Free Republic

Weather pundits on TV and even The Old Farmers Almanac are telling us key factors like Solar Cycle 25, El Nino, and a polar vortex moving south from the North Pole will combine to give most of the U.S. a colder and a much more snowy winter. Are we ready? Is the Biden administration ensuring our gas and coal-fired power plants are winterized and have enough fuel? Of course not. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a not-for-profit regulatory authority whose stated mission is "to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of...

El Nino years tend to be cooler and stormy for the South, drier and warmer for Northwest, and very wet for the West. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NOAA released its latest El Niño discussion, which showed a 95% chance of the phenomenon hanging on through winter and a 71% chance of it being strong. "El Niño is anticipated to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter (with greater than 95% chance through January - March 2024," wrote NOAA scientists. NOAA reports that the current state of El Niño is strong, with sea surface temperatures 1.6 degrees Celsius above average. Official NOAA El Nino/Southern Oscillation...

Scientists have predicted a climate of extremes in report after report as Earth warms because humans continue to belch fossil fuel pollution into the atmosphere.

The Climate Prediction Center has announced that an El Nino weather phenomenon has developed. Such a weather pattern means Atlantic and Gulf coast regions could be more at risk of tropical weather, such as flooding like the kind that affected Palm Beach, Fla., in November. File Photo by Gary I Rothstein/UPI June 8 (UPI) -- The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center says an El Nino weather pattern has officially developed, raising the possibility of a more robust hurricane season for Gulf and Atlantic coast regions. In May, the World Meteorological Organization predicted a high likelihood of an El Nino...

The United Nations warned Wednesday hot weather will be dominating the months ahead, driving “higher global temperatures and possibly new heat records.” The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered the grim forecast from its base in Geneva, Switzerland. It said it now estimated there was a 60 percent chance that El Nino would develop by the end of July and an 80 percent chance it would do so by the end of September. It was the second WMO forecast of hot weather ahead following one made last month.

Geneva (AFP) – An exceptionally long La Nina weather phenomenon that intensified drought and flooding is finally ending, the United Nations said Wednesday -- but what comes next might bring its own problems. The outgoing La Nina phenomenon, a cooling of surface temperatures that can have a widespread impact on global weather conditions, started in September 2020. However, despite La Nina's cooling effect, both 2021 and 2022 were warmer than any year prior to 2015. Now El Nino, its warming opposite in the cycle, El Nino, could be on the way this year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said in...

Something weird is up with La Nina, the natural but potent weather event linked to more drought and wildfires in the western United States and more Atlantic hurricanes. It’s becoming the nation’s unwanted weather guest and meteorologists said the West’s megadrought won’t go away until La Nina does. The current double-dip La Nina set a record for strength last month and is forecast to likely be around for a rare but not quite unprecedented third straight winter. And it’s not just this one. Scientists are noticing that in the past 25 years the world seems to be getting more La...

Bloomberg News seems unaware that a principal underlying cause for both bumper crops and crop failures resides way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Climatologists and meteorologists point to a natural phenomenon known as “ENSO,” the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, while farmers around the Great Plains anxiously await tardy rains. What does ENSO mean in layman’s terms? Many have heard that El Niño (Spanish for “the boy”) weather events bring above-average moisture to the US grain belt. When that happens, certain other weather features naturally fall into place. Surface waters off the Pacific coast produce substantially more moisture from...

The key to this proposed solar-weather connection lies in “terminator” events, which spell the end of a solar cycle. Over the course of 22 years, bands of magnetism wrapping around the sun slowly migrate toward the equator, interacting with one another to produce sunspots. Those sunspots, or cool, dark discolorations on the sun’s surface, pulsate with magnetic energy, occasionally hurling it into space in solar storms that can spark displays of the northern lights. There are two bands of magnetism per hemisphere on the sun. At solar minimum, both sets of bands are of equal and opposite strength, so the...

(CNN)The world's oceans are now heating at the same rate as if five Hiroshima atomic bombs were dropped into the water every second, scientists have said. A new study released on Monday showed that 2019 was yet another year of record-setting ocean warming, with water temperatures reaching the highest temperature ever recorded.

