From Ed Rendell's Washington Times Editorial (Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania)
"First, to call off this game because of snow is further evidence of the "wussification" of America. We seem to have lost our boldness, our courage, our sense of adventure and that frontier spirit that made this country the greatest nation in the world. A little snow, a potential traffic tie-up, a long trip home caused us to cancel a football game? Will Bunch, a writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, said that if football were played in China, 60,000 Chinese would have walked through the snow to the stadium doing advanced calculus as they did so. He's probably right, and it's no secret why the Chinese are dominating on the world stage."
Thank God Someone Said It!!!
BB
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Hard to Believe This Cyclone Caused So Much Flooding
Ragedy looking TC "Tasha" caused large-scale flooding in Queensland. Didn't look that bad from space.
Scotland Comes to Ireland's Aid
Did you ever think you would see a "water-shortage" in Ireland, one of the wettest places I have ever been to, personally. - HLG
Scotland sends bottled water to Northern Ireland
Water from bottling plants in Banff and Forfar will be loaded onto the Larne ferry later on Wednesday.
The move follows an agreement between the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The delivery of about 160,000 litres of bottled water is being carried out by Scottish Water.
Scotland Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Keith Brown said the Scottish government was pleased to be able to offer the support to Northern Ireland.
"Scotland understands only too well the impact of severe winter weather on households and infrastructure. At a time when 40,000 households across Northern Ireland are without water supplies we are pleased to be able to extend this support to a friend and neighbour in need," he said.
"The continuing thaw has seen a four-fold increase in calls to Scottish Water from householders and businesses dealing with burst pipes in Scotland."
'Full capacity'
Peter Farrer, Scottish Water's customer service delivery director, said the support provided to Northern Ireland would not hamper efforts to deal with Scotland's own water problems.
"We understand completely that homes and businesses in Scotland are without water because of leaking or burst pipes, however this helping hand to our neighbours will not affect our service to our customers in Scotland," he said.
"We have been working at full capacity for several days, and drafting in extra resources to deal with the impact of the extreme weather in Scotland. This has involved responding to leaks, delivering bottled water and providing advice.
"None of this frontline response will be diverted in Scotland to handle this request. Neither will it impact on our ability to deal with any water supply issues that arise in Scotland.
"We are confident that Scottish Water customers will appreciate that the situation in Northern Ireland is truly exceptional and that it is right that any assistance available is offered."
Scotland sends bottled water to Northern Ireland
Water from bottling plants in Banff and Forfar will be loaded onto the Larne ferry later on Wednesday.
The move follows an agreement between the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The delivery of about 160,000 litres of bottled water is being carried out by Scottish Water.
Scotland Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Keith Brown said the Scottish government was pleased to be able to offer the support to Northern Ireland.
"Scotland understands only too well the impact of severe winter weather on households and infrastructure. At a time when 40,000 households across Northern Ireland are without water supplies we are pleased to be able to extend this support to a friend and neighbour in need," he said.
"The continuing thaw has seen a four-fold increase in calls to Scottish Water from householders and businesses dealing with burst pipes in Scotland."
'Full capacity'
Peter Farrer, Scottish Water's customer service delivery director, said the support provided to Northern Ireland would not hamper efforts to deal with Scotland's own water problems.
"We understand completely that homes and businesses in Scotland are without water because of leaking or burst pipes, however this helping hand to our neighbours will not affect our service to our customers in Scotland," he said.
"We have been working at full capacity for several days, and drafting in extra resources to deal with the impact of the extreme weather in Scotland. This has involved responding to leaks, delivering bottled water and providing advice.
"None of this frontline response will be diverted in Scotland to handle this request. Neither will it impact on our ability to deal with any water supply issues that arise in Scotland.
"We are confident that Scottish Water customers will appreciate that the situation in Northern Ireland is truly exceptional and that it is right that any assistance available is offered."
Gosh-darn Global Warming!
If the US East Coast gets any warmer, we won't be able to shovel the snow from the runways fast enough! - HLG
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
New York Times Blames Blizzard on Global Warming!
Even Al Gore doesn't have the stones to make that claim!
A Blizzard of Lies in The New York Times By Alan Caruba Sunday, December 26, 2010
“Bundle Up. It’s Global Warming” – December 26, 2010, New York Times opinion article by Judah Cohen.
It’s Orwellian when cold is declared warmth. It’s deceitful and insulting when it occurs in the midst of a huge blizzard shutting down much of the northeast.
I would not even trust the date on the front page of The New York Times because the newspaper long ago lost touch with reality, with sanity, and, one can only assume, readers fleeing to other sources for the news.
When the oft-called “newspaper of record” chooses a day on which Mother Nature is demonstrating what tons of snow and chill air can do to a huge swath of the nation’s northeast with effects reaching Tallahassee, they are either trying to see just how stupid their readers are or doubling down on the global warming hoax they have disseminated since Jim Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute declared we’re all doomed back in 1988.
If you want a lesson in Orwell’s “doublethink”, the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts or ideas at the same time, you need only read the first line of Cohen’s article: “The earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside.” In other words, who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?
Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm
Judah Cohen is identified as “the director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm.” No further details are offered such as the name of the firm or Cohen’s academic credentials. Is he a meteorologist? If so, he is one of the worst I have ever encountered.
It happens that I know quite a few meteorologists and climate scientists. One of them is Joseph D’Aleo, an American Meteorological Society Fellow, and editor of a science-based Internet site, Ice Cap. Suffice to say, D’Aleo has been one of a hardy band of skeptics that have countered the global warming hoax with hard science, frequently dissecting the bogus “science” put forth by government agencies including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and other such sources.
Why We Need a New Global Data Set
In an article titled “Why We Need a New Global Data Set”, D’Aleo wrote the following:
“As I showed in the first analysis, the long term global temperature trends in their data bases have been shown by numerous peer review papers to be exaggerated by 30% to 50% and in some cases much more by issues such as uncorrected urbanization (urban heat island), land use changes, bad siting, bad instrumentation, and ocean measurement techniques that changed over time.”
“NOAA made matters worse by removing the satellite ocean temperature measurement which provide more complete coverage and was not subject to the local issues except near the coastlines and islands.”
‘The result has been the absurd and bogus claims by NOAA and the alarmists that we are in the warmest decade in 100 or even a 1000 years or more and our oceans are warmest ever.”
While Cohen is parroting the World Meteorological Organization’s latest claim that “2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record” in England, the Daily Mail was reporting on December 5 that “Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.”
This parallels the weather occurring now in the U.S. where new low temperature records are being set while cities like Columbia, S.C., had its first significant Christmas snow since weather records were first kept in 1887!
Suffice to say that Cohen’s article repeats the usual blather about melting Artic sea ice while waiting until the very end to admit that “the Eastern United States, North Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinary snowy and cold winters since the turn of the century.”
World Meteorological Organization, a creature of the United Nations
A word to all who did not study meteorology; the World Meteorological Organization, a creature of the United Nations is also the mother ship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC, responsible for the Kyoto Protocols that called for limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, was totally discredited in 2009 when the exchange of thousands of emails revealed its chief perpetrators of the global warming hoax were manipulating the climate data it reported.
To trust the WMO or IPCC at this point in time is futile and dangerous. To trust the garbage coming out of NOAA, GISS and other government entities purporting to predict the climate is also to trust the Environmental Protection Agency that will announce in January 2011 its plans to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, claiming they are “causing” a global warming that is not happening.
Americans are being deliberately misled by rogue government agencies with no scientific justification for their continued existence.
As for The New York Times, it is unfit to line the bottom of a canary’s birdcage.
A Blizzard of Lies in The New York Times By Alan Caruba Sunday, December 26, 2010
“Bundle Up. It’s Global Warming” – December 26, 2010, New York Times opinion article by Judah Cohen.
It’s Orwellian when cold is declared warmth. It’s deceitful and insulting when it occurs in the midst of a huge blizzard shutting down much of the northeast.
I would not even trust the date on the front page of The New York Times because the newspaper long ago lost touch with reality, with sanity, and, one can only assume, readers fleeing to other sources for the news.
When the oft-called “newspaper of record” chooses a day on which Mother Nature is demonstrating what tons of snow and chill air can do to a huge swath of the nation’s northeast with effects reaching Tallahassee, they are either trying to see just how stupid their readers are or doubling down on the global warming hoax they have disseminated since Jim Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute declared we’re all doomed back in 1988.
If you want a lesson in Orwell’s “doublethink”, the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts or ideas at the same time, you need only read the first line of Cohen’s article: “The earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside.” In other words, who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?
Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm
Judah Cohen is identified as “the director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm.” No further details are offered such as the name of the firm or Cohen’s academic credentials. Is he a meteorologist? If so, he is one of the worst I have ever encountered.
It happens that I know quite a few meteorologists and climate scientists. One of them is Joseph D’Aleo, an American Meteorological Society Fellow, and editor of a science-based Internet site, Ice Cap. Suffice to say, D’Aleo has been one of a hardy band of skeptics that have countered the global warming hoax with hard science, frequently dissecting the bogus “science” put forth by government agencies including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and other such sources.
Why We Need a New Global Data Set
In an article titled “Why We Need a New Global Data Set”, D’Aleo wrote the following:
“As I showed in the first analysis, the long term global temperature trends in their data bases have been shown by numerous peer review papers to be exaggerated by 30% to 50% and in some cases much more by issues such as uncorrected urbanization (urban heat island), land use changes, bad siting, bad instrumentation, and ocean measurement techniques that changed over time.”
“NOAA made matters worse by removing the satellite ocean temperature measurement which provide more complete coverage and was not subject to the local issues except near the coastlines and islands.”
‘The result has been the absurd and bogus claims by NOAA and the alarmists that we are in the warmest decade in 100 or even a 1000 years or more and our oceans are warmest ever.”
While Cohen is parroting the World Meteorological Organization’s latest claim that “2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record” in England, the Daily Mail was reporting on December 5 that “Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.”
