In blizzard's icy wake, intense cold grips U.S. Northeast

[rooster59]

In blizzard's icy wake, intense cold grips U.S. Northeast

By Scott Malone and Gina Cherelus

 

People push a bus on an icy road in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. this still image taken from a January 4, 2018 social media video. Karen Lyons Clauson/via REUTERS

 

BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Street crews dug out snow-clogged roads across the U.S. Northeast on Friday after a powerful blizzard, with temperatures set to plunge further during a brutal cold spell that has already killed at least 18 people.

 

From Baltimore to Caribou, Maine, workers battled to clear snow and ice as wind chills were forecast to fall as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius) in some areas after sundown, according to the National Weather Service.

 

In the latest fatality blamed on the harsh conditions, a driver slid off an icy road, killing a pedestrian, early on Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, city officials said.

 

"THE DANGERS ARE REAL," the officials warned in a Twitter message. "Huge patches of ice all over the city. Stay at home."

 

The 17-year-old driver was arrested on charges of going too fast for the conditions and driving without a license, police spokesman Spencer Pryor said in an email.

 

The fierce cold will reach from New England to the Midwest and down to the Carolinas, forecasters warned, adding that low-temperature records could be broken across the region over the coming days.

 

In much of New England on Friday, the highs reached only into the single digits or teens Fahrenheit, with intense wind chills, said Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with private forecasting service AccuWeather.

 

"It can be very dangerous," Pydynowski said. "Any kind of exposed skin can freeze in a couple of minutes." Wind chill describes the combined effect of wind and low temperatures on bare skin.

 

There were noticeably fewer tourists on Friday afternoon in New York City's Times Square, which is usually thronged with visitors from countries around the world.

 

Arjun Shah, a 22-year-old Briton, studies in Indiana but had never visited the U.S. East Coast before. He flew in to New York City, where temperatures have been below freezing since Christmas Day, just 24 hours before the blizzard struck.

 

"Oh it's so bad! It's not this bad in London," Shah said, shivering while taking a break from snapping photos of the square. "It's my first time experiencing minus 10 degrees C." (14F).

 

FROZEN MONUMENTS

 

In Washington, bundled-up tourists ventured onto the frozen Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial before being shooed away by a National Park Service ranger.

 

The memorial, also normally busy with visitors, was mostly vacant with temperatures in the teens and bone-chilling winds that sent American flags whipping straight out from their poles.

 

"I don't think I've felt this cold, ever," exclaimed Zoie Irwin, a 19-year-old student from San Francisco State University as she huddled with friends.

 

At the nearby National World War II Memorial, Varun Solipuram, a 31-year-old native of Hyderabad, India, who studies in California, said he was taken aback by the spectacle of the snow in the bright winter sun.

 

"It's really beautiful," Solipuram said. "This is something exciting for me."

 

The storm that swept in on Thursday with gusts of more than 70 miles per hour (113 km per hour), dumped a foot (30 cm) or more of snow throughout the region, including Boston and parts of New Jersey and Maine, before ending early Friday.

 

The harsh conditions were powered by a rapid plunge in barometric pressure that some weather forecasters called a bombogenesis, or a "bomb cyclone."

 

The weather has been blamed for at least 18 deaths in the past few days, including four in North Carolina traffic accidents and three in Texas.

 

The frigid spell also had some unusual effects: cold-shocked iguanas fell out of trees in Florida, while wildlife officials in the state said they had rescued more than 200 stunned sea turtles from freezing waters.

 

Children in Boston and Baltimore enjoyed a second day of canceled classes, while New York schools stayed open. Schools in Newark, New Jersey, opened two hours later than normal.

 

Commuters riding the railways serving New York and Boston's suburbs endured extensive delays as crews worked to repair frozen equipment and clear snow-covered tracks.

 

New York's John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports resumed flights on Friday after closing during whiteout conditions the day before. More than 1,300 U.S. flights were canceled by Friday afternoon, most of them at the New York area's three major airports and Boston Logan International Airport.

