LibertyBell

highest temp ever recorded in Antarctica- 65.1 and accelerating ice melt saw a 130 ft tall slab of ice fall into the ocean recently.

what are the projections for Antarctica? They just recorded their highest temp ever recorded and accelerating ice melt.

Antarctica just saw its highest temp ever recorded- 65.1 and a rather large slab of ice just fell into the ocean there (it was about 130 ft tall.) On another issue,. I just saw a 30 min documentary on HBO about the Fukushima disaster and what they revealed was horrendous. Because of the impending 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan has been rushing to clean up after the fall out from Fukushima and they've done a really bad job. They hired unemployed and homeless people to do the "clean up" and since 70% of the area that is affected is forested and mountainous, it cant be cleaned properly. The workers weren't even wearing protective gear and weren't told about the dangers, they were in their street clothes. And they piled up 16 million black bags of radioactive contaminants in public areas and told people it was "safe" to come back even though the area is constantly being recontaminated whenever there is heavy rain and runoff. The Japanese government has tried to downplay the dangers and raised the maximum safe exposure 20x from 1 milliseviert like the rest of the world to 20 millisevierts, which scientists and medical researchers say represents a 30% higher risk of getting leukemia after 5 years of exposure, which compounds yearly (so it's 60% higher after 10 years.) They told their workers not to worry about the clean up and to just make the area "look good". Meanwhile children still have to go for yearly cancer checks and the food has to be regularly screened. The researchers who went there to see what was going on found some areas with up to 70 milliseviert radiation levels (areas along the path of the Olympic torch!) The former prime minister who was in charge when Fukushima melted down said that the reactor should never have been built and the tsunami changed his mind because he didn't listen to scientists who told him not to build it back in the 90s. The current government has hired propaganda people because they dont have the numbers to back up how horrendous this so-called "clean up" has been, they are just trying to show their best face for the Olympics (which might be derailed anyway because of coronavirus.) The former reactor is still contaminated and prone to further accidents and has to be doused constantly with sea water, which creates its own set of problems as the contaminated water has been mixing with the ground water and making it back into the ocean. A nuclear chemist said the area isn't safe for being in for more than 30 min or so. I guess this is why Japan has just commissioned 22 new coal plants :-( Saw a recent report showing lower life expectancy and higher rates of asthma in areas with industrial fossil fuel plants like in coastal Rhode Island. Local residents have now organized and are politically focused on moving these plants out of their neighborhoods! On a more positive note, the UK has passed a law to ban all fossil fuel powered vehicles by 2035 and NY is considering doing the same thing for 2040.

do you think February follows suit and we end up like 1989-90 on the back end?

Right, I saw a graph showing a general rise of rainfall since 1975 and less evaporation occurring, it seems to be a trend. I'm pretty sick of the rise in rainfall that's occurred here since about 2000.... like literally sick. I have to take allergy medication now twice a week even during the winter (when it doesn't snow and it rains instead.)

Correct, and Great Lakes ice coverage is only 5%..... lake water levels have been getting higher too.

there's really no abnormally cold air anywhere. I think we pull a perfect game/no hitter and go the way of the great snowless winters like 1972-73, 1997-98, 2001-02, etc. Although 1997-98 did have one meaningless wet snowfall event on the first day of Spring.

the waters are more polluted now because of fertilizer and pesticide run off because of higher rainfall totals and the rise of red algae and lowering oxygen levels.

4.5 hours- hell going to London is faster than going to California! And it's a 5 hour difference vs 3 time zones to get to Cali!

and ice coverage in the Great Lakes is 5% and the lake waters are 3 ft above normal- actually they've been rising for a few years and people are having to move away from lakefront properties or raise them. Everyone talks about sea level rise, well lake waters are rising too! do you think we could be done early with the pollen problem this year? I already see some budding occurring and my daffodils are coming out.

They've had many more since, I wonder if something really big is in the offing, or if we've seen that already with the 7.7?

I wonder if this is a portent for a very dry very hot summer with a strong SE Ridge. I thought that was going to wait until 2021 when we reach the peak of the 11 year cycle, but it may start a year early and we could have two back to back very hot and very dry summers.

By the way, there was a 7.7 earthquake in the Caribbean felt from Miami to Cuba to Jamaica.... WOW!

I get those kinds of allergies like once a week lol. It needs to be dry or snowy for me not to be on antihistamines. We have weeds and daffodils around here.

the middle of the dust bowl era! Black Sunday occurred that year didn't it?

It is lol... still I'm hoping for an early summer because my allergies get really bad in rainy/mild weather. Very warm to hot and not humid is far better for my health. We have weeds growing here and there are daffodils coming up out of the ground. So for me not to be medicated on antihistamines I have to have cold/snow or cold/dry or warm to hot and dry.

Didn't see a rainbow over here :-(

Thanks, have we ever had two straight days of 70+ in January in our area Chris?

Oh I was wondering because so many talk about the gulf stream and how it fuels our storms and yet it passes 150 miles SE of Montauk so if it was just that then the storms should get weaker farther north.

Not that different from their map for Jan 2016 ;-)

I printed this snowfall report out and put it on a plaque which I now hang on my wall lol. NYC/JFK AIRPORT 30.5 100 AM 1/24 FAA OBSERVER

At this rate, that might mean severe wx later

Orient observer reported 30" in the Jan 2015 storm! I got that in the Jan 2016 storm :-P

What happened in March 1914? Did SW Nassau get snowholed that time too? LMAO

One also needs to consider the semirural nature of eastern Suffolk County. It's why you guys do better in March than we do out here in western Nassau.