This parallels the weather occurring now in the U.S. where new low temperature records are being set while cities like Columbia, S.C., had its first significant Christmas snow since weather records were first kept in 1887!
Suffice to say that Cohen’s article repeats the usual blather about melting Artic sea ice while waiting until the very end to admit that “the Eastern United States, North Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinary snowy and cold winters since the turn of the century.”
World Meteorological Organization, a creature of the United Nations
A word to all who did not study meteorology; the World Meteorological Organization, a creature of the United Nations is also the mother ship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC, responsible for the Kyoto Protocols that called for limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, was totally discredited in 2009 when the exchange of thousands of emails revealed its chief perpetrators of the global warming hoax were manipulating the climate data it reported.
To trust the WMO or IPCC at this point in time is futile and dangerous. To trust the garbage coming out of NOAA, GISS and other government entities purporting to predict the climate is also to trust the Environmental Protection Agency that will announce in January 2011 its plans to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, claiming they are “causing” a global warming that is not happening.
Americans are being deliberately misled by rogue government agencies with no scientific justification for their continued existence.
As for The New York Times, it is unfit to line the bottom of a canary’s birdcage.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Maybe Spend Carbon Credit Budget on Fixing This?
Heavy Snow in Paris Forces Canceled Flights and Airport EvacuationsBy Vickie Frantz, AccuWeather.com Staff WriterDec 24, 2010
9:26 AM ET Share |
Charles de Gaulle airport canceled 400 flights on Friday morning and evacuated close to 2,000 people.
Heavy snow on the roof of the airport prompted officials to evacuate one of the terminals The Telegraph reported. Nearly 2 feet of snow was being cleared by emergency workers.
The roof of the terminal had collapsed shortly after being built in 2004, killing four and injuring six others. The weight of the snow raised fears of another collapse.
The airport is also experiencing a shortage of glycol, plane de-icing liquid. The shortage forced the cancellation of 200 arriving and 200 departing flights according to CNN.
Stranded holiday travelers stayed overnight at the airport on Thursday, and the evacuations will compound the travel problems the airport is experiencing.
Paris will have improving weather later today.
"Over the last 24 hours, Paris has received 2 inches of snow," said AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist, Rob Miller. "The snow should taper off and end this evening, Paris local time."
9:26 AM ET Share |
Charles de Gaulle airport canceled 400 flights on Friday morning and evacuated close to 2,000 people.
Heavy snow on the roof of the airport prompted officials to evacuate one of the terminals The Telegraph reported. Nearly 2 feet of snow was being cleared by emergency workers.
The roof of the terminal had collapsed shortly after being built in 2004, killing four and injuring six others. The weight of the snow raised fears of another collapse.
The airport is also experiencing a shortage of glycol, plane de-icing liquid. The shortage forced the cancellation of 200 arriving and 200 departing flights according to CNN.
Stranded holiday travelers stayed overnight at the airport on Thursday, and the evacuations will compound the travel problems the airport is experiencing.
Paris will have improving weather later today.
"Over the last 24 hours, Paris has received 2 inches of snow," said AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist, Rob Miller. "The snow should taper off and end this evening, Paris local time."
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
SAVE NICOLE MITCHELL
Today I was "admiring" Nicole's outfit - and thrilled that she was back at a normal hour (11:00 am CST) so I could "admire" her. Finally - TWC made a good decision. I decided to brag that I could watch Nicole, so I called Klingfree. He ignored my call and let the phone go to his "secretary." So I decided to e-mail him about Nicole.
Then Klingfree promptly e-mailed me back (I knew he was in his office, his secretary said he was "busy with a client." whatever that means). His disturbing news - Nicole is forced off the air after December.
This is wrong, ludicrous, stupid and disgusting. A decision like this would never happen at FWSAAB Studios.
So, Nicole, if those boneheads at TWC want to ruin an already pathetic cable channel - let them. We would love to have you work at FWSAAB full time. In fact, we will give you your own channel - Nicole Mitchell - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Similar to Howard Stern's agreement with Sirius.
FSWAAB - Not just a name but a group of guys devoted to Nicole's well-being and future.
BB
Then Klingfree promptly e-mailed me back (I knew he was in his office, his secretary said he was "busy with a client." whatever that means). His disturbing news - Nicole is forced off the air after December.
This is wrong, ludicrous, stupid and disgusting. A decision like this would never happen at FWSAAB Studios.
So, Nicole, if those boneheads at TWC want to ruin an already pathetic cable channel - let them. We would love to have you work at FWSAAB full time. In fact, we will give you your own channel - Nicole Mitchell - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Similar to Howard Stern's agreement with Sirius.
FSWAAB - Not just a name but a group of guys devoted to Nicole's well-being and future.
BB
Emerald-Isle Nearly Covered in Snow
The latest in the round-robin of western European snowstorms has nearly covered the entire area of Ireland. Hopefully this doesn't lead to a new potato famine! - HLG
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Rare Summer Snows in Australia
Australia Summer Marked By Snow, Heavy Flooding
It may be summertime "down under," but instead of sunshine and warm breezes, Australia has been hit with severe weather conditions, including unseasonable flooding and even a snowstorm, the BBC is reporting.
Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes in the remote town of Carnarvon, some 900 kilometers north of Perth, after a staggering 30 centimeters of rain caused what the Telegraph has called the region's worst flooding in 50 years, damaging crops and cattle stations. Meanwhile, residents in east coast states New South Wales and Victoria experienced a rare "White Christmas"-style start to their holiday week, after a cold spell left up to 10 centimeters of snow covering many of the area's ski resorts, which are usually snow-free this time of year.
"It's white, everything is white," Michelle Lovius, the general manager of the Kosciuszko Chalet Hotel at Charlotte Pass told the AFP. "First thing this morning everything was just very still, very peaceful and every single thing was just blanketed in a thick cover of white." - BBC
It may be summertime "down under," but instead of sunshine and warm breezes, Australia has been hit with severe weather conditions, including unseasonable flooding and even a snowstorm, the BBC is reporting.
Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes in the remote town of Carnarvon, some 900 kilometers north of Perth, after a staggering 30 centimeters of rain caused what the Telegraph has called the region's worst flooding in 50 years, damaging crops and cattle stations. Meanwhile, residents in east coast states New South Wales and Victoria experienced a rare "White Christmas"-style start to their holiday week, after a cold spell left up to 10 centimeters of snow covering many of the area's ski resorts, which are usually snow-free this time of year.
"It's white, everything is white," Michelle Lovius, the general manager of the Kosciuszko Chalet Hotel at Charlotte Pass told the AFP. "First thing this morning everything was just very still, very peaceful and every single thing was just blanketed in a thick cover of white." - BBC
Monday, December 20, 2010
Rare Total Lunar Eclipse on Winter Solstice
Can be seen throught North America, with totality just after midnight (ET) for US, thus falling on the Winter Solstice.
Might Wanna Cancel That Trip to Europe For Xmas
Snow cancels dozens of flights across Europe
20 December 2010
Help Major winter storms cancelled dozens of flights across Europe during one of the busiest times of the year as travellers tried to get to their destinations ahead of the Christmas holidays.
Heavy snow and freezing temperatures forced airlines in France, Belgium and Germany to cancel all or most of their flights.
Flights at the two main airports in Paris have been reduced by 30%. In Frankfurt, many passengers were left stranded
20 December 2010
Help Major winter storms cancelled dozens of flights across Europe during one of the busiest times of the year as travellers tried to get to their destinations ahead of the Christmas holidays.
Heavy snow and freezing temperatures forced airlines in France, Belgium and Germany to cancel all or most of their flights.
Flights at the two main airports in Paris have been reduced by 30%. In Frankfurt, many passengers were left stranded
FAREWELL NASH ROBERTS
Farewell Nash. During Hurricane George, you had a 500 mile landfall prediction error but people still claimed you "nailed it." A great meteorologist.
Obituary posted at WWL
http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Dennis-Woltering-Nash-112165934.html
BB
Obituary posted at WWL
http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Dennis-Woltering-Nash-112165934.html
BB
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Yet another Global Warming Blizzard Paralyzes the Euros
Heavy snow hits air travel, roads across EuropePublished December 18, 2010
| Associated Press
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LONDON – Blizzards and freezing temperatures shut down runways, train tracks and highways across Europe on Saturday, disrupting flights and leaving shivering drivers stranded on roadsides.
Airports in Britain, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark reported cancelations or delays to flights.
London's Gatwick airport reopened late afternoon after 150 employees using dozens of snow plows worked to clear the runway, though officials warned flights would be limited and cancelations likely.
British Airways canceled all short-haul flights from Heathrow airport and said long haul services would not resume before 7 p.m. (1900 GMT, 2 p.m. EST).
"Heathrow is fully operational, but we are expecting more snow and planning for the worst," Europe's busiest airport said in a statement.
YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN One of the World's Biggest Telescopes Is Buried Beneath the South Pole Police Widen Search in New York Beach Bodies Investigation iPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy Madoff Trustee Reaches Reported $7.2B Settlement What the Tax Deal Means to Your Wallet Conditions on U.K. roads were treacherous, Automobile Association official Darron Burness said. "One of the biggest problems is that large amounts of snow are falling very quickly on to frozen surfaces, making driving hazardous," he said.
Hundreds of motorists were left stranded on the major route in northwestern England following a deluge, prompting police patrols to offer food and water to drivers.
In Italy, the Autostrada of the Sun — the country's main north-south highway — was jammed with hundreds of vehicles, whose chilly occupants slept in their cars, vans or trucks. Though snow had mainly cleared or melted early Saturday, the highway was still closed in one direction, with traffic backed up for nearly 25 miles (40 kilometers).
The snowfall also forced high-speed trains to bypass Florence's central Santa Maria Novella station, stopping in suburban stations instead.
