It happens very seldom, about once a decade I think. It made us all silly and we ran out into it whenever we could. Several of my staff had never seen snow. Most of us were totally underdressed for it - heck, yesterday I was in short sleeves.  I came home from the office to "emergency gluhwein" followed by "emergency soup" and "emergency pasta". It is aggressively cold now, early bed is advised.

Sounds like fun. I deal with it too often for it to be much fun. It's beauty still catches me from time to time though.

This past winter was odd here in Massachusetts; we had a big snowstorm in October, before the leaves had come down.  I was out camping and kept being awakened by trees falling throughout the night, and the power was out for days in some areas.  We thought it was a harbringer of a rough winter, but when winter actaully arrived, it hardly snowed...

You can have ALL the snow we get every winter and I'll gladly part with it. YOU guys can drive in it ;) LOL

Laurie

Quote - This past winter was odd here in Massachusetts; we had a big snowstorm in October, before the leaves had come down.  I was out camping and kept being awakened by trees falling throughout the night, and the power was out for days in some areas.  We thought it was a harbringer of a rough winter, but when winter actaully arrived, it hardly snowed...

Yep, same here. The most freakish thing within my memory and I'm 40 something ;). We didn't have power for three days.

Laurie

Weather is crazy, a couple of weeks ago it was 106F here in Indiana thats 41.1C

I'm old enough that its still amazing to me that you can communicate with someone half way around the world as easily as someone next door!

Quote - I'm old enough that its still amazing to me that you can communicate with someone half way around the world as easily as someone next door!

Indeed; I remember listening to RSA out of Johannesburg on my Dad's Lafayette shortwave set...

Up here in this part of sunny Canada, I can't actually remember if it snowed this last winter. Nope. No snow. Did get cold though - for a few days. Lows just a couple of degrees below freezing. Brrrrrrrrr! ;)

Right now, at 3pm, it's 18C (65F) and should reach a shocking high of 27C (80F) tomorrow. Oh, I may have to open more than one window!

Bottom line, its not supposed to be snowing in our country..The world is Fkd.

It is Global Warming. Few years ago Buenos Aires had snow for a whole day after 85 years without it. I have never seen snow in mine whole life and this one I missed too!

The melting ice caps are shifting the flow of the gulf stream... for one thing... as I understand it. That in itself disrupts the weather systems and is, I think I read at least, a core factor behind the seeming paradox of global warming resulting in more wintry weather.

But I guess weather is so complex. It's a conjunction of a multitude of things... many of them not man made. But I think the consensus is that we're the straw on the back of the camel.

I have my fingers crossed that the camel is healthy enough to keep standing. But we could be in for a bumpy ride through the desert, I would guess, at best.

It may only be a matter of time now before we have to strap star of Moonlighting, Bruce Willis to a rocket and fire him into space. Or back in time. Whichever looks more statistically probable to succeed... or just provide the best entertainment, as we ponder the apocalypse.

Quote - The melting ice caps are shifting the flow of the gulf stream...

The gulf stream is so small and so far away to have any effect on the South hemisphere.

What I have observed in the last years are colder Summers or shifted seasons (heat begins at the end of Summer or Autumn itself). Winter is variable, we can have Summer and Winter in the same day.

The North henisphere can be warming, but in the last ten years you can be sure, the South hemisphere is freezing.

"The North henisphere can be warming, but in the last ten years you can be sure, the South hemisphere is freezing."

Australia calling....the land of searing deserts and sunny beaches....it was 1.1C when I arrived at work this morning in western Sydney. Yes, it does get cold here in winter (but don't tell anybody...bad for tourism LOL).

Quote - The gulf stream is so small and so far away to have any effect on the South hemisphere.

Perhaps... maybe depends on the effect of those butterflies I've heard about them...

Anyway... this year, it would seem the effect of that gulf stream diversion here in Scotland, and I guess the rest of the UK and onto the continent etc, perhaps, as well... is that its a lot soggier than usual.

And that's saying something.

We also had a summer of 30 degrees heat in March, instead of now, this year.

Although it's not bad currently, I have to say, in time for the start of the Edinburgh Festival.

Personally, I wouldn't be too surprised if the snow comes along later this month :rolleyes:

The frightening thing is what ever we do now to correct climate change, it's probably far too late. And perhaps more scary is the posibility that this is just the beginning of something much bigger to come.

If the 25C temperatures in March (when the highs are on average below 0) in Winnipeg this year are any indication, I'd say, at least Russia and Canada might be on the way to becoming a lot more habitable. No wonder our environmental record is so... stellar, eh.

On the West Coast, it was wetter and we had a very mild spring.

Today, I heard thunder. Just seeing lightning is extreme for this part of the world. People stop what they're doing and go towards windows to look at it. Since leaving Texas in 1996, I have heard thunder about eight times. Three of those were in the last month.

There are primarily two prospective natural disasters I would lose sleep over, if I thought about them overly.

Neither are global warming, which is, at least, seemingly, quite gradual... so far...

...well, I don't know what's worse. But I think we naturally worry more about a sudden flood than a seeping one.

Still, I 'm perpetually amazed at how resilient humanity and life in general can be...

The climate has been warming since about 1750, when we started to come out of the Little Ice Age.  It has likely been warmer than today in historic times; people grew crops in Greenland and grapes grew in what is now Newfoundland ('Vinland') a thousand years ago, and in Roman times, Britannia was a prime grape growing region...

The tsunami or earthquake or whatever it was in Japan knocked to earth of kilter several degrees and it a speculated that it's enough to effect climates because the sun's rays are now hitting the earth at different angles.

Perhaps if we all lean left at the exact same time, we'll be able to straighten things out.

Quote - The tsunami or earthquake or whatever it was in Japan knocked to earth of kilter several degrees and....

