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Last Wednesday, the weather was sunny and warm at Bob Fortune's cattle ranch in Belvidere, S.D. On Thursday, it started raining. By Friday night, the rain had turned to snow. By the weekend, the snow turned to a blizzard with 60 mile an hour winds. By the weekend, Fortune says, "the cattle just couldn't stand the cold anymore, and they just started dying." Only a year after sweeping drought left ranchers across South Dakota desperate for feed, this week they're just beginning to reckon with a freak early snowstorm, dubbed Winter Storm Atlas, that wiped out an estimated 10 percent...

Joe compares the predictions of the Weather Service to his own. Quick look at typhoons.

Harvest is in full swing across the country, and farmers in many states are surprised at the abundance of corn they’re getting from their fields. Dairy farmer Ben Steffen, who also grows corn, soybeans and wheat on 1,900 acres near the southeastern Nebraska town of Humboldt, said his first corn field brought in 168 bushels an acre, above the average of 140. … The best crops in the U.S. are in areas that received adequate rain combined with cooler temperatures at the time corn pollinated, a welcome sight after last year’s dismal harvest due to the drought withering corn and...

The charts on this page depict the progression of the Solar Cycle. The charts and tables are updated by the Space Weather Prediction Center monthly using the latest ISES predictions. Observed values are initially the preliminary values which are replaced with the final values as they become available.

Typhoon Danas has its sight set on Japan for the early and middle parts of the week. A destructive storm surge of 2.5-3.5 meters (8-12 feet), damaging winds over 150 kph (90 mph), and flooding rainfall of 4-8 inches are expected along the path of Danas which include the Ryukyu Islands, as well as the Kyushu and Chugoku Regions of Japan.

Saturday Summary October 5, 2013 I followed his Twitter. I think first he was at a wrestling match, then on a golf course. He's funny. Well, now we have the weather.

Someone at the Anchorage, Alaska, branch of the National Weather Service seems to have a very important message regarding the federal government shutdown: “PLEASE PAY US.”

A storm system that buried parts of Wyoming and South Dakota in heavy, wet snow on Friday also brought powerful thunderstorms and possible tornadoes to the Great Plains. The storm dumped at least 33 inches of snow in a part of South Dakota’s scenic Black Hills, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Helgeson said Friday afternoon. Later in the day, thunderstorms rolled across the Plains, and witnesses reported seeing tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. …

The UN’s climate panel (IPCC) released its latest warning about "catastrophic" climate change on Sept. 27, garnering the frantic attention of all three broadcast networks that night. CBS even aired a claim about temperatures rising “more than 200 degrees."Predictably, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC Sept. 27 repeated the IPCC’s dire warnings without including any skeptics and without mentioning past failures such as their inability to accurately predict warming or sea level rise.ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer,” NBC “Nightly News” and CBS “Evening News” all failed to include criticism of the IPCC with the exception...

The calendar may have just turned to October; however, Winter Storm Atlas is poised to bring heavy snow to the northern Rockies, some snow even at lower elevations, and perhaps the season’s first snow to parts of the Northern Plains. … (T)he heaviest snow accumulations from Winter Storm Atlas are expected to be over the highest elevations of southern Montana, Wyoming and far northern Colorado. More than a foot of total snow is likely over the Tetons, Bighorns and Beartooth Ranges of Wyoming and far southwest Montana, as well as the Black Hills of South Dakota and mountains of far...

Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns. A team of expert cavers and photographers have been exploring the vast cave system in the Chongquing province of China and have taken the first-ever photographs of the natural wonder. They were amazed to discover the entrance to the hidden Er Wang Dong cave system and were stunned when they managed to climb inside to see a space so large that it can contain a cloud.

It appears runaway warming predictions may have been fantasy While the basic premise of global warming has a solid basis in fundamental physical chemistry -- that carbon-containing gases trap sunlight, turning it into heat -- a great unknown is how the Earth will respond to this heating by increasing levels of atmospheric carbon.   I. Doomsday Scenarios Flop Some researchers have claimed sensational scenarios involving "runaway warming" and dire doomsday effects, including warming-created super-hurricanes, floods, new deserts, and super-tornados.  

Commentary on IPCC vs. decadal oscillations.

