That wild weather I reported Tuesday night was actually the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane over land. It easily broke low barometric pressure readings over land for the midwest, and the winds cut power, downed buildings, and closed runways at airports.  There are small tree branches all over my front yard.  The storm is still not over, and throughout the day the wind howled outside my windows. Watching the reporting of it on TV news last night and today, I was not surprised to hear no mention of “global warming” and no mention of “climate change”.  Thanks to the political right-wingers in America, these science-based phrases have become so politically-charged they are censored words, and the U.S. has no politicians at the moment willing to take a strong stand on climate change, despite the incredible weather of all of 2010. Not even our President is willing to say what needs to be said about climate change. Isn’t that remarkable?

Even well-known local  meteorologist Paul Douglas, usually such a measured and low-key guy, is getting upset about the lack of facing up to the real root cause of these now-common violent storms.   This is today’s report on the storm and quotes from an interview with Douglas,  from Think Progress.

“Fueled by fossil fuel pollution, an unprecedented, freak “land hurricane” swept through the continental United States, leaving a path of devastation from Saskatchewan to Texas — while the Republican Party has been taken over by a hurricane of science denial. Our destabilized climate system, supercharged with billions of tons of manmade global warming pollution, is unlike anything in the historical record. “Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes,” Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas gasped. “The storm is huge,” Peter Kimbell, emergency preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, said. “Much of North America is being affected by this storm. It’s covering millions of square kilometers.” Even the right-wing Anthony Watts called this storm — centered in Wisconsin — a “subtropical/tropically oriented monster.” Douglas found intensity of the “weather bomb” something “hard to fathom”:

Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a “bomb”, spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr. That’s 28.14? of mercury. Bigfork, MN reported 955 mb, about 28.22? of mercury. The final (official) number may be closer to 28.20-28.22?, but at some point the number becomes academic. What is pretty much certain is that Tuesday’s incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA. That’s a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.

The storm front — also dubbed the “Chiclone” for the bizarreness of having a cyclone-like system over Chicago — drew its power from a sharp temperature contrast between record warmth in the southeastern United States and average cold in the north. Thus this record stormfront, though it exhibited hurricane-like power, is unlike actual hurricanes that derive their power [...]