Paris was sprinkled with a light coat of snow overnight, as many people prepared to set off on their Christmas vacations. More snow was predicted Saturday, leading civil aviation authorities to cancel 15 percent of flights at Charles de Gaulle airport between 4 p.m. (1500 GMT, 10 a.m. EST) and 11 p.m. (2200 GMT, 5 p.m. EST).
Many flights were also canceled in northeastern France, where snow already blanketed the ground, and services were also canceled at the airports in the cities of Nantes and Rennes.
Significant numbers of domestic and European flights were canceled at Germany's Frankfurt airport as it dealt with the disruption. Germany's railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was pressing into service all the trains it could — though some journeys were subject to delays. "Everything that can roll is rolling," spokesman Holger Auferkamp told the German news agency DAPD.
The icy weather also swept over large parts of Scandinavia, causing problems particularly in Denmark, where dozens of flights were canceled at the airport in Copenhagen. According to Danish news agency Ritzau, train traffic between Denmark and southern Sweden were also disrupted due to track problems, partly due to the snow, forcing passengers to instead take buses between the two countries.
In Sweden, where media reports suggest the country is experiencing the coldest winter weather this early on in the season since the mid-1800's, several road accidents were reported, with more than 20 in the Stockholm area alone.
Retailers said the poor weather would likely dent sales on what it traditionally the busiest shopping weekend before Christmas. London's Brent Cross indoor shopping mall closed its doors early Saturday afternoon.
Elsewhere, a snowman greeted tourists at London's Camden Market, while traders broke up ice and snow with shovels on the cobblestone paths. Two groups of tourists hurled snowballs at each other across the canal on the edge of the market.
Britain may experience its coldest December on record, weather service forecaster Mark Seltzer said.
"Temperatures will struggle to get over freezing and although the snow should ease off tonight, it will return to eastern areas on Sunday," he said.
Police in Leicester, central England, said the snowy weather had helped uncover a cannabis factory in the city. Officers raided the premises after spotting that snow had melted on the building's roof as a result of heat from industrial-strength lights used in the cultivation of the drug.
Horse racing meetings and dozens of soccer games in England and Scotland were called off as a result of the conditions, including a high profile match scheduled for Sunday in London between Chelsea and Manchester United.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12/18/heavy-snow-hits-air-travel-roads-europe/#ixzz18UHLCjNN
| Associated Press
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LONDON – Blizzards and freezing temperatures shut down runways, train tracks and highways across Europe on Saturday, disrupting flights and leaving shivering drivers stranded on roadsides.
Airports in Britain, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark reported cancelations or delays to flights.
London's Gatwick airport reopened late afternoon after 150 employees using dozens of snow plows worked to clear the runway, though officials warned flights would be limited and cancelations likely.
British Airways canceled all short-haul flights from Heathrow airport and said long haul services would not resume before 7 p.m. (1900 GMT, 2 p.m. EST).
"Heathrow is fully operational, but we are expecting more snow and planning for the worst," Europe's busiest airport said in a statement.
YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN One of the World's Biggest Telescopes Is Buried Beneath the South Pole Police Widen Search in New York Beach Bodies Investigation iPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy Madoff Trustee Reaches Reported $7.2B Settlement What the Tax Deal Means to Your Wallet Conditions on U.K. roads were treacherous, Automobile Association official Darron Burness said. "One of the biggest problems is that large amounts of snow are falling very quickly on to frozen surfaces, making driving hazardous," he said.
Hundreds of motorists were left stranded on the major route in northwestern England following a deluge, prompting police patrols to offer food and water to drivers.
In Italy, the Autostrada of the Sun — the country's main north-south highway — was jammed with hundreds of vehicles, whose chilly occupants slept in their cars, vans or trucks. Though snow had mainly cleared or melted early Saturday, the highway was still closed in one direction, with traffic backed up for nearly 25 miles (40 kilometers).
The snowfall also forced high-speed trains to bypass Florence's central Santa Maria Novella station, stopping in suburban stations instead.
Paris was sprinkled with a light coat of snow overnight, as many people prepared to set off on their Christmas vacations. More snow was predicted Saturday, leading civil aviation authorities to cancel 15 percent of flights at Charles de Gaulle airport between 4 p.m. (1500 GMT, 10 a.m. EST) and 11 p.m. (2200 GMT, 5 p.m. EST).
Many flights were also canceled in northeastern France, where snow already blanketed the ground, and services were also canceled at the airports in the cities of Nantes and Rennes.
Significant numbers of domestic and European flights were canceled at Germany's Frankfurt airport as it dealt with the disruption. Germany's railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was pressing into service all the trains it could — though some journeys were subject to delays. "Everything that can roll is rolling," spokesman Holger Auferkamp told the German news agency DAPD.
The icy weather also swept over large parts of Scandinavia, causing problems particularly in Denmark, where dozens of flights were canceled at the airport in Copenhagen. According to Danish news agency Ritzau, train traffic between Denmark and southern Sweden were also disrupted due to track problems, partly due to the snow, forcing passengers to instead take buses between the two countries.
In Sweden, where media reports suggest the country is experiencing the coldest winter weather this early on in the season since the mid-1800's, several road accidents were reported, with more than 20 in the Stockholm area alone.
Retailers said the poor weather would likely dent sales on what it traditionally the busiest shopping weekend before Christmas. London's Brent Cross indoor shopping mall closed its doors early Saturday afternoon.
Elsewhere, a snowman greeted tourists at London's Camden Market, while traders broke up ice and snow with shovels on the cobblestone paths. Two groups of tourists hurled snowballs at each other across the canal on the edge of the market.
Britain may experience its coldest December on record, weather service forecaster Mark Seltzer said.
"Temperatures will struggle to get over freezing and although the snow should ease off tonight, it will return to eastern areas on Sunday," he said.
Police in Leicester, central England, said the snowy weather had helped uncover a cannabis factory in the city. Officers raided the premises after spotting that snow had melted on the building's roof as a result of heat from industrial-strength lights used in the cultivation of the drug.
Horse racing meetings and dozens of soccer games in England and Scotland were called off as a result of the conditions, including a high profile match scheduled for Sunday in London between Chelsea and Manchester United.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12/18/heavy-snow-hits-air-travel-roads-europe/#ixzz18UHLCjNN
Thursday, December 16, 2010
10,000 Accidents on Icy Roads in Atlanta
Atlanta weather | Ice causes havoc on roads
ShareThis E-mail .
By Mike Morris
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Below is a minute-by-minute update on the wintry weather affecting the Atlanta area. Send updates and photos to breakingnews@ajc.com. For a complete list of closings and delays, check wsbtv.com. Follow @ajc and @a ajcwsbtraffic on Twitter. In the morning, AM 750 and now 95.5 FM will have the current conditions.
Enlarge photo Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Mark Jones (left) and Natasha Parrott walk to their home after they abandoned their car on Arnold Mill Road in Woodstock Wednesday evening while the icy temperatures and precipitation combined to make the commute a dangerous trip.
Enlarge photo Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com A motorist waits for a police car after he lost control and collided on Towne Lake Parkway in Woodstock.
Enlarge photo John Spink, jspink@ajc.com A wrecker picks up a disabled vehicle along the Stone Mountain Freeway Thursday morning. Icy conditions existed throughout the metro Atlanta area north of I-20 Thursday morning before dawn where bridges and overpasses were affected by the ice.
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Ice causes havoc on roads
.9:09 a.m.: Temperatures continued to climb on the southside, where it was 53 degrees in Peachtree City, 51 in Newnan and 50 in Jonesboro and at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Not so much, though, in the northern suburbs, where the mercury continued to hover around the freezing mark. At 9 a.m., Gainesville reported 31 degrees with freezing rain, the the temperature was 32 inn Dunwoody and Alpharetta, 33 in Johns Creeek, 34 in Chamblee and Canton and 36 in Marietta.
8:57 a.m.: Several elevated interstate ramps downtown remained closed by ice and wrecks. Those included the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Fulton Street and Central Avenue, the ramp from the Buford Highway Connector southbound to Peachtree Street, the ramp from I-20 west to the southbound Downtown Connector and the ramp from the northbound Downtown Connector to I-20.
8:24 a.m.: Cherokee County sheriff's Lt. Jay Baker told the AJC that many roads in the county were still icy, with some of the back roads being impassable. "Right now, it's still a mess," Baker said. He said there had been about 300 wrecks since the roads began icing on Wednesday, and that deputies had responded to 130 calls from stranded motorists who were not involved in wrecks.
8:04 a.m.: A few miles made a world of difference Thursday morning as a warm front pushed almost balmy air into the southern suburbs, while the northern fringes of metro Atlanta were still at or just below freezing. Temperatures at 8 a.m. included 50 degrees in Newnan and Peachtree City and 45 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Meanwhile, on the northside, the temperature was just 31 in Gainesville and 32 in Dunwoody, Alpharetta and Johns Creek.
7:42 a.m.: A wreck involving a tractor-trailer and three smaller vehicles partially blocked the ramp from I-20 westbound to Windsor Street downtown. The ramp from the Buford Highway Connector to Peachtree Street remained blocked by a crash that also involved four vehicles, and the state Department of Transportation predicted it would be another hour before that ramp reopens. Another crash blocked the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Fulton Street near Turner Field.
7:29 a.m.: The elevated portions of the Buford Highway Connector between I-85 and Midtown continued to be icy after 7 a.m. Wrecks completely shut down the ramps to Peachtree Street and the ramp from West Peachtree Street to the Buford Highway Connector.
7:12 a.m.: The warmer air has reached the southern suburbs, where Peachtree City was reporting 48 degrees and Newnan 50. It was still a different story on the northside, however. The 7 a.m. temperature was 31 degrees in Dunwoody and Gainesville and 32 in Alpharetta and Johns Creek.
7 a.m.: The National Weather Service has dropped the winter weather advisory for the northwest corner of the state, but the advisory remains in effect for counties due north and northeast of Atlanta. North Fulton, Cherokee, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Forsyth and Hall counties are included in that advisory, which runs through 10 a.m.
