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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - December 8, 2008 (OWSweather.com) Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California. With a week away, and a sure sign of things to come, OWSweather.com is making preparations on the server to handle the traffic from this next event. UJEAS is in line with the majority if not all the other models in keeping a near historical arctic air mass into the Southern California region. With a warm November, Southern California is finally ready for cold storms to make their way in. Resort level snow will be likely next week, and in pretty hefty amounts...

Two new studies of gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores have extended the record of Earth's past climate almost 50 percent further, adding another 210,000 years of definitive data about the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere and providing more evidence of current atmospheric change. The research is being published in the journal Science by participants in the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica. It's "an amazing accomplishment we would not have thought possible" as recently as 10 years ago, said Ed Brook, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, who analyzed the studies in the same issue of...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Every day is a good day for the beach, the head of the Coney Island Polar Bears Club likes to say, and this New Year's Day will be no exception. The club, whose members frolic in the chilly surf off Coney Island in Brooklyn the first day of each year, is marking its 100th anniversary with Wednesday's holiday swim. As many as 200 people are expected to take the plunge, although most only brave the water up to their ankles, club member Louis Scarcella said recently. True Polar Bears -- there are 50 full-fledged members --...

Ice knocks out power to 1.4 million LEIGH DYER, STEVE LYTTLE and DAVID PERLMUTT Cody Baker walks to his vehicle in Asheville, N.C., Wednesday, after he lost control on an icy roadway. AP An ice storm that Duke Power officials called the worst to ever hit the Carolinas caused emergency crews to scramble as they responded to downed trees, power outages and wrecks. Nearly 1.4 million customers were estimated without power. Duke Power reported 1 million customers without power in the Carolinas. Energy company CP&L reported 375,000 of its Carolinas customers were also without power. Duke Power said the outage...