Blizzard of '10 - the sequel

Holy criminy! Will it ever end?!?!? The Blizzard of '10 took a break between Sunday and Tuesday afternoon, then returned with a vengeance. Frederick took another 18" of snow -- though who could tell how much we got, what with wind gusts up to 47 MPH creating monster drifts everywhere. That 18" puts us up over 4 feet in the month of February. Compare that with our normal annual snowfall of between 8" and 24". It's nuts. Absolutely nuts.

Snow plows were called off the job because officials figured out that it was futile to plow roads that will be re-covered in mere seconds due to the winds.

We may get out of the house sometime tomorrow...but we're not driving ANYWHERE prior to Friday. Right now everyone -- including snow plows -- has been told to stay off the roads.

Cabin fever? We got it...in spades.

Summer can't come soon enough.

The Blizzard of 2010

The "paralyzing" storm predicted for this weekend lived up to the hype. Frederick got 30". But, unlike previous storms, Frederick, usually a champion on the high end of snowfall totals, fell short of points east of here. Elkridge got 38" to take the "prize" for worst hammering.

Thankfully, the winds weren't as strong as the '03 storm, so drifts weren't nearly the issue that they were with that storm.

One more picture for your enjoyment - the storm from the perspective of a 4 1/2 pound dog.

Paralyzing storm

Well, it's a first for me. The Weather Channel website has predicted that the major snow storm headed my way is not simply a "disruptive snowfall", as is forecast for areas west of here. No, it is a "paralyzing" storm.

I have visions of the Blizzard of '03 in my head. In '03 we got over 30" of snow over a 2 day span, with drifts of over 6'. It took 3 days for my youngest son and I to shovel out. Deadeye and oldest son were stranded in South Carolina because all highways into and out of Maryland were closed. It was, in a word, epic.

Will this storm also turn out to be 'epic'? Stay tuned to this Bat channel.

Wiener of the Week

The final WotW for 2009 are the people who showed up for this.

A downtown protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a victim of Wednesday's snowstorm.

"Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions," said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah.

Classic. Absolutely classic.

And a most worthy recipient of the Wiener of the Week.

Storms

As I write this there is a blizzard pounding the East Coast. A big one. A real, live Nor'easter. Unofficially, Frederick has received 22" of the white stuff, with the snow projected to last through tomorrow afternoon. The wind has been gusting, so there are drifts over 4' tall alongside the house. The steps out the back door are completely covered.

But this storm is a big, fat nothing compared to two other storms brewing on the horizon. On Friday Il Duce reached an agreement with other nations complicit in the the fraud that is the Hopenhagen debacle. Oh, sure, you say, it doesn't really have any teeth to it; there's nothing to worry about. Ah, but that's where you're wrong. When the details of this little agreement finally trickle out -- from European and Internet sources, NOT Big Media (the BM for short)- you will find that our "leaders" are using this invented "crisis" to sell off our sovereignty.

The other brewing storm is much more worrisome. The last domino has fallen in Der Staat's longstanding quest to take ownership of our very persons via the fraudulently-sold universal health care.

Senate Democrats appear within reach of the 60 votes necessary to pass President Barack Obama's health care legislation after a long year of struggle and a final burst of deadline bargaining with holdout Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

There it is. Just like that troll Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, Nelson has sold his soul for over $300 billion in Federal goodies.

So Congress is going to put something worse than a lump of coal in our respective stockings. The steaming pile of legislation we'll find in our stockings is never going to be confused with candied apples.

God bless us -- we're gonna need it.

When reality collides with dogma

Yeah, about all of that man-made global warming...please explain this, if you would.

One of the reasons for this could be colder-than-normal weather across the northern tier of the country that has suppressed the number of thunderstorms and has significantly reduced the number of tornadoes this year. The number of reported tornadoes so far this year is 685, just over half of the average annual amount, which is 1,297.

According to Long Range Expert Joe Bastardi, areas from the northern Plains into the Northeast will have a "year without a summer." The jet stream, which is suppressed abnormally south this spring, is also suppressing the number of thunderstorms that can form. The ones that do form in areas of the Ohio Valley and West are forming in places with very cold temperatures, which can lead to more electrified thunderstorms than normal this year. (emphasis mine)

I see. So I'm to believe that warming is causing extreme storms in the Atlantic to the point of downing aircraft (see yesterday's post). But...the reality is that a very large swath of the US could end up with abnormally COLD weather. I'm so confused...NOT AT ALL.

Kinda hard to keep your storyline of eminent doom from warming alive when people are freezing their butts off...

Cold enough for ya?

9 degrees. -3 degrees wind chill.

These aren't normal temperatures for Frederick. It's usually more in the range of 30-40 degrees for the high (today's high is supposed to be 17) and 20-32 degrees for the low. But the Arctic Blast that hit the Midwest last week has arrived here. We're going to have a chilly weekend.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking if you live in Utah, Idaho, Wisconsin, Montana, Minnesota, anywhere in Canada, or any other cold place I failed to mention. What a poofter, griping about 9 degrees! You have to understand that all weather is relative. My 9 degrees, adjusted to the spectrum of "normal", is your -25 degrees. And I'm no poofter! I left the gym last night still wearing my workout clothes (light Under Armour style shirt, shorts) and a coat. One of the personal trainers acted like I was going to my death! "You run to your car!", she said. I walked. It's not THAT cold.

So why even bring up the weather, then? Because we're in the midst of the second consecutive Winter with below normal temperatures. And things seem to be trending towards continuing colder weather for the foreseeable future. Even CNN ran a story (on Lou Dobbs Tonight) asking the question, "Are we entering a new Ice Age?" There is ample scientific evidence to support that hypothesis.

This weekend I'll post Part I of my anti-AGW blitzkrieg - Follow the Money. Big Warming isn't about temperatures. It isn't about 'saving the planet'. It's about money and power.

Wiener of the Week

This week's WotW isn't a person. It's the weather. Oh sure, complain about it all you want, you can't change it. Believe me, if I could, I would.

We've had a time of it here in the Mid-Atlantic region this past week. First, there was the hurricane-like conditions on Wednesday. Now we're in the midst of The Heat Wave From Hell. Yesterday's temperature of 95 (with a heat index of around 110) was 20 degrees warmer than the historical average for June 7th. Today will be hotter, around 97. It's already 87 as I write this at 10 AM. There is no relief in sight from the heat wave until about Wednesday. In the mean time, the Vulture is staying in the nest.

It might appear a bit unseemly to call the weather a wiener, but, for ruining my plans to work around the yard this weekend, and for making me sweat like I'm being interrogated in a Turkish prison, the weather is the Wiener of the Week.

Apocalyptic weather

Ye cats! What a day yesterday was! And the aftermath hasn't exactly been a picnic, either.

The storms, with high winds and blinding rain, pounded the region well into the night and might have spawned small tornadoes in Falls Church; in Fairfax County; near Stafford, Va.; near Bel Alton, in Charles County; and near the Anne Arundel-Calvert county line. National Weather Service experts planned to survey damage and investigate tornado reports today.

That doesn't even BEGIN to describe the torrential, hurricane-like rainfall we got yesterday. It was a SHOW!

And today? It's sunny and beautiful...but you really don't want to be anywhere near this area for the next few days. It took just about 3 hours for me to get to work this morning. Traffic was MESSED UP. My evening commute should be equally jolly.

No matter mankind's advances in every technological aspect, we are and probably always will be at the mercy of the weather. Sucks, doesn't it?