6:42 a.m. In northeast Georgia, the state Department of Transportation reports that a six-vehicle crash is blocking all southbound lanes of Ga. 365 at Level Grove Road in Habersham County. Closer in, a wreck blocked the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Ga. 166, while another crash blocked all eastbound lanes of Ga. 166 between Greenbriar Parkway and Delowe Drive.
6 a.m.: Current temperature is 31 degrees in Dunwoody, Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Gainesville, and 32 downtown and in Chamblee, where the National Weather Service was still reporting freezing rain. The mercury had climbed a degree or two above the freezing mark at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport., Cartersville, Canton and Mableton. The warmer air was just to the south of metro Atlanta, with Columbus reporting 44 degrees and Macon 45 at 6 a.m.
5:45 a.m.: Officials at Georgia Tech issue the following statement:
The Georgia Institute of Technology will delay opening until 10 a.m. on Thursday due to icy conditions on campus and in Atlanta and the surrounding area. However, 8 a.m. finals will continue as scheduled.
Emory University announces plans to open at 9 a.m.
5:41 a.m.: Atlanta police have reopened Ga. 400 near the Toll Plaza after closing the highway due to ice for more than an hour.
5:22 a.m.: Among the numerous roads closed by ice just after 5 a.m.: Ga. 400 near the Toll Plaza and the Stone Mountain Freeway in both directions between Brockett Road and Mountain Industrial Boulevard. Police dispatchers in Cherokee, Forsyth, Douglas and Hall counties tell the WSB Radio Traffic Center that there are too many streets iced over to name.
5 a.m.: Temperatures were beginning to inch their way above the freezing mark in some areas, but remained just below 32 degrees in other spots. Readings at 5 a.m. included 31 in Chamblee, 33 in Cartersville and 34 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Despite the slightly warmer temps, the state Department of Transportation said in an early morning statement that "conditions are expected to remain treacherous through most, if not all, of the morning commute hours. Motorists are requested not to drive until after the sun rises."
12:52 a.m.: One Bartow County dad told the AJC he won't be able to sleep until he knows his wife and 7-year-old daughter are off the road. Scott Barkley said the two left Acworth shortly after 6 p.m. and are still stuck on I-75. If they make it off the interstate, Barkley said they may just pull into a parking lot and sleep. "Every hotel in the county is booked," Barkley said.
12:32 a.m.: Cherokee County deputies are still dealing with wrecks and stranded motorists, Lt. Jay Baker told the AJC. But the number of wrecks has decreased due to less drivers on the roads, Baker said.
12:15 a.m.: Cobb County dispatchers received nearly 350 calls from 4 p.m. until shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday night, Officer Joe Hernandez with Cobb police told the AJC. But officers could not get to all of the wrecks, and had to focus on those with injuries, Hernandez said. That puts the number of wrecks in the metro area to more than 1,000.
11:38 p.m.: There were nearly 900 wrecks in metro Atlanta on Wednesday because of the sleet and ice. Crews will be working overnight to prepare roads for the morning commute. Thick, dense, cold arctic air will remain over Georgia Wednesday night, but a warm front will start to move in around 5 a.m. Thursday, Channel 2 Action News Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns said. The warm front will cause temperatures to rise, but it may take a while for conditions on the roads to improve because it has been so cold for so long, Burns said. “We have been in a deep freeze for many days, and the ground is frozen,” Burns said. Temperatures should be in the upper 40s to low 50s by Thursday afternoon, Burns said.
11:14 p.m.: Fulton County schools will be closed tomorrow. The school board meeting will take place, however, officials said.
11:02 p.m.: Cobb County schools will be delayed by two hours Thursday, Jay Dillon, district spokesman, told the AJC. Paulding County classes will also be delayed two hours.
10:42 p.m.: Gwinnett County firefighters responded to 178 incidents between 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said. Two wrecks resulted in serious injuries. No injuries were reported in a 15-vehicle pileup on Old Peachtree Road and I-85 North in Suwanee, Rutledge said.
10:32 p.m.: School is delayed two hours Thursday in Forsyth County. No classes will be held in Bartow County.
10:19 p.m.: AirTran canceled two additional flights Wednesday night, bringing the total number of canceled flights in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to 31.
10:09 p.m.: Between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., 226 wrecks were reported in DeKalb County, police said.
9:59 p.m.: Classes are canceled for Cherokee County schools Thursday. Check other closings here.
9:55 p.m.: Abandoned vehicles along Eagle Drive from Rose Creek to Town Lake Parkway in Cherokee County are making it difficult for road crews to get through to pour salt and gravel. Those who have left their cars should try to move them, or least move them to the far right shoulder of the road, Lt. Jay Baker said.
9:48 p.m.: Government offices in Cherokee County will open later than usual Thursday. Check for other closings and delays.
9:27 p.m.: No serious injuries or deaths have been reported despite the hundreds of wrecks in Cobb County, Officer Joe Hernandez told the AJC.
9:12 p.m.: Several roads have been closed in Cherokee County due to ice. Those include: Reinhardt College Parkway, Mill Creek Road, Towne Lake Parkway, Woodstock Road overpass at I-75, and Hickory Flat Highway at the Cherokee-Fulton county line. Other roads are also impassable, according to Lt. Jay Baker with the sheriff's office.
9:04 p.m.: No fatalities have been reported despite wrecks throughout DeKalb County, police spokeswoman Mekka Parish told the AJC.
8:55 p.m.: The precipitation is changing over to rain, but we're not out of the woods yet, Channel 2 Actions News Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns said. "It may take all night for the temperatures to warm up."
8:39 p.m.: Some roads in Paulding County look like used car lots due to all the crashed cars, Deputy Ashley Henson with the sheriff's office said. “We’re suggesting people walk to their houses in some locations where roads closed. It's a better alternative."
8:30 p.m.: From Gwinnett to DeKalb to Cobb and Cherokee, traffic is a mess all over. Many major highways are closed due to multiple wrecks, GDOT is reporting. Interstate ramps are also blocked.
8:26 p.m.: After working their shifts, some Cobb County police officers were called back to duty to help with the numerous crashes, Officer Joe Hernandez told the AJC.
8:25 p.m.: Life-threatening injuries reported after wreck off Old Fountain Road in Dacula in Gwinnett County, police told the AJC. Read more.
8:10 p.m.: There have been multiple reports of vehicles being abandoned on Cherokee County roads, said Lt. Jay Baker. County DOT will be salting roadways throughout the night. Any vehicles left abandoned on the roadway and blocking salt trucks will have to be removed by wreckers. Persons stranded in their vehicles will receive assistance. Cars left on the side of the roadway that are not blocking traffic will not be removed tonight however could be struck by salt and gravel from the salt trucks, Baker said.
8:05 p.m.: GDOT is reporting a 5-vehicle pileup on I-285 east between Chamblee-Tucker Road and I-85 south. All lanes are blocked until 8:25 p.m.
8 p.m.: People in Cherokee County have been leaving their cars to walk home after being stuck without moving for an hour or more on some major thoroughfares, such as Towne Lake Parkway and Sixes Road.
7:50 p.m.: No serious injuries have been reported in Douglas County, but there have been dozens of crashes, Wes Tallon, county spokesman, told the AJC. Crews area ready to put salt and sand out on the icy spots, Tallon said.
7:43 p.m.: DeKalb police have closed the Lawrenceville Highway overpass across I-285 and officers are routing drivers to alternate two-lane streets.
7:42 p.m.: A driver on Ga. 20 in Cherokee County reported traffic backed up along 20 from I-575 east to the Macedonia community and that near I-575 it was at a dead stop.
7:36 p.m.: More than 50 wrecks have been reported in the city of Alpharetta during the past three hours, a spokesman for the city said. “The city has experienced areas of icy patches on the roadways, primarlily on side streets and north of exit 8 on Ga. 400."
7:35 p.m.: The Georgia State Patrol is working several crashes, many near bridges in Douglas and Carroll counties, spokesman Gordy Wright told the AJC.
7:26 p.m.: The number of crashes in Cherokee County has mounted. Police spokesman Lt. Jay Baker says 173 accidents have been reported since 4 p.m.
7:25 p.m.: Atlanta police are reporting 81 crashes, most of them downtown and in Buckhead.
7:05 p.m.: In Cherokee County, deputies began getting multiple calls for accidents about 5 p.m. from icy patches on the roads. The bridge at the Sixes Road exit on I-575 was closed. The rolling hills of Cherokee County exacerbated the problems, stranding drivers in the cars as they were unable to make it either up or down the glazed roads.
7:01 p.m.: The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office is advising that if you must drive, stay on main roads and travel at extremely slow speeds. There are dozens of wrecks in the county.
6:49 p.m.: WSB is reporting that Clairmont Road is closed between Peachtree Industrial and Peachtree Road due to ice.
6:48 p.m.: DeKalb County’s 911 center reports traffic back-ups across the county from the icy road conditions. The Clairmont Road and Peachtree Industrial Road bridges have been shut down due to black ice. Kensington Road between Camp and Porter roads also was shut down because of the ice. There also are reports of black ice on the I-285 exit to I-85 southbound, although the exit remained open as of 6:45 p.m. Reports of black ice persist along the northern part of I-285, creating traffic back-ups at several exits. Traffic was moving, very slowly, north of I-285, with bumper-to-bumper traffic on Ashford Dunwoody and Hammond Drive in the Perimeter area.
6:45 p.m.: The non-emergency line for Gwinnett County responders has a wait time due to the number of incoming calls.
6:45 p.m.: The ice that glazed the roads to the north and west of Atlanta resulted from a rare weather phenomenon, and conditions probably won’t change until after daybreak Thursday morning. A relatively thin mass of arctic air, about 1,000 feet deep, has been hugging Atlanta and freezing the soil, while comparatively balmy air in the 40 degree range moved in overhead, Robert Beasley, a forecaster for the National Weather Service, told the AJC. The warmer air above carried moisture, and when it produced rain drops, the water passed through the arctic layer, cooling it further. “It’s like putting water in front of a fan,” said Beasley, who works in the Weather Service’s Peachtree City office. “That was a perfect setup for everything to be covered with a glaze of ice." The ice seems to have blanketed mostly the northern and western suburbs of Atlanta, he said.
