In September 2010, commodities traders began warning of a major wheat shortage this winter. The reasons were all weather-related. The Russian drought and wildfires in the summer of 2010 had halved the wheat crop and prompted a government ban on exports. An early frost in September had badly damaged crops in Canada and China. Prices were soaring.
The very next month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington issued an “Arctic Report Card,” painting an even darker picture. As the greenhouse effect thinned the ice caps, Arctic air temperatures were rising, driving polar winds south and east. The forecast for the winter of 2010-2011 was monster snowstorms throughout the Northeast and Midwest, and too little rain in the West. America’s Midwestern breadbasket could expect fields frozen solid, disrupted transportation and a poor winter wheat harvest.
http://www.forward.com/articles/135144/
Are they talking about Bastardi’s forecast? Did anybody see a forecast from NOAA in October for “monster snowstorms?”
Should it not be that temperatures are rising in the arctic (although still cold) because of the heat released from the rapidly growing sea ice volume.
This forecast:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101021_winteroutlook.html
Seems pretty tame compared to Bastardi’s
Dave, if that’s their forecast, they missed it by a million miles.
Calling for an equal chance of above – average – or below, is no forecast at all.
Then the NOAA went on to say “La Niña is in place and will strengthen and persist through the winter months, giving us a better understanding of what to expect between December and February,”
That’s no forecast, it’s the opposite of a forecast.
What’s funny is that they blamed records and extreme weather events on both El Nino and La Nina. I thought they told us it was because of global warming.
Bastardi nailed it. He said after the Dec storm “we haven’t seen anything yet”, and he called this storm dead to rights.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.” – Sir Walter Scott
“As the greenhouse effect thinned the ice caps, Arctic air temperatures were rising, driving polar winds south and east.”
What total cow dung! The first two phrases are lies. The third is not due to heated air, but millions of tons of dense, very cold air barreling from the Arctic towards the equator due to centrifugal forces. If the air was warming, which is really hard to rationalize during the winter when there is no energy input (wow that’s hard to even imagine), we would have a low pressure system up there and high pressure air pouring northward from high to low pressure.
These guys do not even understand high school physics, let alone basic meteorology.
Oh, and the Arctic ice cap has been thickening up very nicely since 2007, while the Antarctic is putting on weight and setting records for area on a fairly regular basis.
Of course, we have to remember that facts do not have to influence your thinking when your real plan is to just make stuff up as you go.
What greenhouse effect? Where? Where?
All this snow is great for the wheat crop, protects it from cold weather. When it melts in the Spring, it will recharge the soil and lessen the chances of a summer drought.
and I was so hoping they were gonna be right for a change. Glad I took their forecast to heart and bought snow chains and stocked up on cold weather gear, here in beautiful, balmy OKC.
I damn sure didn’t see it. Seems like someone would have mentioned it…….