18-22 January 2010

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 25 January 2010. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

• Satellites provide a unique perspective of Haitian earthquake site -- Data collected from sensors onboard the international fleet of environmental satellites operated by the US, the European Space Agency, Canada, Japan and China have been used to produce a variety of maps and other images that can be used not only by geoscientists, but by disaster management specialists in damage assessment and recovery. operations in Haiti following the 12 January devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake.   
  NASA has used data from ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) instrument onboard its Terra satellite, by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) flown aboard Space Shuttle and sensors on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite to provide a wide array of maps and other visuals in support of the disaster recovery efforts.  [NASA] [NASA JPL]  As an example, a NASA Earth Observatory image shows the location of the epicenter of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake and its aftershocks were plotted along with he Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden Fault on a map depicting the topography of Hispaniola near Port-au-Prince Haiti  [NASA Earth Observatory]
  The "International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters'" is an international initiative designed to provide satellite data free of charge to those affected by disasters anyplace around the world. [ESA]
  Scientists with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have noted that this magnitude 7.0 Haitian earthquake occurred along a 500-mile long complex and active strike-slip fault called the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault .  However, this devastating earthquake did not produce a significant tsunami because of the type of fault. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Turning the corner toward spring--For many inland locations across the United States, the average daily temperature has reached the lowest point on the annual cycle during the third week of January Check the daily data NOWData climate page of your local National Weather Service Office.
• Viewing the solar eclipse from space -- A MODIS image made by NASA's Aqua satellite made last Friday morning shows the annular eclipse shadow cast by the Moon across sections of Asia, particularly over India and the Bay of Bengal.  [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Satellites capture icebergs calving off an Antarctic ice shelf -- Three images obtained over a two-day span last week from the MODIS sensors on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites show icebergs breaking (or calving) off Antarctica's Filchner Ice Shelf. [NASA Earth Observatory]

• Nation's weather and climate for December 2009 and the calendar year reviewed -- Using preliminary temperature data collected for the month of December 2009, scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reported that the nationwide monthly temperature was approximately 3 Fahrenheit degrees below the long-term average that commenced in 1895. The month of December was relatively cold across all nearly the entire coterminous United States, with most of the states in the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin and southern Plains having much below average statewide temperatures. With the December data, the scientists also reported that the annual (January-December 2009) temperature across the coterminous United States was several tenths of a degree above the long-term average.
  Much above average precipitation fell many areas across the US during December 2009, making the month the eleventh wettest December since 1895. Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland reported their wettest December during the 115-year period of record. Conversely, Washington State experienced its eleventh driest December and Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming had below average precipitation totals. Preliminary data for the entire year indicates much of the eastern half of the nation had above average precipitation, with Illinois, Arkansas and Alabama having the second wettest year on record. Several states in the West had below average precipitation for 2009, with Arizona reporting its fourth driest year since 1895. [NOAA News]
• December drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its December 2009 drought report online. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately nine percent of the coterminous United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of October, while 26 percent of the area had severely to extremely wet conditions.

• Nation's snow cover has been shrinking earlier in spring-- The New Jersey State Climatologist, a professor at Rutgers University, has found that the late winter snow cover across the United States has been shrinking nearly every winter season during the last two decades. He notes that snow cover remains extensive during fall and winter. Satellite-based snow cover maps for the last forty years indicate that snow cover has also shrunk across North America and Eurasia. [Discovery News]
• New environmental satellite run through pre-launch tests --During this current month, scientists and engineers were conducting pre-launch tests on the instruments that will be placed on GOES-P, the newest satellite that will be launched in March 2010 as part of the NASA/NOAA fleet of  Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites.   [EurekAlert!]
• New European "ice satellite" reaches launch site -- The European Space Agency's new CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite has recently reached the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan for its launch in late February   This satellite will monitor changes in the thickness of polar marine ice and the thickness of the vast  that overlay Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. [ESA]
• An All-Hazards Monitor--This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]

• Solar storms could return soon -- Solar physicists at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research claim that the sun could become more activity in the near future after an unusually long quiet period at commences the current solar cycle. They expect increased solar activity that would send magnetic storms outward and reach the Earth, affecting the planet's upper atmosphere. [US News & World Report]

• Cause of South Asian monsoon linked to Himalayas -- Climate scientists from Harvard University claim that the Himalaya Mountains may play a more important role in driving the South Asian monsoon circulation regime than the Tibetan Plateau, which had been previously thought to be the primary source of heat and water that drives this circulation system. [EurekAlert!]