6:45 p.m.: Traffic is terrible in Bartow, Chattooga, Cherokee, Douglas, Floyd and Paulding counties, Beasley said. Some roads, such U.S. Highway 127, were so bad that they were closed, he said. Floyd County told him they had too many accidents to count. The Weather Service has revised its winter weather advisory to cover everything north of I-20. Beasley expects the temperature to remain below freezing until 7 a.m., with ice coating the ground until the rising sun warms the air. “Once we hit daybreak, things will improve rapidly,” Beasley said. “Then this will all be a distant memory.”
6:42 p.m.: “We have units responding to multiple car accidents in the north and east portions of the county at this time,” Gwinnett County fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge told the AJC.
6:36 p.m.: There’s a 70 percent chance of rain Thursday, but the temperatures will climb into the lower 50s, Channel 2 Action News chief meteorologist Glenn Burns said. Go here for updates.
6:25 p.m.: Police in Atlanta were reporting crashes, but far fewer than in the northern metro areas. There were 21 calls about crashes, Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos said.
6:21 p.m.: Many off-duty Paulding County sheriff deputies have been called in to help deal with crashes all over the county, Deputy Ashley Henson told the AJC. “We have black ice everywhere,” Henson said. “If they’re on the road, please, please slow down.”
6:20 p.m.: Officer George Gordon in Alpharetta confirmed that there were more than 40 crashes in the 30 square mile city from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., the most he’s ever heard of in a two-hour period. “I don’t ever recall a number that high,” he said. “They’re getting flooded at the 911 center.” Gordon said most of the crashes have been minor and that dispatchers are urging those drivers to swap insurance information because police can’t reach every crash. In Georgia, it’s legal for drivers to do that and leave when the damages are under $500, Gordon said.
6:12 p.m.: Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce said more than 200 crashes have been reported during the past two hours. “We are not responding to crashes without injury,” Pierce told the AJC. Those involved in minor crashes are asked to exchange insurance information and report the incident to a precinct. “If you don’t have to drive, don’t.”
6:05 p.m.: Deerfield Parkway northbound is shut in Milton due to a wreck. Drivers are asked to detour to Webb Road.
6 p.m.: AirTran Airways spokesman Christopher White tells the AJC anyone planning to fly out of or into Atlanta between 7 p.m. Wednesday until noon Thursday can change their reservation for free by going to airtran.com.
6 p.m.: The icy conditions appear to be restricted to the northern metro area. Police in Atlanta and DeKalb County were reporting no weather-related crashes during the evening commute. But Lt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County police said conditions were so bad that “drivers should get off the roads if possible.” If they can’t, they should drive “extremely” slowly, he said. None of the crashes have resulted in serious injury. “We have had some broken bones but no fatalities so far,” Baker said.
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By Mike Morris
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Below is a minute-by-minute update on the wintry weather affecting the Atlanta area. Send updates and photos to breakingnews@ajc.com. For a complete list of closings and delays, check wsbtv.com. Follow @ajc and @a ajcwsbtraffic on Twitter. In the morning, AM 750 and now 95.5 FM will have the current conditions.
Enlarge photo Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Mark Jones (left) and Natasha Parrott walk to their home after they abandoned their car on Arnold Mill Road in Woodstock Wednesday evening while the icy temperatures and precipitation combined to make the commute a dangerous trip.
Enlarge photo Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com A motorist waits for a police car after he lost control and collided on Towne Lake Parkway in Woodstock.
Enlarge photo John Spink, jspink@ajc.com A wrecker picks up a disabled vehicle along the Stone Mountain Freeway Thursday morning. Icy conditions existed throughout the metro Atlanta area north of I-20 Thursday morning before dawn where bridges and overpasses were affected by the ice.
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Ice causes havoc on roads
.9:09 a.m.: Temperatures continued to climb on the southside, where it was 53 degrees in Peachtree City, 51 in Newnan and 50 in Jonesboro and at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Not so much, though, in the northern suburbs, where the mercury continued to hover around the freezing mark. At 9 a.m., Gainesville reported 31 degrees with freezing rain, the the temperature was 32 inn Dunwoody and Alpharetta, 33 in Johns Creeek, 34 in Chamblee and Canton and 36 in Marietta.
8:57 a.m.: Several elevated interstate ramps downtown remained closed by ice and wrecks. Those included the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Fulton Street and Central Avenue, the ramp from the Buford Highway Connector southbound to Peachtree Street, the ramp from I-20 west to the southbound Downtown Connector and the ramp from the northbound Downtown Connector to I-20.
8:24 a.m.: Cherokee County sheriff's Lt. Jay Baker told the AJC that many roads in the county were still icy, with some of the back roads being impassable. "Right now, it's still a mess," Baker said. He said there had been about 300 wrecks since the roads began icing on Wednesday, and that deputies had responded to 130 calls from stranded motorists who were not involved in wrecks.
8:04 a.m.: A few miles made a world of difference Thursday morning as a warm front pushed almost balmy air into the southern suburbs, while the northern fringes of metro Atlanta were still at or just below freezing. Temperatures at 8 a.m. included 50 degrees in Newnan and Peachtree City and 45 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Meanwhile, on the northside, the temperature was just 31 in Gainesville and 32 in Dunwoody, Alpharetta and Johns Creek.
7:42 a.m.: A wreck involving a tractor-trailer and three smaller vehicles partially blocked the ramp from I-20 westbound to Windsor Street downtown. The ramp from the Buford Highway Connector to Peachtree Street remained blocked by a crash that also involved four vehicles, and the state Department of Transportation predicted it would be another hour before that ramp reopens. Another crash blocked the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Fulton Street near Turner Field.
7:29 a.m.: The elevated portions of the Buford Highway Connector between I-85 and Midtown continued to be icy after 7 a.m. Wrecks completely shut down the ramps to Peachtree Street and the ramp from West Peachtree Street to the Buford Highway Connector.
7:12 a.m.: The warmer air has reached the southern suburbs, where Peachtree City was reporting 48 degrees and Newnan 50. It was still a different story on the northside, however. The 7 a.m. temperature was 31 degrees in Dunwoody and Gainesville and 32 in Alpharetta and Johns Creek.
7 a.m.: The National Weather Service has dropped the winter weather advisory for the northwest corner of the state, but the advisory remains in effect for counties due north and northeast of Atlanta. North Fulton, Cherokee, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Forsyth and Hall counties are included in that advisory, which runs through 10 a.m.
6:42 a.m. In northeast Georgia, the state Department of Transportation reports that a six-vehicle crash is blocking all southbound lanes of Ga. 365 at Level Grove Road in Habersham County. Closer in, a wreck blocked the ramp from the Downtown Connector northbound to Ga. 166, while another crash blocked all eastbound lanes of Ga. 166 between Greenbriar Parkway and Delowe Drive.
6 a.m.: Current temperature is 31 degrees in Dunwoody, Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Gainesville, and 32 downtown and in Chamblee, where the National Weather Service was still reporting freezing rain. The mercury had climbed a degree or two above the freezing mark at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport., Cartersville, Canton and Mableton. The warmer air was just to the south of metro Atlanta, with Columbus reporting 44 degrees and Macon 45 at 6 a.m.
5:45 a.m.: Officials at Georgia Tech issue the following statement:
The Georgia Institute of Technology will delay opening until 10 a.m. on Thursday due to icy conditions on campus and in Atlanta and the surrounding area. However, 8 a.m. finals will continue as scheduled.
Emory University announces plans to open at 9 a.m.
5:41 a.m.: Atlanta police have reopened Ga. 400 near the Toll Plaza after closing the highway due to ice for more than an hour.
5:22 a.m.: Among the numerous roads closed by ice just after 5 a.m.: Ga. 400 near the Toll Plaza and the Stone Mountain Freeway in both directions between Brockett Road and Mountain Industrial Boulevard. Police dispatchers in Cherokee, Forsyth, Douglas and Hall counties tell the WSB Radio Traffic Center that there are too many streets iced over to name.
5 a.m.: Temperatures were beginning to inch their way above the freezing mark in some areas, but remained just below 32 degrees in other spots. Readings at 5 a.m. included 31 in Chamblee, 33 in Cartersville and 34 at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Despite the slightly warmer temps, the state Department of Transportation said in an early morning statement that "conditions are expected to remain treacherous through most, if not all, of the morning commute hours. Motorists are requested not to drive until after the sun rises."
12:52 a.m.: One Bartow County dad told the AJC he won't be able to sleep until he knows his wife and 7-year-old daughter are off the road. Scott Barkley said the two left Acworth shortly after 6 p.m. and are still stuck on I-75. If they make it off the interstate, Barkley said they may just pull into a parking lot and sleep. "Every hotel in the county is booked," Barkley said.
12:32 a.m.: Cherokee County deputies are still dealing with wrecks and stranded motorists, Lt. Jay Baker told the AJC. But the number of wrecks has decreased due to less drivers on the roads, Baker said.
12:15 a.m.: Cobb County dispatchers received nearly 350 calls from 4 p.m. until shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday night, Officer Joe Hernandez with Cobb police told the AJC. But officers could not get to all of the wrecks, and had to focus on those with injuries, Hernandez said. That puts the number of wrecks in the metro area to more than 1,000.
11:38 p.m.: There were nearly 900 wrecks in metro Atlanta on Wednesday because of the sleet and ice. Crews will be working overnight to prepare roads for the morning commute. Thick, dense, cold arctic air will remain over Georgia Wednesday night, but a warm front will start to move in around 5 a.m. Thursday, Channel 2 Action News Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns said. The warm front will cause temperatures to rise, but it may take a while for conditions on the roads to improve because it has been so cold for so long, Burns said. “We have been in a deep freeze for many days, and the ground is frozen,” Burns said. Temperatures should be in the upper 40s to low 50s by Thursday afternoon, Burns said.