 

Nearly 500 members of the National Guard were activated to assist with the emergency response along the East Coast, including 200 in New York state, authorities said.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-01-06

[Credo]

With the current mess of cold weather, it should also be noted that the Boston high tide that brought such a mess to the city is a record:

 

It’s official: Boston breaks tide record

It’s official: Boston has broken its record for its highest tide ever recorded, the National Weather Service says.

 

The weather service says the tide reached 15.16 feet in the city Thursday. The old record was 15.1 feet during the Blizzard of 1978.

 

The agency, which began recording tide levels in 1921, said Thursday it appeared that the record might have been broken, but that it needed to be confirmed. The confirmation came Friday morning from the National Ocean Service.

 

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/01/05/official-boston-breaks-tide-record/UPbwDxgF0QXNOWvB9bcQ7L/story.html

[RickBradford]

Meanwhile, Al Gore has surfaced from the global warming witness protection program to regale us with this:

 

"It’s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis"

 

Too bad he forgot to mention that in his sci-fi epic An Inconvenient Truth or even mention it in 2009 when we learned that: "Gore Reports Snow and Ice Across the World Vanishing Quickly.”

[geriatrickid]

8 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Meanwhile, Al Gore has surfaced from the global warming witness protection program to regale us with this:

 

"It’s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis"

 

Too bad he forgot to mention that in his sci-fi epic An Inconvenient Truth or even mention it in 2009 when we learned that: "Gore Reports Snow and Ice Across the World Vanishing Quickly.”

The fact is that weather extremes are a part of the  misnamed global warming condition.

There is no point in denying established data.

[ilostmypassword]

8 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

The fact is that weather extremes are a part of the  misnamed global warming condition.

There is no point in denying established data.

In fact, "established data" disprove your contention. Ifhot and cold weather extremes were part of some sort of equilibrium, then we would expect records to be set at an equal level for both hot and cold. But in fact, hot weather records are massively outpacing cold weather records. W:hat's more, over time since that "established database" gets bigger,, we would expect less and less hot weather records to be set. The opposite is the case.

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-hot-weather-worldwide.html

[boomerangutang]

34 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Meanwhile, Al Gore has surfaced from the global warming witness protection program to regale us with this:

"It’s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis"

Too bad he forgot to mention that in his sci-fi epic An Inconvenient Truth or even mention it in 2009 when we learned that: "Gore Reports Snow and Ice Across the World Vanishing Quickly.”

Follow the science, and you'll probably find Gore is on the right mark.

[Scott]

A post violating Fair Use Policy has been removed.  

[Ulic]

-28c (still air) in my neck of the woods as I tickle the keyboard. The temperature is forecast to drop another couple of degrees still. Here the long-range forecast the temperatures will not go above the freezing mark until February 7th. Even then, the forecast is for only +1. 

 

[attrayant]

Some of us cite the primary research in support of climate science, while others have nothing left in their bag of shopworn canards except taking pot-shots at Al Gore for a decade-old movie.  Ridiculing Gore is about as productive as poking fun at Christopher Monckton (on the denier's side).  They're both media personalities who are giving us their opinions.  Neither are climate scientists, which means their opinions are as authoritative as any of those posted by us, here in these forums.

[RickBradford]

^^

Excuse me, but Al Gore is not simply a "media personality" offering his "opinions". This wretched film was shown as part of the school curriculum in  the UK and 50,000 free copies were offered in the US to school administrators.

 

Could you point me to the "primary research in support of climate science" cited by you in this thread? I must have missed it.

[attrayant]

2 hours ago, RickBradford said:

This wretched film was shown as part of the school curriculum in  the UK and 50,000 free copies were offered in the US to school administrators.

 

Then criticize that decision by the school board, if it makes you feel any better.  But you're still not touching the central issue by doing any of this.

 

2 hours ago, RickBradford said:

Could you point me to the "primary research in support of climate science" cited by you in this thread? I must have missed it.

