Cliff's weather gems

Posted: Sunday, Nov 09, 2008 - 07:33:37 pm PST
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Cliff Harris

A late-October snow blankets London's global warming debate

Heavy, wet snow blanketed London on Oct. 29, as the House of Commons debated the global warming issue. It was the English city's first measurable October snowfall since 1922 and only the third time ever prior to Nov. 1.

Elsewhere in the chilly Northern Hemisphere, all-time record October snowfalls were also measured in parts of Scandinavia, Tibet, southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., where some of our farmers still had crops left in the fields to be harvested that were planted very late in the spring season due to record cold and wet conditions, the worst in decades in some areas.

North of the Lower 48, in Alaska, temperatures during October across the state were the third coldest on record. McGrath, in south-central Alaska, reported a record 13 mornings with sub-zero readings in October. Heavy snows were observed across southern Alaska. The pack ice is already "six-feet thick" along the north slope of Alaska near Barrow. (The polar bears are 'elated'!)

The British Parliament was discussing "the Mother of All Global Warming Bills" for probably the last time, in a marathon six-hour session, when the surprise October snows hit.

In order to combat a projected two-degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic 'mess' for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c.46) "requiring the directors report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company was responsible" by 2012.

Recently, the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here that insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent. But the British public increasingly doubts either to be true. About 60 percent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think global warming won't be as bad as people say.

Both figures are higher than a year ago, and the poll was taken before the non-summer of 2008, and the (latest) credit crisis. The summer of 2008 in England, in places, was the coldest since the mid-1800s! I'll have more details next week.

NORTH IDAHO LONG-RANGE WEATHER OUTLOOK AND REVIEW:

I'm writing this weather update the afternoon of Nov. 6. Outside my office window, there are large, wet snowflakes mixed in with the rain, a harbinger of what's to come down the meteorological roadway.

Today's high temperature was only 39 degrees. Above 3,500 feet, the snow was sticking, bringing smiles to the faces of skiers and seasonal grumbles to the throats of motorists. I had my snow tires put on this morning. I take no chances with Ma Nature.

I wouldn't wait too long to winterize one's homes and vehicles, because our first measurable snowfall on the valley floor in town is still due to arrive just after Veterans' Day during the usually chilly full moon cycle, somewhere between Nov. 11-18, approximately 10 days before Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27.

By the way, our weather calendar has Thanksgiving on Nov. 20. This, of course, is a printing error. If one wishes a new printed copy of the November 2008 page, just go to our site at www.LongRangeWeather.com. It has been corrected. But, what's wrong with celebrating Thanksgiving a week ahead of schedule? One misses the heavy traffic and the big rush at the super market.

Last year, in 2007, our first shovelable snowfall of the season, four inches at my station on Player Drive, didn't arrive until after Thanksgiving on Nov. 27, a couple of weeks later than normal.

But between the end of November 2007 and end of the season on June 30, 2008, we received an all-time record 172.9 inches of snow in town, some four feet more than the previous record of 124.2 inches in 1915-16, nearly a century ago.

Our normal snowfall in Coeur d'Alene in an average winter season since 1895 has been 66.7 inches. By mid-January of 2009, I'm expecting close to 50 inches of the white stuff at my station with another 30 inches or so likely to fall during the second half of the 2008-09 season for a total near 80 inches.

The chances of a brilliant White Christmas this time across North Idaho, even at the lower elevations, are better than 70 percent, considerably higher than the normal 50/50 probabilities.