11:14 p.m.: Fulton County schools will be closed tomorrow. The school board meeting will take place, however, officials said.
11:02 p.m.: Cobb County schools will be delayed by two hours Thursday, Jay Dillon, district spokesman, told the AJC. Paulding County classes will also be delayed two hours.
10:42 p.m.: Gwinnett County firefighters responded to 178 incidents between 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said. Two wrecks resulted in serious injuries. No injuries were reported in a 15-vehicle pileup on Old Peachtree Road and I-85 North in Suwanee, Rutledge said.
10:32 p.m.: School is delayed two hours Thursday in Forsyth County. No classes will be held in Bartow County.
10:19 p.m.: AirTran canceled two additional flights Wednesday night, bringing the total number of canceled flights in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to 31.
10:09 p.m.: Between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., 226 wrecks were reported in DeKalb County, police said.
9:59 p.m.: Classes are canceled for Cherokee County schools Thursday. Check other closings here.
9:55 p.m.: Abandoned vehicles along Eagle Drive from Rose Creek to Town Lake Parkway in Cherokee County are making it difficult for road crews to get through to pour salt and gravel. Those who have left their cars should try to move them, or least move them to the far right shoulder of the road, Lt. Jay Baker said.
9:48 p.m.: Government offices in Cherokee County will open later than usual Thursday. Check for other closings and delays.
9:27 p.m.: No serious injuries or deaths have been reported despite the hundreds of wrecks in Cobb County, Officer Joe Hernandez told the AJC.
9:12 p.m.: Several roads have been closed in Cherokee County due to ice. Those include: Reinhardt College Parkway, Mill Creek Road, Towne Lake Parkway, Woodstock Road overpass at I-75, and Hickory Flat Highway at the Cherokee-Fulton county line. Other roads are also impassable, according to Lt. Jay Baker with the sheriff's office.
9:04 p.m.: No fatalities have been reported despite wrecks throughout DeKalb County, police spokeswoman Mekka Parish told the AJC.
8:55 p.m.: The precipitation is changing over to rain, but we're not out of the woods yet, Channel 2 Actions News Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns said. "It may take all night for the temperatures to warm up."
8:39 p.m.: Some roads in Paulding County look like used car lots due to all the crashed cars, Deputy Ashley Henson with the sheriff's office said. “We’re suggesting people walk to their houses in some locations where roads closed. It's a better alternative."
8:30 p.m.: From Gwinnett to DeKalb to Cobb and Cherokee, traffic is a mess all over. Many major highways are closed due to multiple wrecks, GDOT is reporting. Interstate ramps are also blocked.
8:26 p.m.: After working their shifts, some Cobb County police officers were called back to duty to help with the numerous crashes, Officer Joe Hernandez told the AJC.
8:25 p.m.: Life-threatening injuries reported after wreck off Old Fountain Road in Dacula in Gwinnett County, police told the AJC. Read more.
8:10 p.m.: There have been multiple reports of vehicles being abandoned on Cherokee County roads, said Lt. Jay Baker. County DOT will be salting roadways throughout the night. Any vehicles left abandoned on the roadway and blocking salt trucks will have to be removed by wreckers. Persons stranded in their vehicles will receive assistance. Cars left on the side of the roadway that are not blocking traffic will not be removed tonight however could be struck by salt and gravel from the salt trucks, Baker said.
8:05 p.m.: GDOT is reporting a 5-vehicle pileup on I-285 east between Chamblee-Tucker Road and I-85 south. All lanes are blocked until 8:25 p.m.
8 p.m.: People in Cherokee County have been leaving their cars to walk home after being stuck without moving for an hour or more on some major thoroughfares, such as Towne Lake Parkway and Sixes Road.
7:50 p.m.: No serious injuries have been reported in Douglas County, but there have been dozens of crashes, Wes Tallon, county spokesman, told the AJC. Crews area ready to put salt and sand out on the icy spots, Tallon said.
7:43 p.m.: DeKalb police have closed the Lawrenceville Highway overpass across I-285 and officers are routing drivers to alternate two-lane streets.
7:42 p.m.: A driver on Ga. 20 in Cherokee County reported traffic backed up along 20 from I-575 east to the Macedonia community and that near I-575 it was at a dead stop.
7:36 p.m.: More than 50 wrecks have been reported in the city of Alpharetta during the past three hours, a spokesman for the city said. “The city has experienced areas of icy patches on the roadways, primarlily on side streets and north of exit 8 on Ga. 400."
7:35 p.m.: The Georgia State Patrol is working several crashes, many near bridges in Douglas and Carroll counties, spokesman Gordy Wright told the AJC.
7:26 p.m.: The number of crashes in Cherokee County has mounted. Police spokesman Lt. Jay Baker says 173 accidents have been reported since 4 p.m.
7:25 p.m.: Atlanta police are reporting 81 crashes, most of them downtown and in Buckhead.
7:05 p.m.: In Cherokee County, deputies began getting multiple calls for accidents about 5 p.m. from icy patches on the roads. The bridge at the Sixes Road exit on I-575 was closed. The rolling hills of Cherokee County exacerbated the problems, stranding drivers in the cars as they were unable to make it either up or down the glazed roads.
7:01 p.m.: The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office is advising that if you must drive, stay on main roads and travel at extremely slow speeds. There are dozens of wrecks in the county.
6:49 p.m.: WSB is reporting that Clairmont Road is closed between Peachtree Industrial and Peachtree Road due to ice.
6:48 p.m.: DeKalb County’s 911 center reports traffic back-ups across the county from the icy road conditions. The Clairmont Road and Peachtree Industrial Road bridges have been shut down due to black ice. Kensington Road between Camp and Porter roads also was shut down because of the ice. There also are reports of black ice on the I-285 exit to I-85 southbound, although the exit remained open as of 6:45 p.m. Reports of black ice persist along the northern part of I-285, creating traffic back-ups at several exits. Traffic was moving, very slowly, north of I-285, with bumper-to-bumper traffic on Ashford Dunwoody and Hammond Drive in the Perimeter area.
6:45 p.m.: The non-emergency line for Gwinnett County responders has a wait time due to the number of incoming calls.
6:45 p.m.: The ice that glazed the roads to the north and west of Atlanta resulted from a rare weather phenomenon, and conditions probably won’t change until after daybreak Thursday morning. A relatively thin mass of arctic air, about 1,000 feet deep, has been hugging Atlanta and freezing the soil, while comparatively balmy air in the 40 degree range moved in overhead, Robert Beasley, a forecaster for the National Weather Service, told the AJC. The warmer air above carried moisture, and when it produced rain drops, the water passed through the arctic layer, cooling it further. “It’s like putting water in front of a fan,” said Beasley, who works in the Weather Service’s Peachtree City office. “That was a perfect setup for everything to be covered with a glaze of ice." The ice seems to have blanketed mostly the northern and western suburbs of Atlanta, he said.
6:45 p.m.: Traffic is terrible in Bartow, Chattooga, Cherokee, Douglas, Floyd and Paulding counties, Beasley said. Some roads, such U.S. Highway 127, were so bad that they were closed, he said. Floyd County told him they had too many accidents to count. The Weather Service has revised its winter weather advisory to cover everything north of I-20. Beasley expects the temperature to remain below freezing until 7 a.m., with ice coating the ground until the rising sun warms the air. “Once we hit daybreak, things will improve rapidly,” Beasley said. “Then this will all be a distant memory.”
6:42 p.m.: “We have units responding to multiple car accidents in the north and east portions of the county at this time,” Gwinnett County fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge told the AJC.
6:36 p.m.: There’s a 70 percent chance of rain Thursday, but the temperatures will climb into the lower 50s, Channel 2 Action News chief meteorologist Glenn Burns said. Go here for updates.
6:25 p.m.: Police in Atlanta were reporting crashes, but far fewer than in the northern metro areas. There were 21 calls about crashes, Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos said.
6:21 p.m.: Many off-duty Paulding County sheriff deputies have been called in to help deal with crashes all over the county, Deputy Ashley Henson told the AJC. “We have black ice everywhere,” Henson said. “If they’re on the road, please, please slow down.”
6:20 p.m.: Officer George Gordon in Alpharetta confirmed that there were more than 40 crashes in the 30 square mile city from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., the most he’s ever heard of in a two-hour period. “I don’t ever recall a number that high,” he said. “They’re getting flooded at the 911 center.” Gordon said most of the crashes have been minor and that dispatchers are urging those drivers to swap insurance information because police can’t reach every crash. In Georgia, it’s legal for drivers to do that and leave when the damages are under $500, Gordon said.
6:12 p.m.: Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce said more than 200 crashes have been reported during the past two hours. “We are not responding to crashes without injury,” Pierce told the AJC. Those involved in minor crashes are asked to exchange insurance information and report the incident to a precinct. “If you don’t have to drive, don’t.”
6:05 p.m.: Deerfield Parkway northbound is shut in Milton due to a wreck. Drivers are asked to detour to Webb Road.
6 p.m.: AirTran Airways spokesman Christopher White tells the AJC anyone planning to fly out of or into Atlanta between 7 p.m. Wednesday until noon Thursday can change their reservation for free by going to airtran.com.
6 p.m.: The icy conditions appear to be restricted to the northern metro area. Police in Atlanta and DeKalb County were reporting no weather-related crashes during the evening commute. But Lt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County police said conditions were so bad that “drivers should get off the roads if possible.” If they can’t, they should drive “extremely” slowly, he said. None of the crashes have resulted in serious injury. “We have had some broken bones but no fatalities so far,” Baker said.
Friday, December 10, 2010
I Think I can Spot Polar Bears!