 

Why does it have to be just this thread?  When I say "Some of us cite the primary research in support of climate science", I am speaking in general and thinking about the last dozen or so times this topic has risen from the grave and wandered about, zombie-like, feeding on the brains of the gullible.  There is another thread running on the same topic, and we've done this to death in the past.  The next time I make an unsupported claim, feel free call me on it as long as you don't mind me doing the same with you.

[RickBradford]

7 minutes ago, attrayant said:

Why does it have to be just this thread?  When I say "Some of us cite the primary research in support of climate science", I am speaking in general and thinking about the last dozen or so times this topic has risen from the grave and wandered about, zombie-like, feeding on the brains of the gullible.

Oh, I see. Fair enough.

 

Well, many of the climate skeptics on here post peer-reviewed science as well.

 

Why, only this morning on the other thread on this topic, I posted a fine bit of peer-reviewed science on the need for climate policy to include marginalised people, and the only response I got from the SJW-type zealots was that it was "tripe". Most distressing, as you can imagine.

 

I think peer review one of those irregular verbs:

 

I read peer-reviewed science;

You are fed misinformation;

He is an evil climate denier.

[ilostmypassword]

6 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Oh, I see. Fair enough.

 

Well, many of the climate skeptics on here post peer-reviewed science as well.

 

Why, only this morning on the other thread on this topic, I posted a fine bit of peer-reviewed science on the need for climate policy to include marginalised people, and the only response I got from the SJW-type zealots was that it was "tripe". Most distressing, as you can imagine.

 

I think peer review one of those irregular verbs:

 

I read peer-reviewed science;

You are fed misinformation;

He is an evil climate denier.

Nice try at misdirection. It was a sociological study that was being financed by the Australians. Nothing to do with climate science per se.  You know, I plan to go on checking your falsehoods and distortion just as long as you keep pitching them.

[RickBradford]

Quote

Nothing to do with climate science per se. 

I have stated several times that the paper was about climate policy, which was also a topic of the OP on that thread.

 

Quote

You know, I plan to go on checking your falsehoods and distortion just as long as you keep pitching them.

Only you can decide the most valuable way to spend your time.

[metisdead]

An off topic trolling post has been removed as well as a reply. 

[dunroaming]

I used to live in Boston in the 80's and my god it could get to be very cold!  Certainly record breaking now it's forecast to be minus 45 degrees, the coldest ever. 

 

Thank god climate change is only a myth!

[Jdietz]

The cold is so bad, that the news had to do a fluff piece about the Great Barrier Reef (dying out because of global warming of course, since then quite recovered thank you very much) before reporting on it.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Jdietz

[sirineou]

11 minutes ago, dunroaming said:

I used to live in Boston in the 80's and my god it could get to be very cold!  Certainly record breaking now it's forecast to be minus 45 degrees, the coldest ever. 

 

Thank god climate change is only a myth!

Please don't confuse weather with climate. 

[ilostmypassword]

5 minutes ago, Jdietz said:

The cold is so bad, that the news had to do a fluff piece about the Great Barrier Reef (dying out because of global warming of course, since then quite recovered thank you very much) before reporting on it.

Yes. Another media conspiracy.

"Tropical reef systems are transitioning to a new era in which the interval between recurrent bouts of coral bleaching is too short for a full recovery of mature assemblages.. The median return time between pairs of severe bleaching events has diminished steadily since 1980 and is now only 6 years. As global warming has progressed, tropical sea surface temperatures are warmer now during current La Niña conditions than they were during El Niño events three decades ago."

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/80

 

"While many mass bleachings were prompted by El Niño events, which tends to warm Pacific Ocean temperatures, the bleaching event that hit the Great Barrier Reef in 2017 — the reef’s first back-to-back bleaching — occurred at the beginning of a La Niña event, when ocean waters should have been cooler." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/climate/coral-reefs-bleaching.html