And so it seems we close out the most monumental snow season I have ever experienced. As of March 20th we have tallied 106″. Since our time here in the highlands, the most we have had was 36″ in the ’06-’07 winter. The next two winters brought only about 24″ each but 3-4″ of ice. Our first truly measurable snow of this season occurred on October 17th. From December 11 to March 11, we only had two days without full snowcover. I know it’s not the UP in Michigan but it’s been a fabulous winter, and who knows; we had snow in April last year.
Some notable accumulations:
October 17, 2009 - 3″ – December 11, 2009 - 8″ – December 18, 2009 - 24,” this was the first monster
January 21, 2010 - 3,” this replenished the ground cover which had finally just melted
January 30, 2010 - 8,” the one which actually hit southern Virginia harder
February 02, 2010 - 5″ – February 05, 2010 - 33.5,” the monster of all monsters we have ever seen, surreal
February 10, 2010 - 11.5,” another beast and the one true blizzard for us – March 02, 2010 - 3″
March 11, 2010 – torrential downpours over the course of three days finally melts the foot or so which still remained
Now I do have to agree that anyone who tries to say this proves global warming is not occurring is truly pushing too hard, as I would complain using short term data to support global warming is improper. One bad hurricane and a few wildfires really prove nothing. Supporters of GW would rebut that this was one of the warmest Januarys on record as the temperatures in northern Canada and other higher latitudes experienced warmer weather than usual. Hence GW caused all the snow.
I shall refrain from reciting the details but you must follow Joe Bastardi at Accuweather; he is one of the most rational observers of climate which I can find. He does not dismiss people could cause problems but he simply analyzes data, says it is too early to tell anything definitive and sees many trends which the Church of Global Warming does not like. His analysis of this January predicted and later showed the same results. He based this on El Nino effects and negative Arctic Oscillation, what he calls mutually exclusive events which without either one we would have had the coldest January on record. Read the whole entry here, it truly and succinctly depicts reserved, rational and long term climate data observation, not knee-jerk marxism.
While still over at Accuweather, I came across this great one. I’m going to have to revisit this for Earth Day, but there is a Canadian study which “surprisingly” found “green” consumers are meaner and stingier than those who shopped in a more conventional manner. The article seemed to try and explain this as the greenies typically have less disposable income because of their purchasing habits.
To me it seems to again support the adage, “Socialists are always generous with other people’s money.”
