Showing posts with label record snowfall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label record snowfall. Show all posts

07 April 2012

And The Answer Is ... UPDATED

www.ktuu.com
Anchorage has surpassed a 57 year old record for snowfall in one season.  The old record of 132.6 inches occured in 1954-1955.  But with a total of 134.5 inches as of 8 pm Saturday, the winter of 2011-2012 is now the snowiest winter on record in Anchorage.

We're Just Waiting to Hear By How Much

We've smashed the old record for total seasonal snowfall; it's been snowing steadily most of the day.

In the last 90 minutes, a heavy band of snow has moved in, along with a drop in temperature. The white stuff began piling up immediately, and we've got at least three inches of fresh snow in our front yard.

The old record didn't get broken ... it got smashed. Every additional flake is a new record now. The old record, set the year I was born, is now the second snowiest winter.

And now? We're all perfectly willing to watch it melt.

06 January 2012

Active Weather Weekend



AccuHunch WeatherGuess is telling us there are several large winter storms moving in this general direction.

Valdez, on the southern coast along the Gulf of Alaska, has been getting snow by the foot. Anchorage is already at the six-foot mark on snowfall, which is several inches above average. We got 5" last night.

AccuHunch says we'll get 4" to 8" more this weekend; the western storm shown in red (above) will be here tomorrow.  At least I won't have to go out in the wee hours & clean off the cars. Kind of nice to sleep in during a snowstorm.

05 November 2011

This is how Ice Ages begin



By Robert W. Felix
November 4, 2011
http://iceagenow.info/

Look at this weekend’s Halloween snowstorm. Headlines across the U.S.A. called it “historic.” Historic because it dumped record snowfall on at least 20 cities from Maryland to Maine. Historic because it was the most snow – and the earliest – in many areas since the end of the Civil War.

And we’re not talking mere tenths-of-an-inch here. This snowfall shattered the old records, it obliterated them.

The 14.6 inches of snow that fell in Worcester, Mass., almost doubled its previous single-day October record of 7.5 inches set in 1979, while Hartford’s 12.3 inches crushed the previous single-day October record of 1.7 inches, seven times more than its earlier record.

But with 32 inches (81 cm) of snow, Peru, Massachusetts, won the prize. Two-and-a-half feet! Waist deep! Before Halloween!

This is how ice ages begin.

Not by huge glaciers slowly grinding out of the north, not by temperatures plunging to Siberian levels, but by more and more snow.

Unfortunately, we’re getting that snow.

According to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, three of the four snowiest winters in the Northern Hemisphere have occurred in the last four years.

Three of the four snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters have occurred since 2008. http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1

Look at last winter.

Last year’s blizzard-filled winter and unusually cold, wet spring left record snowpack at more than 90 measuring sites across the western United States.

By Memorial Day, epic snowpack had been reported in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and California.

On California’s Mammoth Mountain, the snowpack measured an incredible 728 percent of normal.

At Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort, snow totals reached 650 inches, far eclipsing the previous record of 606 inches.

In Washington, Crystal Mountain broke its all-time snowfall record for the second time in only 11 years.

And the snow kept coming. In early June, Utah’s Snowbird ski resort reported snowpack at 525 percent of normal

“There are places on the mountain that will probably retain snow all summer long,” said Emily Moench, Sunbird’s communications manager.

Read that again. “There are places on the mountain that will probably retain snow all summer long”!

This is how ice ages begin!

And lest we forget, just a few months ago the Missouri River suffered its second 500-year flood in 15 years. Why? Because of heavy rains and melting record snowpack.

But the news gets even worse.

Glaciers are growing in the United States.

Even though last winter’s historic snowpack has not yet melted, new snow is already piling up in the Rocky Mountains.

In Montana’s Glacier National Park, in Colorado’s Front Range, in Wyoming’s Grand Tetons, the glaciers and snowfields are actually gaining volume.

When Bob Comey, director of the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center, compared photographs of Wyoming mountain peaks, he found “significantly” more ice in the Teton Range compared with two years ago.

“I’ve never seen a season with a gain like we’ve seen this summer,” said Comey.

And when scientist Nel Caine checked on Arikaree Glacier 20 miles west of Boulder, Colorado, he measured between 2 and 3 feet of snow from last winter and spring still remaining in late September.

Meanwhile, scientists have measured a “very modest” increase on Sperry Glacier in Montana’s Glacier National Park.

Mind you, these are not the only glaciers growing in the United States. Glaciers are also growing in California, Alaska and Washington state.

This is how ice ages begin.

And our leaders keep screaming about global warming.

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Editor's Note: This applies to the UK as well and, of course, the entire northern hemisphere.
-- Alan Caruba