4 of the 5 Great Lakes about to freeze over

Is this more evidence we are on the cusp of the next grand minimum?

Watts Up With That?

Composite image of the East and West NATICE products for the Great Lakes, see links below for originals

Corky Boyd writes:

The latest NATICE graphics show Lake Erie totally covered with 9/10+ ice, Lakes Superior and Huron are nearly totally covered with 9/10+ and Ontario about 80% covered with 7/10+.  It is likely Superior and Huron will join Erie with total coverage of 9/10+  in today or tomorrow’s report.

It is possible Ontario could do the same as it is experiencing near or sub-zero temperatures tonight.

The NATICE daily reports are posted about 5:00pm EST.  Link is here:

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/great_lakes.html

If you have trouble pulling up the ice charts, here are direct links to the West and East areas for Feb. 18:

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/special/great_lakes/2015/charts/composite_east/el150218color.jpg
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/special/great_lakes/2015/charts/composite_west/wl150218color.jpg

It is an unusual event for 3 of the lakes to freeze over, which only happens once every 6 to 8 years.  Four or more freezing is…

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Solar Cycle 24 Update for February 2015

The sun has an impact, the question is what is the real impact of sunspots. Some information for your own evaluation.

Watts Up With That?

Solar cycle 24 contines to be lower than the vast majority of predictions that came out during the waning years of solar cycle 23. David Archibald gives an update on the current progress of solar cycle 24, showing that it remains quite low, and under-performs almost all of the “official”predictions based on models and other forecasting tools, some of which claimed as late as 2006 that cycle 24 would be 30-50% stronger that cycle 23. So far, solar Cycle 24 has been most like Solar Cycles 10 to 15 which started in 1855 and ended in 1923. It is noteworthy that solar cycle 10 produced the famed Carrington event, which if it occurred today, would likely wreak havoc with our sensitive electric grid and electronics.

Guest essay by David Archibald.

Figure 1: Sunspot Number

Source: SILSO data/image, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels

Solar Cycle 24 has been…

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Early Sunspots and Volcanoes

Maybe there was a Maunder Minimum and may be it was only the result of some missing data. Willis Eschenbach, does the analysis.

Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Well, as often happens I started out in one direction and then I got sidetractored … I wanted to respond to Michele Casati’s claim in the comments of my last post. His claim was that if we include the Maunder Minimum in the 1600’s, it’s clear that volcanoes with a VEI greater or equal to 5 are affected by sunspots. Based on my previous analysis I figured “No way!”, but I thought I should take a look … and as is often the case, I ended up studying something entirely different.

Now, the SIDC monthly sunspot record that I used in my last analysis starts in 1700. Prior to that the only sunspot numbers available are a “reconstruction” by Hoyt and Schatten called the “Group Sunspot Number”, which is the dataset used by Michele. The Hoyt/Schatten Group sunspot data is available here. Now, as…

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Great Lakes Ice Cover Far Above Normal Again

Is this another indicator that we are on the cusp of the next grand minimum?

Real Science

Great Lakes ice cover has been above normal five of the last seven years, and seven of the last thirteen years. It is already far above the normal annual maximum, with another month of growth left.

20150202180000_CVCSWCTGL_0008100042.gif (1100×850)

20150202180000_CVCHDCTGL_0008100047.gif (1100×850)

Many experts claim the exact opposite, because their career depends on lying about the climate.

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Super soaker ‘Pineapple Express’ organizing for heavy rain in California this weekend – as much as 20 inches in some areas

Watts Up With That?

WUWT contributor Dr. Ryan Maue writes on his Twitter feed:

Can’t ask for better setup for enormous rainfall totals over NorCal & now linto Bay Area in 5+ days

Looking at the model output below, I tend to agree, if the pattern holds. It sets up Northern California for the perfect orographic lifting enhancement in the Sierra Nevada mountain range that will not only provide a bounty of liquid precipitation, but a significant boost to the well below normal California snowpack.
Most or northern California will get some benefit from this “super soaker” storm:

The Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts show some parts of Northern Calfornia getting as much as 20″, along with many mountain areas getting 5″ or more.

How much will be snow? That’s anyone’s guess at this time, it depends entirely on how much air and moisture is advected into the low pressure system to collide with colder…

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