Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote:
We sat here, right in the middle of Colorado, reading all the headlines about Colorado being "slammed" and "hammered" by a massive winter storm, and never saw more than a few millimeters of snow. The Sun was even out at times. Crazy. I fear for the upcoming fire season if we don't see some moisture pretty soon.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77092 wrote:

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<<A record-breaking snowstorm struck Colorado in early February 2012, closing an interstate highway, grounding flights, and dropping more than a foot of snow on the Denver area. After moving out of northeastern Colorado, the storm left heavy snow across Nebraska.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on February 5, after skies had largely cleared over the region. Snow and mountain peaks create a mottled appearance in western Colorado. Elsewhere, the snow cover forms a wide, uneven track over parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.

This snowfall did not break all-time records in Colorado, but it did break records for the month of February. The National Weather Service explained that northeastern Colorado generally experiences storms of this magnitude in March or April, and the February storm showed some of the same characteristics of powerful spring storms, including a system from the Pacific Northwest converging with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. The storm set a new record for the heaviest storm snowfall for February, depositing 15.9 inches in Denver, and 22.7 inches in Boulder.

Colorado ski resorts welcomed the precipitation after suffering from below-normal snow cover so far in the 2011–2012 ski season, but the new snow raised the risk of avalanches. As of February 6, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center reported “considerable” avalanche danger across much of the state. Heavy snow was not limited to Colorado. The National Weather Service reported up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) of snow west of Omaha, Nebraska.>>

neufer wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:
We sat here, right in the middle of Colorado, reading all the headlines about Colorado being "slammed" and "hammered" by a massive winter storm, and never saw more than a few millimeters of snow. The Sun was even out at times. Crazy. I fear for the upcoming fire season if we don't see some moisture pretty soon.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77092 wrote: <<A record-breaking snowstorm struck Colorado in early February 2012, closing an interstate highway, grounding flights, and dropping more than a foot of snow on the Denver area. After moving out of northeastern Colorado, the storm left heavy snow across Nebraska.

Ann wrote:All winter and cold and no spring and warmth makes Ann a dull girl.

geckzilla wrote:Perfect weather forever? It's call San Diego. 8-)

geckzilla wrote:True enough. If I could trade a few cold, rainy days for a some balmy ones, I would, though. Not that I mind the rain or the cold. It's just that when the two combine and yield no snow for weeks in a row that it upsets me.

Ann wrote:
All winter and cold and no spring and warmth makes Ann a dull girl.

Ann J. Nicholson

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77126 wrote:

[img3="
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using data
provided courtesy of the Land Processes Data Active Archive Center (LPDAAC).""]http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/im ... 012025.jpg[/img3]

<<Rare snowstorms in Rome and Tripoli and mounting death tolls from exposure were among the consequences of a severe cold snap in Europe in late January and early February 2012. Meteorologist Jeff Masters described it as Europe’s worst stretch of cold weather since February 1991.

This map above shows temperature anomalies for Europe and western Russia from January 25 to February 1, 2012, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2001 to 2011. The anomalies are based on land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Areas with above-average temperatures appear in red and orange, and areas with below-average temperatures appear in shades of blue. Oceans and lakes appear in gray.

Blue dominates this image, with most regions experiencing temperatures well below normal. Some of the most severe temperature anomalies occur in northwestern Russia and around the Black Sea.

Masters explains that the unusual cold is a product of the jet stream. Jet streams are bands of strong, upper-atmospheric winds that blow from west to east around the globe. These bands roughly separate colder air at higher latitudes from warmer air at middle to low latitudes, and they generally blow straight west to east. “But this winter, the jet has had a highly convoluted shape, with unusually large excursions to the north and south,” Masters states. “When the jet bulges southwards, it allows cold air to spill in behind it, and that is what has happened to Europe over the past two weeks.” When the jet stream adheres to a convoluted pattern for long enough, extreme weather can result.

The Arctic Oscillation (AO) Index provides an indication of whether the jet stream has formed an unusual bulge. When the AO is strongly negative, jet stream winds are comparatively weak, meaning it has drooped southward over Europe, dragging frigid air with it. A negative AO also often means unusual cold and snow over North America, but due to other factors, much of the United States has experienced below average snowfall.>>

bystander wrote:We had 2-3 inches of snow overnight. Won't last long, it's raining now.