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.\u00a0 There are small tree branches all over my front yard.\u00a0 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”.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n
Even well-known local\u00a0 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. \u00a0 This is today’s report on the storm and quotes from an interview with Douglas,\u00a0 from Think Progress.<\/p>\n
“Fueled by fossil fuel pollution, an unprecedented, freak \u201cland hurricane\u201d swept through the continental United States, leaving a path of devastation from Saskatchewan to Texas \u2014 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. \u201cWelcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes,\u201d Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas gasped. \u201cThe storm is huge,\u201d Peter Kimbell, emergency preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, said. \u201cMuch of North America is being affected by this storm. It\u2019s covering millions of square kilometers.\u201d Even the right-wing Anthony Watts called this storm \u2014 centered in Wisconsin \u2014 a \u201csubtropical\/tropically oriented monster.\u201d Douglas found intensity of the \u201cweather bomb\u201d something \u201chard to fathom\u201d:<\/p>\n
Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a \u201cbomb\u201d, spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr. That\u2019s 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\u2019s incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA. That\u2019s a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.<\/p>\n
The storm front \u2014 also dubbed the \u201cChiclone\u201d for the bizarreness of having a cyclone-like system over Chicago \u2014 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 [...]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading