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JeffMasters, • 3:02 PM GMT on November 28, 2014
Nearly nineteen million people in the Eastern U.S. are under a Winter Storm Warning as a poorly-timed Nor'easter socks it to travelers hitting the roads and skies in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday.
JeffMasters, • 3:54 PM GMT on November 26, 2014
After basking in record warm temperatures in the 60s and 70s on Monday, the Northeast U.S. is bracing for a Wednesday winter onslaught, as a significant Nor'easter will bring heavy snows to the roads at the same time that millions of people hit the roads in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday.
JeffMasters, • 2:44 PM GMT on November 25, 2014
It's weather whiplash in Buffalo, New York, where the temperature surged to 62°F at 11 am EST Monday, following a week of near record cold and heavy snow. The exceptional warmth would be welcome if not for the massive snowpack on the ground along a swath across the southern and eastern suburbs of Buffalo, where last week's extreme lake effect snow storm dumped up to 88" of snow at Cowlesville.
JeffMasters, • 3:54 PM GMT on November 24, 2014
October 2014 was the warmest October on record, and the year-to-date-period January - October was Earth's warmest such period since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA. They also rated the past 12 months--November 2013 through October 2014--as the warmest consecutive 12-month period among all months since records began in 1880; 2014 will be the warmest calendar year on record if global temperatures in November and December merely match their average values recorded since 2000.
JeffMasters, • 12:42 PM GMT on November 21, 2014
A new lake effect snowstorm is pummeling snow-weary Buffalo, New York once again, where over a foot of new snow has fallen over regions that received five feet of snow on Tuesday. A persistent band of heavy snow coming off of the relatively warm waters of Lake Erie has settled over the southern and eastern suburbs of Buffalo, delivering prodigious snows of 3 - 5" per hour.
JeffMasters, • 3:46 PM GMT on November 20, 2014
America's remarkable mid-November Arctic blast continued Wednesday morning, with hundreds of daily record low temperatures falling again. Hardest hit by the unseasonably early Arctic outbreak was Buffalo, New York, where a record lake effect snowstorm was being blamed for at least five deaths.
JeffMasters, • 4:30 PM GMT on November 19, 2014
A wicked cold blast of January-like Arctic air is smashing records as it pours southwards over the eastern two-thirds of the United States, with temperatures 15 - 35°F below average common on Tuesday morning across much of the country. Freezing temperatures pushed all the south into the Florida Panhandle, where Pensacola hit 28°F.
JeffMasters, • 5:00 PM GMT on November 18, 2014
The winter of 2014 - 2015 is off to an early start over the continental U.S., where snow covered 50% of the nation as of November 17, 2014. This is an unusually high percentage for mid-November; over the past ten years, the percentage of the continental U.S covered by snow on November 17 has ranged from 4% - 20%.
JeffMasters, • 4:14 PM GMT on November 17, 2014
A warmer world will have much more dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning capable of igniting more forest fires, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal Science. The research found that for each degree Centigrade of global warming, lightning in the U.S. is expected to increase by 12%, resulting in about a 50% increase in lightning by the year 2100.
JeffMasters, • 4:04 PM GMT on November 14, 2014
Stunning and welcome climate change news came out of China on Tuesday, when President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a historic joint climate commitment. The U.S. pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 - 28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. In turn, China agreed to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and to get 20% of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
JeffMasters, • 4:44 PM GMT on November 13, 2014
A bitter cold blast of Arctic air more typical of late December is plunging south over the Midwest, and will immerse most of the eastern two-thirds of the country in December-like cold for much of the coming week. Casper, Wyoming bottomed out Wednesday morning at a numbing -25°F, their coldest November temperature since weather records began in 1937.
JeffMasters, • 3:30 PM GMT on November 12, 2014
NOAA dropped their odds of an El Niño event forming this winter from 60 - 65% in their October outlook to 58% in their November outlook, but a surge of warm water over the equatorial Eastern Pacific over the past week could signal the onset of El Niño.
JeffMasters, • 3:50 PM GMT on November 11, 2014
The winter of 2014 - 2015 is off to an early start over the Northern Plains, where a December-like blast of Arctic air is bringing heavy snows and wintery cold. The early season cold air outbreak is due, in part, to the influence of Super Typhoon Nuri, which caused a ripple effect on the jet stream.
JeffMasters, • 3:52 PM GMT on November 10, 2014
What was once Category 5 Super Typhoon Nuri bombed into one of the strongest extratropical storms ever observed in the Pacific Ocean, reaching 924 mb at 06 UTC Saturday morning--a pressure rarely achieved by an extratropical storm. The only two Pacific storms I am aware of that compare are the October 25 - 26, 1977 storm near Dutch Harbor, Alaska that set Alaska's all-time low pressure record (925 mb), and a storm from December 24, 1975 that hit 926 mb near 49°N 158°W.
JeffMasters, • 12:43 AM GMT on November 09, 2014
A rare "Medicane"--a hybrid storm with characteristics of both a tropical storm and an extratropical storm--formed over the South Central Mediterranean Sea on Friday and moved over the island of Malta, bringing them tropical storm-like conditions. Winds at the Luqa, Malta Airport looked suspiciously like what one would observe with a tropical storm passing overhead--a double peak with a near-calm in between, with the pressure falling to 984 mb during the calm.
JeffMasters, • 11:54 PM GMT on November 07, 2014
A Cold Start to Winter - but Milder ending
Steve Gregory • 6:21 PM GMT on November 06, 2014
Typhoon Nuri is down to Category 1 strength as it steams to the northeast at 11 mph towards Alaska. Nuri will lose its tropical characteristics on Thursday, then rapidly intensify into one of the strongest extratropical low pressure systems ever observed in the Pacific Ocean: 918 mb by late Friday night.
JeffMasters, • 4:22 PM GMT on November 05, 2014
Typhoon Nuri lost its "Super" designation Monday night, after the top winds fell below 150 mph, but remains poised to transition this weekend to one of the strongest extratropical storms ever to affect Alaska.
JeffMasters, • 3:47 PM GMT on November 04, 2014
Super Typhoon Nuri exploded into a mighty Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds on Sunday, and has maintained that strength for a remarkable 24 hours. Nuri intensified from a Category 1 storm with 85 mph winds to a very high-end Category 5 with 180 mph winds, with the central pressure dropping 65 mb in 24 hours, down to 910 mb.
JeffMasters, • 7:12 PM GMT on November 03, 2014
"Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems", said the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today, in the final installment of their once-every-seven-year report on the climate.
JeffMasters, • 3:08 PM GMT on November 02, 2014
Satellite images show that Tropical Storm Vance has an expanding area of heavy thunderstorms that have improved in organization since Friday. Vance is over warm waters with low wind shear, so intensification into a Category 1 hurricane by Sunday is a good bet, but the storm's heaviest rains will remain well offshore from Mexico through Sunday.
JeffMasters, • 3:29 PM GMT on November 01, 2014