This negates Newton's Inertia Principle, maybe Newton was wrong and AlGore was right

What is this snow stuff you people are talking about?

Quote - The climate has been warming since about 1750, when we started to come out of the Little Ice Age.  It has likely been warmer than today in historic times; people grew crops in Greenland and grapes grew in what is now Newfoundland ('Vinland') a thousand years ago, and in Roman times, Britannia was a prime grape growing region...

Tis true. Was warmer then ;). But a lot of folks would like ya to think this is the warmest its ever been..hehe.

Laurie

Quote - The tsunami or earthquake or whatever it was in Japan knocked to earth of kilter several degrees and it a speculated that it's enough to effect climates because the sun's rays are now hitting the earth at different angles.

 

No, not several degrees, but several inches. That's quite a difference. One single degree difference would result in a shift of 4382655,29 inches, that's four million times more.

The axis changed nothing. Changing the Earth  axis of rotation would imply a change of the momentum of the Earth. To change the momentum of a body you need to apply an external force to the body. The earthquake is an internal force and so, it cannot change the momentum of the whole body.

Solar storms/flares also have a significant impact on our weather patterns, and that's not something anyone can control.

For the last year or so - maybe a little longer - we've entered a period of heavy solar flare activity, which goes in cycles, and so far - supposedly - this has been one of the most active solar flare cycles in recorded history. iirc, it's suppose to peak sometime between now and 2014. I've read various claims that it has something to do with the coming planetary alignment as well, but I haven't read much on all of that. 

I've read that it seems to be affecting weather patterns on all the planets in our solar system though, not just here, and some scientists have said that if we're hit directly by a big one, it's quite possible we'll lose all power and communications for some unspecified period of time. Could be a serious problem, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it, and as I understand it, there's no way of even knowing if it's going to happen until it happens. 

Fun times ahead.

~Shane

Quote - The axis changed nothing. Changing the Earth  axis of rotation would imply a change of the momentum of the Earth. To change the momentum of a body you need to apply an external force to the body. The earthquake is an internal force and so, it cannot change the momentum of the whole body.

Sounds logical, but have you ever watched figure skaters or have wondered what the little clumps of lead on a wheel rim are for? The axis shift from the march 2011 tsunami is  estimated between 4 and 12 inches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

Quote - Sounds logical, but have you ever watched figure skaters or have wondered what the little clumps of lead on a wheel rim are for?

If you look only at the skater you will see that he changes his momentum, the same with acrobats and cats. But the skater is not isolated in the Universe, there is the reaction of the ground, so if you consider the whole system, skater + ground, the total momentum has not changed.

In an earthquake, if you look alone at the piece of soil that moved you will see that the momentum has changed, but the soil is not isolated, you have the other part of the soil that have also moved and changed its momentum, the tsunami wave also had acquired momentum. If you summ the momentum of all parts, one piece of soil, the other piece, water and all other parts invvolved, the total momentum has not changed and so the whole momentum of the planet Earth remained unchanged.

The only way to change the momentum of Earth is to apply an external force such as collision with other planet, asteroid, comet or gravitational pull by bodies external to the Earth (Sun, Moon, planets, asteroids, comets)

You won't feel the tilt of the earth on the ground. You just won't. Gravity pulls on you toward the center of the earth. No tilt of the axis is gonna change that while the world is spinning. I dunno what the lead is on ice skaters skates, but it's certainly not because of any tilt of the axis.

Laurie

It can look complicated, but is very simple. Te newton's principle (first or second ???) tell us:

F = dP/dt

Where P is the momentum and F is the force. To change the momentum of a body you must apply a force to it. If no force is appled the momentum remain unchanged and it doesn't matter what happens inside the body.

If the Earth momentum has changed some external force must have been applied and if you take into account the third Newton't principle (action and reaction), the Earth will react with a reaction force to whom applied the force. To whom will react the Earth with a reaction force? to the earthquake ????!

The source, regarding the axis shift, was NASA, apparently...

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/japanquake/earth20110314.html

However, as that article points out, it is the figure axis, and the "Chandler Wobble", that is affected, not the north-south axis, or the relative position of the Earth in space.

I like your signature, kawecki. After reading the nasa article linked by monkeycloud i realised that i gave a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger at work. It states:

"This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth's axis in space—only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that."

The Japan earthquake + tsunami caused a great impact in the world due its big effect on humans, produced a great number of victims, melted three nuclear reactors and damagesd a fourth, spread radiation over the world and caused great economical damage, but it is overvalued in its physical effects.

Some few years ago a very powerful earthquake hit Chile and produced a strong tsunami that washed the shores, but it produced a small number of victims, the economical damage was small and the only thing most important was some political damage to the goverment and its propaganda (things were not so marvelous as the population believed).

But as Chile is a third workd country so far away in a remote region and no big tragedy happened there nobody cared if the Earth tilted its axis or time changed some microseconds.

Very strong earthquakes are something common, but as most of them happens so deep inside the Earth or in a place that is nothing there, nobody knows and nobody cares if the planet is spinning more or was lost in space out of control

But the earth isn't spinning more or lost in space out of control. If it is, you're the only person who knows about it.

What do you mean exactly?

Laurie

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned A sun that is the source of all our power

The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour Of the galaxy we call the 'milky way'*

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars It's a hundred thousand light years side to side It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide*

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point We go 'round every two hundred million years And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe*

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is*

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure How amazingly unlikely is your birth And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth*

*Monty Python

LOL :lol:

Also, people are not wearing enough hats.

Quote - Also, people are not wearing enough hats.

It is a known issue... and significantly more of a problem this last half century or so, with the demise of everyday hat wearing.

Quote - Also, people are not wearing enough hats.

Maybe that's my problem ;).

Laurie