Record Heat Floods America With Temperatures 40 Degrees Above Normal

Say Bye-bye to the Skiing, Snowboarding and Snow Mobile Industries. They are going to go away along with polar bears, glaciers and arctic ice caps.

But there is no such thing as climate change. Lalalala.

From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/01/06/399386/record-heat-floods-america-with-temperatures-40-degrees-above-normal/?mobile=nc

By Brad Johnson

Jan 6, 2012

Fueled by billions of tons of greenhouse pollution, a surge of record warmth has flooded the United States, shattering records from southern California to North Dakota. “Temperatures have reached up to 40 degrees above early January averages in North Dakota,” the Weather Channel reports. Cities are seeing late-April temperatures at the start of January — Minot, ND hit 61 degrees, Aberdeen, SD hit 63 degrees, and Williston, ND hit 58 degrees, all-time record highs for the month of January.

Daily record highs have been set in Des Moines, Iowa (65 degrees), Rapid City, S.D. (73 degrees), International Falls, Minn. (46 degrees), St. Louis, Mo. (66 degrees) and Fargo, N.D. (55 degrees), to name a few locations. Although the record warmth subsides on Friday for the Plains, the mild air mass will bully its way eastward. We’re talking temperatures in cities such as Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Detroit and Cincinnati enjoying highs on the order of 10-to-20 degrees above average. High temperatures around 5-to-15 degrees above average will make it all the way to the East Coast including New York City, Washington, D.C. and Charlotte, N.C.

“There has never been a 60 degree temperature recorded during the first week of January in Minnesota’s modern climate record.” Southwestern Minnesota reached the lower 60s.

Continue reading at: http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/01/06/399386/record-heat-floods-america-with-temperatures-40-degrees-above-normal/?mobile=nc

In many parts of US, it's a winterless wonderland

From Ocala: http://www.ocala.com/article/20120106/WIRE/120109820?tc=ar

The Associated Press

Published: Friday, January 6, 2012

PORTLAND, Maine — The big snowstorms of autumn are just memories in New England, where people who make their living off winter tourism are losing income and New Hampshire primary candidates lack picturesque winterscapes for photo ops. Tourists in the West play golf instead of skiing. In Midwestern hockey country, you can barely slog a puck through the slush.

A continuing dearth of snow in many U.S. spots usually buried by this time of year has turned life upside down. The weather pattern that left many northern states with a brown Christmas is still sticking around, and the outlook for at least the next week is bleak for winter recreation enthusiasts.

Nationwide, the lack of snow is costing tens of millions of dollars in winter recreation, restaurant, lodging and sporting goods sales, experts said.

"It's Mother Nature. She's playing tricks on us, or something. Now it's getting nerve-racking," said Terry Hill, whose cash flow is nonexistent because her rental cabins are empty at Shin Pond Village, north of Maine's Baxter State Park, normally alive this time of year with the buzz of snowmobiles.

Continue reading at: http://www.ocala.com/article/20120106/WIRE/120109820?tc=ar