On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivers its latest verdict on the state of man-made global warming. Though the details are a secret, one thing is clear: the version of events you will see and hear in much of the media, especially from partis pris organisations like the BBC, will be the opposite of what the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report actually says. Already we have had a taste of the nonsense to come: a pre-announcement to the effect that “climate scientists” are now “95 per cent certain” that humans are to blame for climate change; an evidence-free declaration...

This flows in perfectly with the Warmist notion that debate is great, and theyÂ’re willing to debate anyone anytime anywhere, but when challenged disappear and refuse. Why WeÂ’re Shutting Off Our Comments Comments can be bad for science. ThatÂ’s why, here at PopularScience.com, weÂ’re shutting them off. It wasnÂ’t a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to...

......it seems that thanks to warmists Al Gore and former Senator Tim Wirth (the guy who turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows at Hansen’s global warming hearing in June 1988) it has become a hatefest against climate skeptics.

Link to video. Interesting relationship between Western Pacific storms and East Coast weather.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - The greatest risk of being impacted by a significant tornado in the United States is in a Deep South corridor that includes Huntsville and Birmingham, not the Great Plains region of Oklahoma and Kansas, according to a study co-authored by a University of Alabama in Huntsville researcher. The research paper was written by Tim Coleman, an adjunct professor and researcher in the Earth Systems Science Center at UAH, and Grady Dixon, an associate professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University. The paper is scheduled to be published by the American Meteorology Society's Weather and Forecasting,...

Nothing to do with ice ages, but I found this beautiful. Russian “Extreme Drive” instructors club displays cars driving on ice in a in a “close contact” dance.

For 125 years, National Geographic has enjoyed a reputation as a scientific and educational organization. It is so trusted that if a topic is covered within the pages of National Geographic, it has been accepted without question. Most of us grew up reading it in the classroom, and later, in the doctor’s office. So what were they thinking when they chose to feature a nearly submerged Statue of Liberty on the cover of the September issue? Obviously, by using scare tactics and fear mongering, the editors have bought into the propaganda of man-made climate change. They are frantically trying to...

Last month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration charted the 11,967 tropical cyclones that have occurred on Earth since records began. By colouring how many times any storm track overlapped another, certain patterns arise in the density of storms affecting a given area. Cyclone tracks overlapped the most in the western Pacific and Bay of Bengal. The frequency of track overlaps is much lower in the Western Hemisphere

But surprisingly, not a single major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 storm or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale —with minimum wind gusts of at least 111 mph (178 km/h) — has directly hit the United States in nearly eight years. That's twice as long as any major hurricane landfall "drought" since 1915, and by far the longest on record since data began being collected prior to 1900. As of today (Sept. 12), it's been 2,880 days since Hurricane Wilma, the last major hurricane to strike the United States, made landfall on Oct. 24, 2005. The reasons behind this drought...

 Tony Abbott announces Australia is open for business again.  Finally Australia steps back from a porkbarrelling party that stood for nothing more than being in power. They broke promises to anyone and everyone with Olympian success. And it was not just the usual politician broken promise of failing to solve a problem they promised to solve: they brought in The Carbon Tax after dishonestly guaranteeing they would not. Would they have won the 2010 election if they hadn’t made that promise? (It would only have taken 400 voters in Corangamite to rewrite history.) They’ve taken broken promises to an all new level, where nothing they...

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Guest Blogger Update: the IPCC edifice is crumbling, see The state of climate science: ‘fluxed up’See also Willis’ article One Step Forward, Two Steps BackThis post will be a sticky for awhile, new posts will appear below it. – AnthonyDialing Back the Alarm on Climate ChangeA forthcoming report points lowers estimates on global warmingby Dr. Matt RidleyLater this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” part of...

Getting some devastating hurricanes in Mexico. Link goes straight to video.

Earth has gained 19,000 Manhattans of sea ice since this date last year, the largest increase on record. There is more sea ice now than there was on this date in 2002.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Two researchers and their pilot remained stranded on a remote Alaska volcano Friday, two days after freezing rain left thick ice on their helicopter. Alaska State Troopers said bad weather was preventing rescuers from reaching the helicopter on Mount Mageik (ma-GEEK'), about 280 miles southwest of Anchorage at Katmai National Park and Preserve. Unsuccessful attempts have been made by helicopter company and Rescue Coordination Center, which was called in Thursday and has sent out a Blackhawk helicopter and a C-130 plane. Everyone on board the Egli Air Haul helicopter was reported in good condition. They are...