• Studying the response of rivers to climate change -- In research being conducted at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the sensitivity of river water runoff to changes in temperature and precipitation across the Western States is being analyzed using new hydrologic modeling techniques, [Scripps Explorations]
• Bering Strait may have influenced global climate patterns during Pleistocene Ice Age -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and their colleagues report that their climate simulations run on the Community Climate System Model indicate the opening and closing of the narrow Bering Strait due to fluctuating sea levels during the last 116,000 years could have affected ocean currents in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans transporting heat and salinity. Consequently, summer temperatures oscillated across parts of North America and Greenland, causing ice sheets to expand and retreat, which affected worldwide sea levels. [UCAR/NCAR]

• Increase of methane in post-Ice Age atmosphere associated with expanding northern peat lands --  Researchers at Sweden's University of Helsinki have concluded that atmospheric methane levels rose when northern peat lands expanded approximately 5000 years ago. [EurekAlert!]

• Focus on mid-century climate conditions to avoid harmful impacts in 2100 -- Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn that policymakers should focus on strategies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 so as to have a better likelihood of achieving long-term outcomes that include avoiding harmful impacts on the planetary climate by 2100. [UCAR/NCAR]
• Website for human dimensions of climate change -- An interagency effort within the US federal government that included NOAA, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service, has resulted in a website called HD.gov (for HumanDimensions.gov) that provides users, such as natural resource managers, with information on the human dimensions on a variety of topics of interest such as climate change. [HD.gov]

• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• 18 January 1930...The record low temperature for the state of Oregon was set at Seneca when the thermometer dipped to 54 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 18 January 1943...The record low temperature for the state of Oklahoma was set at Watts when the mercury dipped to 27 degrees below zero. The record low temperature for the state of Idaho was set at Island Park Dam when the temperature fell to 60 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 18 January 1957...The record low temperature for the state of Massachusetts was set at Birch Hill Dam when the mercury fell to 35 degrees below zero. This record was tied in January 1981. (Intellicast)
• 18 January 1977...The record low temperature for the state of South Carolina was set near Long Creek when the mercury plunged to 20 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 18-22 January 1978...The Atlantic's first-ever January subtropical storm with tropical characteristics since records began in 1871 organized 1500 miles east-northeast of Puerto Rico. The storm finally dissipated on the 22nd approximately 200 miles north of Puerto Rico. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18-27 January 1980…Tropical Cyclone Hyacinthe produced of rainfall over the 10-day period at Commerson, La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean to set the global mark for rainfall from a tropical cyclone during a 10 day period. The same storm dumped 127.6 inches of rain in just 72 hours at Grand-Ilet, La Reunion Island. (The Weather Doctor)
• 19 January 1786...The temperature at Hartford, CT fell to 24 degrees below zero. Up to this time, it was the lowest ever known on a thermometer.
• 19 January 1925...The record low temperature for the state of Maine was set at Van Buren when the temperature fell to 48 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 19 January 1933...Giant Forest, CA received 60 inches of snow in just 24 hours, a state record, and the second highest 24-hour total of record for the U.S. (David Ludlum)
• 19 January 1994...An extremely cold arctic airmass set 67 new record temperature lows from Minnesota to Virginia, including 10 cities that recorded their lowest temperatures ever. The following cities set all-time record lows: Indianapolis, IN (27 degrees below zero), Akron, OH, Clarksburg, WV, and Zanesville, OH (25 below), Pittsburgh, PA, Louisville, KY, Columbus, OH and Youngstown, OH (22 below), Cleveland, OH (20 below), and Erie, PA (18 below). The mercury plunged to 36 below zero at New Whiteland, IN to set a new record low temperature for the Hoosier State. In Kentucky, a statewide record low temperature was set at Shelbyville with a reading of 37 degrees below zero. A low of 52 degrees below zero was reported in the community of Amasa -- the state's lowest temperature on record. (Intellicast)
• 19 January 1995...Columbia, MO was buried under 19.7 inches of snow in 24 hours for its greatest 24-hour snowfall and snowstorm ever. Wind gusts up to 45 mph produced blizzard conditions and thunderstorms occurred several times during the heavy snow. Interstates 70, US 63, and US 54 were closed down. The same storm produced 15 inches of snow at Moline, IL and 14 inches at Blue Jacket, OK. (Intellicast)
• 20 January 1937... The record low temperature for the state of California was set at Boca when the thermometer dropped to 45 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 20 January 1954...The temperature at Rogers Pass, MT plunged to 69.7 degrees below zero to establish a new record for the continental U.S. (David Ludlum)
• 20 January 1977…The barometric pressure at St. Anthony, Newfoundland dropped to 940.2 millibars (27.76 inches of mercury), the lowest sea level pressure ever recorded in Canada. (The Weather Doctor)
• 21 January 1985...An all-time record low temperature of 7 degrees was set on this day at Jacksonville, FL. The coldest day ever recorded at Macon, GA was recorded on this day when the mercury dropped to 6 degrees below zero. Records began at Macon in 1899. (Intellicast) The all-time record low temperature for North Carolina was set at Mt. Mitchell with a 34 degree below zero reading, while a 19 degree below zero reading at Caesars Head in South Carolina set that state's record low temperature. (National Climatic Data Center)
• 22 January 1930...The record low temperature for the state of Illinois was set at Mount Carroll as the mercury dipped to 35 degrees below zero. This state record has since been broken in 1999. (Intellicast)
• 22 January 1961...The all-time record low temperature for Connecticut was tied when the temperature fell to 32 degrees below zero at Coventry. (National Climate Data Center)
• 22 January 1943...Chinook winds during the early morning hours caused the temperature at Spearfish, SD to rise 49 Fahrenheit degrees from 4 degrees below zero to 45 degrees above zero in just two minutes (between 7:30 and 7:32 AM), the most dramatic temperature rise in world weather records. An hour and a half later the mercury plunged from 54 degrees above zero to 4 degrees below zero in twenty-seven minutes. Plate glass windows cracked as a result of the quick thermal expansion and contraction. (David Ludlum)
• 22-23 January 1943...Hoegees Camp, at an elevation of 2760 feet in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California, received 26.12 inches of precipitation in a 24-hour span, setting the Golden State's 24-hour precipitation record. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 22 January 1985...Mountain Lake Biological Station in Virginia reported a temperature of 30 degrees below zero, which established the all-time record low temperature for the state. (National Climate Data Center)
• 24 January 1857...The coldest weather in pre-U.S. Weather Bureau history occurred with temperatures of 50 degrees below zero reported in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The temperature was 30 degrees below zero in Boston, MA and 11 degrees below zero on Nantucket Island. (Intellicast)
• 24 January 1916...The temperature at Browning, MT plunged 100 Fahrenheit degrees in just 24 hours, from 44 degrees above zero to 56 degrees below zero. It was a record 24-hour temperature drop for the U.S. (Weather Channel) (National Severe Storms Forecast Center)
• 24 January 1922...The all-time record low temperature for the state of Wisconsin was set at Danbury when the temperature dipped to 54 degrees below zero. (Intellicast) (This record has been broken by one degree in February, 1996)
• 24 January 1956...Thirty-eight inches of rain deluged the Kilauea Sugar Plantation of Hawaii in 24 hours, including twelve inches in just one hour. The 38.00 inches remains the Aloha State's 24-hour maximum precipitation record. (David Ludlum)

Return to DataStreme Earth Climate Systems Homepage

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.