Snow Dance

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Anyone know any good snow dances? Not that it ever snows much here, but I would like it to up in the mountains. I would like to hit the hills with the snowboard or snowmobile and when it's 40F and raining at 6000 feet that's not going to cut it There's been some snowfalls this season but then it warms up and rains and melts it all.

It's in the mid 60s today in this part of Washington.



Vaughn

 

[LSMITH]

Man, just come up to the upper midwest and get a truck load of this air we have been having, it ought to be enough to freeze at least one small mountain. I have been dreaming of warm weather, not wanting the cold.

 

[Andy Perreault]

Y'ain't gon' git no snow this year, Vaughn!

NOAA: El Nino to Bring Warmer Winter to Northern US

Thu Dec 12,11:55 AM ET



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - El Nino will bring milder temperatures this winter to the northern half of the United States, government forecasters said Thursday.



The weather phenomenon will extend through spring, pounding the U. S. from southern California to the Carolinas with more storms, which will help replenish low water levels after several years of below-normal precipitation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.



But at the same time, EL Nino will worsen the drought in the Rockies and the Midwest, said NOAA which previously predicted El Nino would subside in February.



"This is a classic El Nino pattern," Conrad Lautenbacher, NOAA administrator, said in a statement. "El Nino is one of the driving forces behind these kinds of winter storm systems, which develop in the South and head east," he said.



El Nino is an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that wreaks havoc on weather patterns, mainly in the Asian Pacific region.



Forecasters said this El Nino will not be as devastating as the one in 1997-98 which killed nearly 25,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages due to withering drought in Indonesia and rampant floods in Ecuador and Peru.



Meaning "little boy" in Spanish, El Nino was named after the Christ Child by anchovy fishermen of South America in the 1800s because it usually appeared around Christmas time.





MIDWEST, WEST DROUGHT TO CONTINUE



El Nino will bring no relief to drought-stricken farmers and ranchers in the Rockies and parts of the Midwest, NOAA forecasters said. Drier-than-normal conditions will linger in Montana and northern parts of Idaho and Wyoming.



"Drought may intensify in the northern Rockies and parts of the Midwest," said Jack Kelly, director of NOAA's National Weather Service (news - web sites).



About 53 percent of U. S. land west of the Mississippi River remains in a drought, a slight improvement from 55 percent in September, NOAA said.



In states east of the Mississippi River where drought festered through the summer, only 9 percent of the land remains in drought.



Last summer, the United States battled one of the worst droughts in its history, with high temperatures and a lack of rain scorching corn, wheat and soybean crops in the Plains and Midwest. The drought also evaporated streams and created tinder-like conditions that helped ignite devastating Western wildfires.



Earlier this week, the U. S. Agriculture Department said the domestic corn harvest this year would fall to 9 billion bushels, soybeans to 2. 69 billion bushels and cotton to 17. 83 million bales.



The U. S. wheat crop is the smallest since 1972, but rising prices and recent rains have encouraged planting of winter wheat crops.



El Nino is also expected to worsen conditions in the Pacific Northwest, where mountain snow is important to help generate hydroelectricity.

 

[illflem]

In a recent article I read several climatologists agreed that if global warming continues at it's present rate much of the western US will become uninhabitable by 2020. This is due to water shortages caused by more precipitation falling as rain rather than snow, running off or soaking into the ground rather than mountain snow melt running off later in the summer when it's needed most. Whether it's man caused or a natural cycle no one really knows, but there is no doubt that global temperature averages are rising considerably.