Enjoy the weather; it's the only weather you've got. Link is direct to video.

The Northwest Passage after decades of so-called global warming has a dramatic 60% more Arctic ice this year than at the same time last year. The future dreams of dozens of adventurous sailors are now threatened. A scattering of yachts attempting the legendary Passage are caught by the ice, which has now become blocked at both ends and the transit season may be ending early.

A cold airmass and clear skies allowed for temperatures to plunge to record low levels in the northern Interior. Most notably, Bettles recorded a low of 15ºF Saturday morning. This is by far the lowest temperature of record at Bettles in August. The previous record at the Bettles in August was 22ºF on August 30, 1969. At old Bettles, about four miles downriver from the current townsite, a low of 20ºF was measured on August 24, 1948. Other low temperatures included 17ºF at both Chandalar DOT and Coldfoot DOT and a chilly 13F at the Norutak Lake RAWS west of...

Where are all the hurricanes Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, and Brad Johnson say are supposed to happen due to global warming? August is about to end without an Atlantic hurricane for the first time since 2002, calling into question predictions of a more active storm season than normal. Six tropical systems have formed in the Atlantic since the season began June 1 and none of them has grown to hurricane strength with winds of at least 74 miles (120 kilometers) per hour. Accumulated cyclone energy in the Atlantic, a measure of tropical power, is about 30 percent of...

Always informative. Always entertaining.

The ABC keeps giving us more reasons to say “Privatize the national broadcaster”. Such is the quality of the insights on offer.Clive Hamilton, ethics professor and former Greens candidate, uses most of the alarmist toolbox on the ABC Drum --the name-calling, hypocrisy, and argumentum ad auctoritatem. He still can’t tell the difference between science and religion, he thinks science works like a church, with decrees issued from the Mount. He talks of the mythical God known as “the science”. Clive has read the leak of the latest commandment from on high, and it says “95%”! There is gnashing of...

The summer of 2013 is over in a few days, and has had the fewest 40ºC (104F)temperature readings of any year in the last nine decades. There were only 832 40ºC (temperatures recorded in 2013, compared to 8,357 in 1936.

Obama says that hurricanes are getting worse, based on some research done at the Choom Climatological Institute. As we approach the end of August, there have been no Atlantic hurricanes. By this date in the year 1886, there had already been seven hurricanes – including three major hurricanes, one of which wiped the city of Indianola, Texas off the map.

Always informative. Always entertaining. Link goes straight to video.

US researchers have developed a new way to create glowing orbs of plasma similar to ball lightning in the lab, allowing them to study their chemical and physical properties. The work could help scientists unravel the mysteries of this very rare natural phenomenon.Ball lightning has been known for millennia, but its rarity and short lived nature – typically lasting between 1 and 10 seconds – has prevented it from being studied and understood. In recent years, however, lab experiments that mimic ball lightning have been developed.One method involves a glowing discharge produced above an aqueous electrolyte solution. However, high...

No longer profitable, thanks to renewables - but vital to keep the lights on The German government is engaged in increasingly heated negotiations with energy companies in an effort to stop them closing carbon-emitting power plants which have been rendered unprofitable by the national renewables policies.Last week power giant RWE grumbled that many of its coal and gas power stations "are no longer profitable to operate", and said it would be closing some of them down. Its rival E.ON also said that it had plants "working for nothing", and announced plant shutdowns. The problem for the fossil-fuel powerplants is the...

Global warming and climate change are usually thought to mean that world sea levels will rise, perhaps disastrously. But according to US government boffins, in recent times (2010 and 2011, to be precise) phenomena driven by human carbon emissions have actually caused world sea levels to fall.The seas have, of course, been rising steadily as the climate has changed for thousands of years, ever since the end of the last ice age. During the 20th century, according to estimates mostly from erratic tide gauges, sea levels rose by around 1.7mm a year. Since the early 1990s, satellites have also been...

