White Christmases and Climate Change

[CaptinCrunch]

White Christmases and Climate Change
8AM EST, December 14, 2003
NASA Press Release

It`s looking and feeling a lot less like
Christmas in many parts of the country as
higher temperatures and fewer snowfalls
are becoming the norm from Thanksgiving
to Christmas Eve.

Looking at states that typically get snow,
197 of 260 weather stations have reported
fewer days with snowfall since 1948,
according to statistics provided by Dale
Kaiser, a meteorologist in the Carbon
Dioxide Information Analysis Center at the Department of Energy`s Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. The survey looked at the 30-day period from Nov. 25 to
Dec. 24 from 1948 to 2001.

The decrease in the number of snow days has been especially pronounced
east of the Mississippi River, where 117 of 125 stations reported an average of
five fewer days with snowfall.

"Five fewer days of snowfall over a 30-day period may not seem all that
significant until you consider that, in many regions, snow days occur relatively
infrequently," Kaiser said.

One region that is more wintry between the holidays, however, extends from
the Central Rocky Mountain states (Utah, Colorado and Wyoming) eastward
into the Central Plains (mainly Nebraska), where the number of days with snow
has increased significantly.

"The area across the Central Rockies and Central Plains is the one part of the
country that is bucking the trend, with a few stations in Utah and Colorado
seeing nearly 10 more days with snowfall," Kaiser said.
Nationwide, taking into account only what scientists define as "statistically
significant" data, 197 stations experienced declines in the number of days with
snowfall while 63 stations had increasing trends. The statistically significant
designation means there is a 95 percent probability that this trend did not occur
by chance.

In the East, leading the pack with a trend of nine-plus fewer days with snowfall
were Batavia, N.Y., with 12.5, Medford, Wisc., with 11.7, Dansville, N.Y., with
10.6, Towanda, Pa., with 10.3 and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., with 9.3. Skipping
down the list, other cities experiencing fewer days with snowfall include:

l Columbus, Ohio - 7.8
l Indianapolis - 6.5
l Minneapolis - 6.0
l Philadelphia - 5.2
l Chicago - 4.8
l Washington, D.C. - 4.3
l Nashville - 4.1

For many cities, the weather described by the data is actually what was
recorded at nearby stations. For example, the weather for Sault Ste. Marie was
recorded at Newberry while the weather for Washington, D.C., was recorded at
Glendale, Md.

In the West, stations reporting trends of more snowfall days during the 30-day
period were led by Provo, Utah, with 9.8 more snow days during the 30-day
period, followed closely by Morgan, Utah, with 9.5 and, to skiers` delight, Dillon,
Colo., with 8.3. Other cities experiencing more snow days include:

l Cle Elum, Wash. - 6.1
l Hastings, Neb. - 5.9
l Salt Lake City - 5.0
l Boulder, Colo. - 3.5

Stations in the East that showed significant decreases in snow days had an
overall warming trend of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
"We examined trends in temperatures at 613 weather stations," Kaiser said.
"East of the Mississippi, many stations extending from Indiana to southern New
England showed significant warming from 1948 to 2001.
"This is consistent with fewer snowfall days over this region and may be at
least part of the reason for fewer snowfall days. West of the Mississippi, only a
few scattered stations showed significant warming; however, many stations
over the central Rocky Mountain states have cooled significantly for this 30-day
period." Kaiser cautioned against reading too much into the survey, saying, "Although
this work shows real changes over parts of the U.S. in snowfall days and
temperature for this 30-day period, this cannot be used to draw conclusions
about changes in weather over the entire winter, nor do these findings
necessarily relate to the broader issue of global warming."

[azsnowman]

As most of you know, my wife and I do environmental impact studies and assessments, tree ring studies are also included. Our findings, mind you, these ARE NOT offical findings but non the less, accurate. Over the past 234 years, that's the oldest tree we've done thus far, the rings are showing remarkable trends, over the past 234 years, there were stretches of drought and severe lack of moisture in the west in 35-47 year old intervals and from what we are seeing right now, I tend to believe we are entering into another 40 year dry spell.....this is all JMHO!

Dennis