"Mild winter in Lower 48 is harsh elsewhere" February 02, 2012|Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Snow has gone missing in action for much of the United States the last couple months. But it is not just snow. It is practically the season that has gone AWOL.
“What winter?’’ asked Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. For the Lower 48, January was the third-least snowy on record, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records for the amount of ground covered by snow go back to 1967.
Last year more than half the nation was covered in snow as a Groundhog Day blizzard barreled across the country, killing 36 people and causing $1.8 billion in damage.
This year, less than a fifth of the country outside of Alaska has snow on the ground. Bismarck, N.D., has had one-fifth its normal snow, Boston a third. Midland, Texas, has had more snow this season than Minneapolis or Chicago.
Forget snow, for much of the country there is not even a nip in the air. On Tuesday, the last day in January, all but a handful of states had temperatures in the 50s or higher. In Washington, D.C., where temperatures flirted with the 70s.
But there is lots of snow and dangerous cold - it is just elsewhere. Valdez, Alaska, has had 328 inches of snow this season - 120 inches above average - and the state is frigid, with Yukon hitting a record 66 below zero over the weekend.
Nearly 80 people have died from a vicious cold snap in Europe, and much of Asia has been blanketed with snow. This January was the ninth snowiest since 1966 for Europe and Asia, though for the entire northern hemisphere, it has been about average for snow this season.
Related: Snowbound in Serbia
The reason is changes in Arctic winds that are redirecting snow and cold. Instead of dipping down low, the jet stream winds that normally bring cold and snow south got trapped up north in a pattern called the Arctic Oscillation. When the Arctic Oscillation is in a positive phase, the winds spin fast in the Arctic keeping the cold north.
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Related:
“It’s warmer this year mainly because of the jet-stream pattern,’’ said Michael Pigott, AccuWeather senior meteorologist"
Next Day Updates: Mild winter a welcome savings
Ice cream shops, builders bask in business
Here is something that will warm you up:
"Judge orders release of report on botched case against ex-senator; GOP’s Stevens lost Alaska seat after ‘ill-gotten verdict’' by Nedra Pickler | Associated Press, February 09, 2012
WASHINGTON - A federal judge yesterday rejected arguments from four attorneys who prosecuted the late Senator Ted Stevens to keep private a report that reveals details of their mishandling of the case, but said he will not hold any of them criminally responsible for their “ill-gotten verdict.’’
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered that a 500-page report into the Justice Department’s botched corruption case against Stevens be released March 15, along with any written objections the attorneys targeted in the investigation wish to include.
Last November, Sullivan revealed that the special prosecutor he had appointed, Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III, did not recommend criminal charges against any of the federal prosecutors despite finding widespread misconduct, at least some of it intentional....
Related: Stevens Gets Off
That was the intent, wasn't it?
Stevens was the longest-serving Republican in the Senate when a jury convicted him in 2008 of lying on financial disclosure documents to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in home renovations and gifts from wealthy friends, including a massage chair, a stained-glass window, and an expensive sculpture. A few days later, Stevens lost reelection to the Alaska seat he had held for 40 years.
Sullivan dismissed the conviction after the Justice Department admitted misconduct in the case, including withholding from the defense evidence favorable to Stevens. That evidence included notes from an interview with the star prosecution witness.
The witness was Bill Allen, the millionaire founder of a major Alaska company that supported oil producers called VECO Corp. During the trial, Allen testified that he oversaw extensive renovations at Stevens’s home and sent his employees to work on it. In posttrial court proceedings, the notes of the interviews have been described as more favorable to Stevens’s position.
“The government’s ill-gotten verdict in the case not only cost that public official his bid for reelection, the results of that election tipped the balance of power in the United States Senate,’’ Sullivan wrote. “That the government later moved to dismiss the indictment with prejudice and vacate the verdict months after the trial does not eradicate the misconduct, nor should it serve to shroud that misconduct in secrecy.’’
Sullivan ordered the criminal investigation into the six Justice Department attorneys who tried the senator as he dismissed the conviction, saying at the time that he’d never seen such misconduct in 25 years on the bench....
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Also see: Was Ted Stevens Assassinated?
Now to the other end:
"Antarctica program gathers rocks, and critics on Capitol Hill; 35th annual expedition will cost about $1m" December 09, 2011|By Brian Vastag, Washington Post
WASHINGTON - A waste of taxpayer dollars....
The report suggested that the program had collected enough meteorites already....
With a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, William Cassidy launched Ansmet, which is run jointly by the science foundation, NASA, and the Smithsonian.
Ralph Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University who is leading the expedition for the 21st time, and other scientists credit the program’s longevity to Cassidy’s vision: He insisted that all finds be made available to any scientist in the world.
“It almost sounds ridiculous,’’ said Harvey. “Who goes out and finds a new Egyptian pyramid and says, ‘Hey, you guys study it and I’ll watch’? That’s basically what it is.’’
Harvey pinned the cost of Ansmet at about $1 million a year. He said it is a bargain; Cassidy called it “the poor man’s space program.’’ Sending robots or humans into space to collect such rocks would costs tens of billions. “It’s a unique way to explore the solar system, and we are doing it inexpensively, minimizing risk, and bringing home the bacon,’’ said Harvey. “In this case, the bacon is space rocks.’’
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"3 dead, 37 rescued in Antarctic fishing boat fire" Associated Press, January 12, 2012
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Fire raged out of control on a fishing ship near Antarctica as the crew tried to fight back the flames early yesterday. Three fishermen died, and two of the 37 rescued had severe burns.
Rescue coordinators said help given by a nearby sister ship and another fishing vessel probably prevented a worse outcome....
The South Korean ship was continuing to burn and appeared to be sinking, said Mike Roberts, the senior search and rescue officer with the Rescue Coordination Center of New Zealand.
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"Russian team drills into Antarctic lake" by New York Times | February 09, 2012
MOSCOW - In the coldest spot on the earth’s coldest continent, Russian scientists have reached a freshwater lake the size of Lake Ontario after spending a decade drilling through more than 2 miles of solid ice, the scientists said yesterday.
A statement by the chief of the Vostok Research Station, A.M. Yelagin, released by the director of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, Valery Lukin, said the drill made contact with the lake water at a depth of 12,366 feet. As planned, lake water under pressure rushed up the bore hole 100 to 130 feet, pushing drilling fluid up and away from the pristine water, Yelagin said, and forming a frozen plug that will prevent contamination. Next Antarctic season the scientists will return to take samples of the water.
The first hint of contact with the lake was Saturday, but it wasn’t until Sunday that pressure sensors showed that the drill had fully entered the lake.
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Related: Woman completes solo ski trek across Antarctica in 59 days
Made my printed paper but web lost the trail?
I'm at the end of my wits with the Boston Globe, readers.
Good night.
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