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Brack Obama held a joint prayer breakfast this morning. The goup has asked that the nation pray for natural disasters. Global warming has fallen on hard times with no hurricanes reported this year and the cumulative deficit over the last 5 years brings the shortfall total to nearly 100. Combined with a downturn in tornadoes, flooding and wildfires the lack of extreme weather is causing severe problems with the economy. As Pelosi and Reid have previously stated, unemployment and food stamps grow the economy. Generally, extreme weather event can be counted on to increase unemployment...

Always informative. Always entertaining. Antarctic ice about to set a record. Big pocket of moisture coming off of W. Africa. Link is straight to video.

Now for some bad news: national meteorologists expect the drought to continue or worsen through late summer and early fall in Texas, and ocean patterns are troublingly similar to those during the “drought of record” in the 1950s. Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its latest drought forecast. It predicts the drought will persist or intensify in most of Texas from July through October. But there is one exception — in Far West Texas, August and September rains are expected to bring some relief to an area from Midland to El Paso, according to NOAA meteorologist Victor...

Always informative. Always educational. Yes, I know I'm late. I attended an Oath Keeper's meeting yesterday and forgot to do this. Link is to actual video.

Working on some area and latitude calculations for sea ice. many hundreds of on-line references report that the Antarctic continent is 14,000,000 square kilometers: A nice, convenient even round number. That's obviously always been rounded off as one source copies from everybody, or just never measured accurately. Neither seems correct. the NSIRDC tracks sea ice, and they have explicitly written me that their "Antarctic Sea Ice"totals do NOT include the permanent ice shelves around many areas of that continent. Fine, no problem: and it even makes sense: Why should a federal agency track "permanent sea shelves" when they can get...

The Small Business Majority, an advocacy group working to influence public policy, says that small businesses are facing higher costs due to extreme weather conditions, including floods, droughts, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, and a rise in sea level many claim is a result of man-made global warming. “Small businesses are particularly at risk from climate change and the extreme weather events it causes and must take steps to adapt,” the organization said in a new report. … But when CNSNews.com asked the group’s spokeswoman how small businesses can be negatively affected when there has not been any significant global warming for...

Alaska fishing trip ends in tragedy for old high-school pals Three old friends from Montesano High School in Grays Harbor County were on a fishing and camping trip in Alaska when high winds and seas dumped them into the water off Baranoff Island. Only one man made it to shore.

This week, NOAA’s Terra/MODIS satellites detected a massive plume of dust moving off the coast of Africa, born from a storm far inland. This plume, called the Saharan Air Layer (SAL), carries with it a particularly high concentration of dust and dry air that NOAA notes, ‘plays an important role in lessening “cyclogenesis” or the formation of hurricanes.’ Using 18 satellite images from NOAA, we created the following animation to show the recent movement of this air mass off the western coast of Africa.

Here’s a graph showing something about Australian, Chinese and Indian emissions (thanks to Tom Quirk). At a glance you might think we are up there with the best of them (doing our bit to fertilize the flora of the planet, and to regreen the deserts). Alas, the Australian tally (the green triangles) represents the total emissions of Australia. The lines depicting Chinese and Indian emissions just show their annual increases.Chinese annual increases in emissions are larger than the entire Australian output. India is not too far behind. UPDATE: TonyfromOz points out the Y-axis scale  is missing three zero’s. Data source:...

Credit to The Australian for printing both points of view. Published as an Op-Ed today.Carbon credits market is neither free nor worth anything by: Joanne NovaFrom: The Australian July 31, 2013 12:00AM THE paradox du jour: people who like free markets don’t want a carbon market, and the people who don’t trust capitalism want emissions trading. So why are socialists fighting for a carbon market? Because this “market” is a bureaucrat’s wet dream. A free market is the voluntary exchange of goods and services. “Free” means being free to choose to buy or to not buy the product. At...

CSIRO wants to stop methane emissions: but can they get a grant to stop El Nino’s and cap volcanoes?This type of trans-Siberian cow used to emit a lot of methane. Tom Quirk sent me a short note to point out that the big rise in global methane almost certainly was man-made — at least up to the mid 1980′s, but in the last 20 years, the culprit for rising methane appears to be volcanoes and El Ninos. (Note the timing of the spikes in the graph below, as methane pours into the atmosphere some years, but barely changes in...