The centuries-old remains of more than 200 children have been discovered in Peru, according to reports. Experts say that the macabre discovery is likely the world’s largest child sacrifice site. The children, who were between the ages of 4 and 14, reportedly were sacrificed to honor the gods of the pre-Columbian Chimu culture. Experts think that the children — killed during wet weather and buried facing the sea — were sacrificed in relation to an “El Niño” event. Peruvian press agency Andina reports that archaeologists found the skeletal remains of 250 children and 40 warriors at Huanchaco, 346 miles north...

The California Department of Water Resources is being forced by looming El Niño rainstorms to open the uncompleted Oroville Dam main spillway next week. The Department of Water Resources issued public reassurances on February 21 that uncompleted repairs at the Oroville Dam, which forced about 188,000 emergency evacuations after a near collapse in February 2017, are not a problem, since DWR did not expect the reservoir water level to rise enough to use the spillway anytime soon. But the timing of DWR's announcement came just a week after the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center issued an advisory that an...

Last year archaeologists in Peru announced the discovery of a centuries-old ritual massacre, at a site they believed was the largest known case of child sacrifice ever found. Buried beneath the sands of a 15th-century site called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas were nearly 140 child skeletons, as well as the remains of 200 llamas. While the reasoning behind the gruesome mass murder of the boys and girls — who were only between the ages of 5 and 14 — cannot be definitively determined, the researchers now say the act was done out of desperation in response to a disastrous climatic event: El...

The California Coastal Commission is set to empower local government to take thousands of properties through eminent domain along 1,100 miles of coastline to prepare for sea level rise. Despite California being battered by 4-8 inches of torrential rain and flooding from an El Niño weather cycle, E&E News reported that the State of California in late January will authorize eminent domain authority for local jurisdictions to implement a “managed retreat” policy that will allow taking and demolishing coastal homes and businesses. […] CCC retreat guidance is expected to also entail dismantling and relocating of dozens of wastewater treatment and...

Winter looks wet and especially mild for much of the country, thanks to a weak El Niño brewing, U.S. meteorologists said. The National Weather Service on Thursday predicted a warmer than normal winter for the northern and western three-quarters of the nation. The greatest chance for warmer than normal winter weather is in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Montana, northern Wyoming and western North Dakota.

Archaeologists in northern Peru say they have found evidence of what could be the world’s largest single case of child sacrifice. The burial site, known as Las Llamas, contains the skeletons of 140 children who were aged between five and 14 when they were ritually sacrificed during a ceremony about 550 years ago, archaeologists said on Friday. The site, located near the city of Trujillo, also contained the remains of 200 young llamas apparently sacrificed on the same day. The burial site was apparently built by the Chimú empire. It is thought the children were sacrificed as floods caused by...

A huge wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., destroyed an entire neighbourhood and burned homes and businesses in several others Tuesday, and continues to rage out of control. By late afternoon, the entire city of 60,000 had been ordered evacuated. Residents by the thousands fled the fire and for hours caused gridlock on Highway 63, even overwhelming oilsands work camps, where beds and meals were offered. Police were patrolling the highway with cans of gas, after fuel supplies ran out in Fort McMurray, Wandering River and Grasslands.

In the midst of an epic El Nino, federal meteorologists say its flip side, La Nina, is around the corner. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center on Thursday reported that the current strong El Nino is weakening but likely to stick around a couple more months. At the same time, NOAA issued a formal watch for a fall arrival of La Nina, saying there is a 70 percent chance for the flip side of El Nino. "A dry winter next year won't be good, I can assure you of that," Halpert said. What may be truly confusing...

The Pacific El Niño is back with a vengeance — and with it, the hope that California can climb out of its devastating, four-year-long drought. After a relentlessly dry, hot February, powerful rainstorms in early March have dropped billions of gallons of water into California’s depleted reservoirs. Lake Shasta, the state’s largest and most critical reservoir, has risen 28 feet in the last month and now sits at 77 percent capacity — and 101 percent of average for March — according to the San Jose Mercury News. Meanwhile, Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, was at 69 percent capacity —...

Several feet of new snow is expected in the Sierra Nevada mountains this weekend as another El Niño-influenced storm moves into Northern California. In what some are calling a "March Miracle," the Sierra have been hit by a series of powerful storms this month. That's important because the Sierra snowpack is a key source of water for California, which is in its fourth year of a drought. The storms have boosted the snowpack and replenished reservoirs. Heavy showers pummeled L.A. and Ventura counties Friday afternoon, and forecasters said there was a chance of some light rain in some areas of...