Most of Britain and Ireland buried in snow. At least they know how to handle it well! - HLG
Cloudy with a Chance of Leaves
Cloudy with a chance of leaves: reducing climate uncertainty
By John Timmer
Although it's easy to calculate the impact of additional greenhouse gasses on the temperature, these simple calculations don't capture the potential for feedbacks in the system. The easiest feedback to understand is the ice-albedo response. As temperatures rise, ice melts; that ice normally reflects back most of the sunlight that hits it, so its loss leads to increased absorption of sunlight and hence, a further increase in temperature. Ice is hardly the only feedback, however, so researchers use climate models to try to incorporate as many of these feedbacks as possible.
Unfortunately, there's often disagreement and uncertainty as to how some of the feedbacks operate. In the past week, a couple of papers have come out that address these uncertainties. In one, an author analyzes the impact of clouds on climate, one of the largest uncertainties in current models. In the other paper, the authors argue that past attempts at figuring out the response of plants to climate change have gotten it all wrong.
Planting a feedback
The impact of plants has grabbed attention because of a rather impressive figure in the abstract: if their assumptions about vegetation are correct, then the warming of the land surface will be 0.6°C less than previously expected. Considering the low-end predictions place warming at 2°C at the end of the century, this is a substantial drop.
The result comes from incorporating a number of different assumptions into existing climate models. Although many have argued that plants will respond to additional CO2 as if it were a fertilizer, the authors argue that foliage will quickly run up against a physiological limit. The enzyme that actually incorporates CO2 into plants' biochemical pathways will quickly run into a wall, limiting what the plants can do with existing leaves.
As a result, the authors argue, plants will respond by growing more leaves, provided they're not starved for water and nitrogen. And, they argue, lots of existing foliage isn't, and increases in precipitation are likely to accompany ongoing climate changes. So, if their arguments (they term them a "postulate") are correct, we should expect plants to expand what they term the "leaf area index."
If you incorporate these postulates into an existing climate model, then things change pretty significantly. The added foliage increases the absorption of sunlight in many areas, raising temperatures a bit. But that effect is swamped by what happens with water. Some of the increased rain produced by the climate models still ends up as runoff, but a substantial fraction ends up back in the atmosphere, either through evaporation or via transpiration from the plants themselves. This process requires significant energy, which is absorbed from the atmosphere. As a result, temperatures don't rise nearly as much as expected.
There are a couple of very large assumptions in their model. The leaf density is assumed to increase only where there's already vegetation, and the vegetation is assumed not to migrate—for example, into formerly ice-covered areas of the Arctic. These are almost certainly significant simplifications; determining whether they end up making the model physically unrealistic, however, will probably have to wait for the rest of the scientific community to evaluate the paper. In the authors' favor, they state that the patterns of increased runoff that are currently being observed are consistent with their model.
The other thing to note is that the 0.6°C figure from the abstract is only over land, where transpiration is a significant factor; the global figure is only 0.3°C, which is much less significant overall.
A feedback in the clouds
The lone author on the second paper (Texas A&M's A.E. Dessler) states the problem with clouds pretty simply: "Clouds affect the climate by reflecting incoming solar radiation back to space, which tends to cool the climate, and by trapping outgoing infrared radiation, which tends to warm the climate." Right now, reflectivity dominates, but it's possible that rising temperatures will alter the cloud type and altitude in a way that shifts this balance. And, right now at least, there's substantial uncertainty as to whether that will happen. Figures have been published that range from a continued cooling through reflection to a shift to insulation.
Dessler doesn't solve the problem for the long-term, but he does nail down short-term variability. Using satellite measurements and the temperature record for the past decade, he obtained the incoming radiative flux, and started subtracting the major other impacts on it: changes in greenhouse gasses, alterations in albedo (the Earth's reflection of sunlight), etc. What's left, he argues, is the impact of changes in clouds.
He then plotted the changes in clouds' impact against the changes in temperature to determine how well they correlate. The resulting scatter plot is pretty noisy, but the trend is fairly small: about a half watt per square meter, with errors that are a bit larger than that. This means that, as a whole, the cloud feedback is probably positive—it enhances the warming. Given the size of the errors, it's still possible that it it inhibits warming slightly, but the effect would likely be negligible.
It's important to remember, however, that this is only the short-term contribution during a period of ongoing climate change. Should we ever stabilize our emissions of greenhouse gasses, it's possible that the clouds will reach an equilibrium that has a different impact. To try to figure this out, the author ran several climate models for both short-term changes and long-term equilibria.
The good news is that a lot of the models seem to get short-term changes that match the data. The bad news is that there's little correlation between short-term accuracy and the estimated long-term impact of clouds. In other words, knowing a model does clouds right for a decade doesn't tell us whether it'll do a good job for a century. "For the problem of long-term climate change, what we really want to determine is the cloud feedback in response to long-term climate change," Dessler concludes. "Unfortunately, it may be decades before a direct measurement is possible."
What do we use these models for?
Although the two studies address a similar problem—the impact of feedbacks on the climate—and both rely heavily on climate models, the papers are very different. To an extent, the vegetation paper is a thought experiment. Foliage will be influenced by a number of factors as CO2 and temperatures rise, and these changes will undoubtedly influence the pace of climate change. What the authors have done is make a number of assumptions, some more scientifically plausible than others—and used a model to see what happens.
And that's a valuable thing. If an untested factor appears to have a large impact in a model, it's a sign that we should probably look into that factor in the real world. Different models also provide researchers a chance to experiment with valid differences of opinion. Various models handle clouds in distinct ways, and these differences help provide our expectations a sense of the error bars involved.
For the cloud paper, models had nothing to do with the primary result, which was the value of the short-term feedback of clouds. The author, however, used the empirically derived value to test whether models were getting it right. It was more a model-validation effort than a modeling paper. And that's also essential, since the people behind the few models that weren't getting the clouds right can go back and try to figure out why.
Geophysical Research Letters, 2010. DOI: 10.1029/2010GL045338 Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1126/science.1192546 (About DOIs).
By John Timmer
Although it's easy to calculate the impact of additional greenhouse gasses on the temperature, these simple calculations don't capture the potential for feedbacks in the system. The easiest feedback to understand is the ice-albedo response. As temperatures rise, ice melts; that ice normally reflects back most of the sunlight that hits it, so its loss leads to increased absorption of sunlight and hence, a further increase in temperature. Ice is hardly the only feedback, however, so researchers use climate models to try to incorporate as many of these feedbacks as possible.
Unfortunately, there's often disagreement and uncertainty as to how some of the feedbacks operate. In the past week, a couple of papers have come out that address these uncertainties. In one, an author analyzes the impact of clouds on climate, one of the largest uncertainties in current models. In the other paper, the authors argue that past attempts at figuring out the response of plants to climate change have gotten it all wrong.
Planting a feedback
The impact of plants has grabbed attention because of a rather impressive figure in the abstract: if their assumptions about vegetation are correct, then the warming of the land surface will be 0.6°C less than previously expected. Considering the low-end predictions place warming at 2°C at the end of the century, this is a substantial drop.
The result comes from incorporating a number of different assumptions into existing climate models. Although many have argued that plants will respond to additional CO2 as if it were a fertilizer, the authors argue that foliage will quickly run up against a physiological limit. The enzyme that actually incorporates CO2 into plants' biochemical pathways will quickly run into a wall, limiting what the plants can do with existing leaves.
As a result, the authors argue, plants will respond by growing more leaves, provided they're not starved for water and nitrogen. And, they argue, lots of existing foliage isn't, and increases in precipitation are likely to accompany ongoing climate changes. So, if their arguments (they term them a "postulate") are correct, we should expect plants to expand what they term the "leaf area index."
If you incorporate these postulates into an existing climate model, then things change pretty significantly. The added foliage increases the absorption of sunlight in many areas, raising temperatures a bit. But that effect is swamped by what happens with water. Some of the increased rain produced by the climate models still ends up as runoff, but a substantial fraction ends up back in the atmosphere, either through evaporation or via transpiration from the plants themselves. This process requires significant energy, which is absorbed from the atmosphere. As a result, temperatures don't rise nearly as much as expected.
There are a couple of very large assumptions in their model. The leaf density is assumed to increase only where there's already vegetation, and the vegetation is assumed not to migrate—for example, into formerly ice-covered areas of the Arctic. These are almost certainly significant simplifications; determining whether they end up making the model physically unrealistic, however, will probably have to wait for the rest of the scientific community to evaluate the paper. In the authors' favor, they state that the patterns of increased runoff that are currently being observed are consistent with their model.
The other thing to note is that the 0.6°C figure from the abstract is only over land, where transpiration is a significant factor; the global figure is only 0.3°C, which is much less significant overall.
A feedback in the clouds
The lone author on the second paper (Texas A&M's A.E. Dessler) states the problem with clouds pretty simply: "Clouds affect the climate by reflecting incoming solar radiation back to space, which tends to cool the climate, and by trapping outgoing infrared radiation, which tends to warm the climate." Right now, reflectivity dominates, but it's possible that rising temperatures will alter the cloud type and altitude in a way that shifts this balance. And, right now at least, there's substantial uncertainty as to whether that will happen. Figures have been published that range from a continued cooling through reflection to a shift to insulation.
Dessler doesn't solve the problem for the long-term, but he does nail down short-term variability. Using satellite measurements and the temperature record for the past decade, he obtained the incoming radiative flux, and started subtracting the major other impacts on it: changes in greenhouse gasses, alterations in albedo (the Earth's reflection of sunlight), etc. What's left, he argues, is the impact of changes in clouds.
He then plotted the changes in clouds' impact against the changes in temperature to determine how well they correlate. The resulting scatter plot is pretty noisy, but the trend is fairly small: about a half watt per square meter, with errors that are a bit larger than that. This means that, as a whole, the cloud feedback is probably positive—it enhances the warming. Given the size of the errors, it's still possible that it it inhibits warming slightly, but the effect would likely be negligible.
It's important to remember, however, that this is only the short-term contribution during a period of ongoing climate change. Should we ever stabilize our emissions of greenhouse gasses, it's possible that the clouds will reach an equilibrium that has a different impact. To try to figure this out, the author ran several climate models for both short-term changes and long-term equilibria.
