17. Welcome to global warming - it's not that the weather gets warmer, it gets crazier

[gristy]

20. Well, no. It does mean that the weather gets warmer.

I certainly wish that it didn't. But it does.

[tavalon]

26. Global climate change, actually

The overall is warmer but tell that one to Great Britain if the gulf stream decides to stall. They are going to go into an ice age and surprisingly quickly if the scientists are right.

[ronnie624]

30. Both, actually.

Global warming translates into a more energetic atmosphere, thus more erratic and potentially more violent weather patterns. Some places will, initially, according to very sophisticated computer models, become very cold.

The climate of the Earth is a result of so many different complex interactions that it is difficult to predict exactly what the effect of adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will be. However, computer climate models have become much more realistic and sophisticated, reproducing past and present behaviour more and more accurately. Nearly all scientists studying the problem agree that the effect will be an increase in average temperatures. This is already happening – the graph on the left indicates that the Earth is now warmer than at any time for thousands of years. The graph on the right zooms in on the past 150 years, for which we have more accurate records. There has been a significant rise of about 0.8 °C in average temperatures over the last 100 years. Although 0.8 °C does not sound like a very big rise, it has already had clear effects that will be mentioned below. In the 20th century the steady rise was interrupted from about 1950 to 1980, and this is believed to be due to variations in the energy output of the sun and also ash from volcanoes. Since the mid-1990s we have had 11 of the warmest years on record.

Global warming does not mean that each year will always be warmer than the previous year. This can be seen clearly in the right-hand graph below. The reason is that there are also short-term world-wide climate fluctuations. The best-known and understood of these is due to temperature changes in the surface waters of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean and is called El Niño (warm) and La Niña (cold). These cause some years to be unusually warm or cold, as well as being associated with floods, droughts, and other disturbances around the world. Other "oscillation" effects, notably in the North Atlantic, must still be verified and understood; in some cases they may even lead to as much as a decade or more of apparent cooling. In terms of global warming, this means that what is important is the long term trend, not whether one specific year or a few years in a row are unusually cold or hot.

*********
Currents of warm water near the surface of the ocean transport heat from tropical regions northwards, and deeper currents of cold water flow from the north to the tropics. This large-scale circulation, due to differences in temperature and salinity, is known as the thermohaline circulation. The best-known segment is the Gulf Stream, which helps keep north-western Europe warmer than would otherwise be expected for its latitude. The Gulf Stream is driven by dense, cold, salty water sinking at the northern end. Global warming causes more ice in the Arctic to melt, and this would add a lot of less dense fresh water to this flow. There are worries that this could slow or even stop the circulation system. There are indications that this has probably happened in the past, triggered quite suddenly. The consequences of losing the Gulf Stream would include colder and more violent weather over much of northern Europe. So far, evidence that this might already be happening is unclear, and we do not know yet how serious the threat is.

<http://www.blewbury.co.uk/energy/warming.htm>

[Elmore Furth]

22. Computer simulations predicted more violent storms and increased precipitation with global warming

At the present rate of global warming NASA'a JPS simulation predicted that the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade. They also predicted an increase in the global rain rate of 1.5 percent per decade over 18 years.

It could get funky out there.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227214927.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070830105911.htm

[Jamastiene]

28. It's almost like our future is going to be that Waterworld movie.

I'm not looking forward to that world. :scared:

[Abq_Sarah]

31. Because the climate has been stable until the last 100 years?

[greenman3610]

21. global weirding

warmer air
more moisture
larger precipitation events

[Ghost Dog]

29. global weirding

- now there's a term I like. Very descriptive and evocative.