4 ms·

An astonishing, dangerous cold snap is about to descend on the U.S.

19 points by sethbannon 13y ago

elipsey 13y ago
2F now in upstate New York, and hilarity ensues. I'm from Alaska so I'm used to it; I would have expected New Yorkers to be unsuprised occasional cold weather but not so much... I was standing in a grocery line in Fairbanks a few years ago when it was -50F, and the guy in front of me says: "How about all that global warming out there?" Everyone get ready to explain the difference between climate and weather again.
- ethanbond 13y ago
  Well it's actually a more important distinction than one between climate and weather. It's a distinction between "warming" and polarizing. Global warming models usually predict hotter summers AND colder winters. So it's not a matter of weather vs climate but of bad naming.
  - elipsey 13y ago
    Good point, and there are other important changes that should be communicated like increased storm severity, and associated risk of floods (which we study in my lab), higher precip in some areas, less in others, and, I'm sure, lots of other stuff I don't know about. If I could figure out how to express all of that stuff clearly and concisely in between being yelled at by Bill O'Reilly, I guess I would have a different job title :)
orasis 13y ago
Yawn I lived in Fargo for years and one January the highs didn't get above zero for an entire month. Dress properly, don't stumble around drunk in below zero weather, and have a backup heat source if the power goes out. Hardy up softies!
- cookingrobot 13y ago
  This report says Minnesota will get -62f.
  - nkurz 13y ago
    You were misled by the terrible article. The -62 F is the projected "wind chill", not temperature. Further on in the text, it says that the NWS says "lows of 15 to 30 below are expected" and "Low temperatures may fall to 30 below over north-central portions of Wisconsin". Their definition of "historic" is also quite a low bar: "Some of the coldest air in years, if not decades" and "predicting it will be the most severe since 1996". For the area, this is really cold, but not historic. For those going back and forth between units, an easy thing to remember is that -40F == -40C. That's the coldest I remember growing up in Northern Wisconsin. Overall, the climate in is approximately the same as Moscow, Russia.
jleyank 13y ago
sigh In case anybody doubts the power of marketing, think of how much easier it would have been if "global warming" had been called "climate change". It would have been easy to describe how teapots get roiled as the water gets warmer, and you can see this if they're glass. Roiled atmosphere = bigger storms. This is way more concrete than arguing that it's warmer or colder.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Except it's evidence of nothing. We've had severe cold snaps every decade or two since... forever.

19 points by sethbannon 13y ago

2F now in upstate New York, and hilarity ensues. I'm from Alaska so I'm used to it; I would have expected New Yorkers to be unsuprised occasional cold weather but not so much... I was standing in a grocery line in Fairbanks a few years ago when it was -50F, and the guy in front of me says: "How about all that global warming out there?" Everyone get ready to explain the difference between climate and weather again.

ethanbond 13y ago
Well it's actually a more important distinction than one between climate and weather. It's a distinction between "warming" and polarizing. Global warming models usually predict hotter summers AND colder winters. So it's not a matter of weather vs climate but of bad naming.
- elipsey 13y ago
  Good point, and there are other important changes that should be communicated like increased storm severity, and associated risk of floods (which we study in my lab), higher precip in some areas, less in others, and, I'm sure, lots of other stuff I don't know about. If I could figure out how to express all of that stuff clearly and concisely in between being yelled at by Bill O'Reilly, I guess I would have a different job title :)

orasis 13y ago

Yawn I lived in Fargo for years and one January the highs didn't get above zero for an entire month. Dress properly, don't stumble around drunk in below zero weather, and have a backup heat source if the power goes out. Hardy up softies!

cookingrobot 13y ago
This report says Minnesota will get -62f.
- nkurz 13y ago
  You were misled by the terrible article. The -62 F is the projected "wind chill", not temperature. Further on in the text, it says that the NWS says "lows of 15 to 30 below are expected" and "Low temperatures may fall to 30 below over north-central portions of Wisconsin". Their definition of "historic" is also quite a low bar: "Some of the coldest air in years, if not decades" and "predicting it will be the most severe since 1996". For the area, this is really cold, but not historic. For those going back and forth between units, an easy thing to remember is that -40F == -40C. That's the coldest I remember growing up in Northern Wisconsin. Overall, the climate in is approximately the same as Moscow, Russia.

jleyank 13y ago

sigh In case anybody doubts the power of marketing, think of how much easier it would have been if "global warming" had been called "climate change". It would have been easy to describe how teapots get roiled as the water gets warmer, and you can see this if they're glass. Roiled atmosphere = bigger storms. This is way more concrete than arguing that it's warmer or colder.

ams6110 13y ago
Except it's evidence of nothing. We've had severe cold snaps every decade or two since... forever.