Enjoy the snow while you can

I have a cousin who lives in Charlotte, NC. He sent a note saying he got 9-10 inches with a layer of ice somewhere in the middle. The kids have been home from school for three days and won't go back tomorrow.

A team at the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at the University of Illinois have developed a Winter Severity Index. Whether that translates into a misery index or a wonderfulness index depends on what you think of all that white stuff. The index is based on max and min temperatures, snowfall, snow depth, and how many days until the temps rise above freezing. The computed the index all the way back to 1950. And Detroit so far this season is the most severe since 1950. Yep, even beating out some nasty years in the late 1970s.



Someone who calls himself Gaius Publius, writing for Americablog, reports on a new study on El Niño. This is when the Pacific Ocean warms up and causes higher temperatures and more extreme weather. This kind of weather event had been forecast only a few months in advance. Now climate scientists say they can predict one a year ahead of time. And they predict one for a year from now. Which means 2015 will set a new record for highest global temperature. Enjoy the snow while you can.