The good news is that a lot of the models seem to get short-term changes that match the data. The bad news is that there's little correlation between short-term accuracy and the estimated long-term impact of clouds. In other words, knowing a model does clouds right for a decade doesn't tell us whether it'll do a good job for a century. "For the problem of long-term climate change, what we really want to determine is the cloud feedback in response to long-term climate change," Dessler concludes. "Unfortunately, it may be decades before a direct measurement is possible."
What do we use these models for?
Although the two studies address a similar problem—the impact of feedbacks on the climate—and both rely heavily on climate models, the papers are very different. To an extent, the vegetation paper is a thought experiment. Foliage will be influenced by a number of factors as CO2 and temperatures rise, and these changes will undoubtedly influence the pace of climate change. What the authors have done is make a number of assumptions, some more scientifically plausible than others—and used a model to see what happens.
And that's a valuable thing. If an untested factor appears to have a large impact in a model, it's a sign that we should probably look into that factor in the real world. Different models also provide researchers a chance to experiment with valid differences of opinion. Various models handle clouds in distinct ways, and these differences help provide our expectations a sense of the error bars involved.
For the cloud paper, models had nothing to do with the primary result, which was the value of the short-term feedback of clouds. The author, however, used the empirically derived value to test whether models were getting it right. It was more a model-validation effort than a modeling paper. And that's also essential, since the people behind the few models that weren't getting the clouds right can go back and try to figure out why.
Geophysical Research Letters, 2010. DOI: 10.1029/2010GL045338 Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1126/science.1192546 (About DOIs).
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Rains Close Panama Canal
Heavy rains kill 10 in Panama, force Canal to closePublished December 09, 2010
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Panama City – Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli confirmed the deaths of eight people resulting from days of heavy rains, raising to 10 the number of fatalities from a storm that has forced authorities to temporarily close the Panama Canal.
A mudslide in the Caribbean coastal town of Portobelo killed eight people and left the community of 3,000 inhabitants cut off from the rest of the country, Martinelli told a press conference at the Emergency Operations Center in Panama City.
Two children also drowned on Tuesday in the waters of the Bayano River, and a woman who was traveling with them in a small boat that capsized is missing.
The closure of the interoceanic waterway, something that in the past had only occurred during the 1989 U.S. military invasion of Panama, was announced by the Panama Canal Authority.
"It's the first time in history that (the Canal has shut down operations) due to the weather," Martinelli emphasized.
The temporary closure was decided upon because of the excess volume of water flowing in the Chagres River, which causes currents that put ships traversing the Canal at risk, said Canal officials.
In addition, authorities ordered the preventive evacuation of the towns located on the banks of the Canal and along the lakes that supply water to its locks.
The Bayano dam, located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the capital, has continued to drain the excess water at a high rate, which has added to the already-elevated Bayano river level that has resulted in the flooding of thousands of hectares (acres) downstream.
A hectare is equal to about 2.5 acres.
The president said that the government "didn't have any helicopters" to handle the emergency and had to rent them from companies and use one belonging to Martinelli to evacuate people whose homes had been flooded.
The highways linking Panama City to Colon have also been closed by mudslides and the one leading to Puente Centenario, which crosses the Canal, is partially closed because the road surface cracked and became unstable due to the heavy rains.
Martinelli also announced that authorities expect a reduction in the supply of potable water available to the capital and to the city of La Chorrera, 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the west, due to the effects of the storm on the water purification plants.
Meteorologists with the state-owned utility ETESA say that the rains are expected to continue in the eastern part of the country, as well as in a portion of central Panama, until Friday
Print Email Share
Panama City – Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli confirmed the deaths of eight people resulting from days of heavy rains, raising to 10 the number of fatalities from a storm that has forced authorities to temporarily close the Panama Canal.
A mudslide in the Caribbean coastal town of Portobelo killed eight people and left the community of 3,000 inhabitants cut off from the rest of the country, Martinelli told a press conference at the Emergency Operations Center in Panama City.
Two children also drowned on Tuesday in the waters of the Bayano River, and a woman who was traveling with them in a small boat that capsized is missing.
The closure of the interoceanic waterway, something that in the past had only occurred during the 1989 U.S. military invasion of Panama, was announced by the Panama Canal Authority.
"It's the first time in history that (the Canal has shut down operations) due to the weather," Martinelli emphasized.
The temporary closure was decided upon because of the excess volume of water flowing in the Chagres River, which causes currents that put ships traversing the Canal at risk, said Canal officials.
In addition, authorities ordered the preventive evacuation of the towns located on the banks of the Canal and along the lakes that supply water to its locks.
The Bayano dam, located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the capital, has continued to drain the excess water at a high rate, which has added to the already-elevated Bayano river level that has resulted in the flooding of thousands of hectares (acres) downstream.
A hectare is equal to about 2.5 acres.
The president said that the government "didn't have any helicopters" to handle the emergency and had to rent them from companies and use one belonging to Martinelli to evacuate people whose homes had been flooded.
The highways linking Panama City to Colon have also been closed by mudslides and the one leading to Puente Centenario, which crosses the Canal, is partially closed because the road surface cracked and became unstable due to the heavy rains.
Martinelli also announced that authorities expect a reduction in the supply of potable water available to the capital and to the city of La Chorrera, 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the west, due to the effects of the storm on the water purification plants.
Meteorologists with the state-owned utility ETESA say that the rains are expected to continue in the eastern part of the country, as well as in a portion of central Panama, until Friday
Expect Wide-Spread Wind Damage Across Eastern US
This storm has bad written all over it, and expect very large areas of power outtages if this wind field materializes as forecast. - HLG
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Global Warming Snowstorm Paralyzes Paris
(Reuters) - The biggest snowfall in close to a quarter of a century forced Paris's Eiffel Tower and airports to shut briefly on Wednesday.
An exceptionally heavy afternoon snowstorm paralysed the bus network, snarled up roads and motorways and even disrupted the underground train network.
Some people were happy to see the capital city's parks and the gardens of parliament draped in white after what the Meteo France weather forecasting agency said was the biggest fall of snow since 1987.
"This is marvellous. I didn't think it could snow so much in Paris and that these gardens could be so beautiful," said Didier Mathus, one of many members of parliament enchanted by a snowfall of rare intensity for the heart of Paris.
The national aviation authority had asked airlines ahead of Wednesday to cut back on flights, and Charles de Gaulle airport was forced to shut for a period as the snowfall peaked and Orly airport shut two runways, according to the AdP airport body.
An exceptionally heavy afternoon snowstorm paralysed the bus network, snarled up roads and motorways and even disrupted the underground train network.
Some people were happy to see the capital city's parks and the gardens of parliament draped in white after what the Meteo France weather forecasting agency said was the biggest fall of snow since 1987.
"This is marvellous. I didn't think it could snow so much in Paris and that these gardens could be so beautiful," said Didier Mathus, one of many members of parliament enchanted by a snowfall of rare intensity for the heart of Paris.
The national aviation authority had asked airlines ahead of Wednesday to cut back on flights, and Charles de Gaulle airport was forced to shut for a period as the snowfall peaked and Orly airport shut two runways, according to the AdP airport body.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Massive Plasma Eruption on the Sun: Dec 6, 2010
Immense Plasma Blast Erupts From Sun
Published December 07, 2010
| Space.com
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SDO/NASA
This huge tendril of magnetic plasma erupted from the sun on Dec. 6, 2010. In this photo from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the filament stretches across nearly 700,000 km of the sun's surface.
A massive solar storm erupted from the sun Monday, creating a huge tendril of plasma that stretched across the face of the star.
The giant solar eruption created a long filament of magnetic plasma, which extended an astounding 435,000 miles (700,000 kilometers) -- nearly twice the distance between the Earth and the moon -- across the sun's southeastern region, according to the website Spaceweather.com, which monitors solar storms and sky events.
"The massive structure is an easy target for backyard telescopes (monitoring is encouraged) and it has the potential for an impressive eruption if it happens to collapse in the hours or days ahead," Spaceweather.com reported in an update. The website described the solar prominence as a "mega-filament."
Skywatchers should never look directly at the sun with their unaided eyes or through a telescope. Permanent eye damage can result. Instead, proper telescope filters or protective glasses from reputable astronomy dealers should be used for solar observations.
Eruptions on the sun's surface can blast tons of plasma into space -- sometimes right at the Earth. Astonishing new pictures from NASA show the giant flares and clouds of ionized gas erupting from the star.
"So far the massive structure has hovered quietly above the stellar surface, but now it is showing signs of instability," Spaceweather.com reporter. "Long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below."
The sun is in the midst of an extremely active period of its 11-year solar weather cycle after a long lull in activity.
This latest solar filament follows on the heels of a similar prominent sun eruption last month. That earlier solar filament was spotted on Nov. 16 and stretched across just over 372,800 miles (600,000 km), making it a shorter than the new filament spotted today.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory and several other spacecraft keep constant watch on the sun to track solar weather activity
Monday, December 6, 2010
Check those Travel Plans for Next Week to NE
Surface forecast maps look very, very wintery. Merry Xmas travelers! HLG
Friday, December 3, 2010
East Coast Blizzard Coming?
Appears the set-up is for an Ohio-Vally/Nor'Easter set-up for the Mid-Atlantic on up. Any guesses on how bad the totals will be for, oh, say the DC Metro? - HLG
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Yazoo County Tornado
I was driving on I-55 north or Jackson, MS very early on Tuesday, Nove 30th, in Yazoo County, MS. There had been a very strong squall line in the vicinity, when I came along a patch of forest where the trees were snapped off, all pointing to the NE. The were all large, mostly mature hardwoods. The swath had to be nearly a 1/4 mile across, and could be seen over the horizon in both sides of the itnerstate. The twister had clearly passed directly over the highway sometime shortly before. Amazing sight to see. - HLG
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