3-7 January 2011

DataStreme Earth's Climate Systems will return for Spring 2011 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 17 January 2011. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Climate News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

• In Close -- Earth reaches perihelion, the point in its orbit that is closest to the sun (147.1 million kilometers or 91.2 million miles), on Monday, 3 January 2011 at 19Z (2 PM EST, 1 PM CST, etc.).
• Time for a change in the normals -- According to international agreement, temperature, precipitation and degree-day normals are computed for thirty-year intervals, with the normals updated at the start of each decade. The end of the calendar year 2010 last Friday represented the end of one these decades used for climatological accounting purposes, with Saturday marking the beginning of a new decade. By the end of 2011, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center will have collected and processed 30 years of climate data from thousands of stations before distributing new official climate normals for the 1981-2010 reference period. By early 2012, these new normals will officially replace the 1971-2000 normals that have been used during the last decade.
• Year in review from a geosynchronous satellite perspective -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently assembled a collage of images and animations of several weather events across North and South America during 2010 that were generated from data collected from the nation's GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) series of satellites. [NASA GOES-P Mission]

• A review of Canada's top ten weather stories in 2010 -- During the last week, meteorologists with Environment Canada released a list of what they considered the top ten weather events across Canada during this just concluded calendar year of 2010. According to preliminary data, the meteorologists concluded that 2010 was the nation’s warmest year during the last 63 years. Last winter and spring were the warmest on record, summer was the third warmest and autumn was the second warmest. [Environment Canada]

• Using satellites to measure global aerosols -- An image produced from data collected from the MODIS sensors on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites shows the global distribution of aerosols during August 2010, expressed in terms of the dimensionless optical thickness, a measure of the aerosol loading. This image can be used to determine the type and source of the aerosols around the globe. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• 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]

• Assessing the impact of the "ozone hole" -- A team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has been conducting a new modeling of the stratospheric ozone layer that involved running simulations with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). This research indicates that the region of depleted stratospheric ozone over the polar latitudes, often dubbed the "ozone hole", appears to affect the temperature and circulation patterns up into the mesosphere, leading to differences in the qualities of polar mesospheric clouds (also known as noctilucent clouds). [UCAR/NCAR]
• How glass shatters could help in climate change studies -- A scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claims that significantly more dust particles are lifted into the atmosphere than previously thought, as shattered dirt appears to produce high quantities of large dust fragments. Large amounts of aerosols in the atmosphere could affect the climate through scattering solar radiation and formation of clouds and precipitation. He bases his theory on the similarity in fragment patterns between dust conglomerations from brittle dirt and how a drinking glass shatters. [UCAR/NCAR]

• Studying causes of a mass extinction in early marine life -- Researchers at Ohio University who have been studying the collapse of marine life during the Late Devonian (approximately 378 to 375 million years ago) have found that an influx of invasive species appears capable of stopping those dominant processes associated with new species formation and triggering mass extinction events. [NSF]

• 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.

• 3 January 1913...The barometer at Canton, NY read 28.20 inches of mercury (955.0 millibars), which is the lowest ever recorded at an inland station. (Intellicast)
• 3 January 1961...A three-day long ice storm was in progress over northern Idaho that produced an accumulation of ice eight inches thick, an U.S. record. Heavy fog, which blanketed much of northern Idaho from Grangeville to the Canadian border, deposited the ice on power and telephone lines causing widespread power outages. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 3 January 2006...The record 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season extended into the new year, as Tropical Storm Zeta reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph for the second time; the previous occurrence was on 1 January 2006. Never a threat to land as it traveled across the central North Atlantic, Tropical Storm Zeta was the 27th named tropical cyclone (including both tropical storms and hurricanes) of the season. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 January 1888...Sacramento, CA received 3.5 inches of snow, an all-time record for that location. The heaviest snow in recent history was two inches on 5 February 1976. (4th-5th) (The Weather Channel)
• 5 January 1904...Bitterly cold air gripped the northeastern U.S. Morning lows of 42 degrees below zero at Smethport, PA and 34 degrees below zero at River Vale, NJ established state records for both the Keystone and Garden States. (The Weather Channel)
• 5 January 1913...The temperature at the east portal to Strawberry Tunnel reached 50 degrees below zero to tie the Utah state record low established at Woodruff on 6 February 1899. (David Ludlum) This record was later smashed in February 1985 when the temperature at Peter's Sink fell to 69 degrees below zero. (NCDC)
• 5 January 1974...The temperature at Vanda Station on the Scott Coast, Antarctica reached 59 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica. (The Weather Doctor)
• 5 January 1999...The temperature fell to 36 degrees below zero at Congerville in central Illinois to set a new record low temperature for the state. (NCDC)
• 7 January 1913...Tucson, AZ set its all-time record low temperature with a frigid six degrees above zero. (NWS)
• 7 January 1971...The temperature at Hawley Lake, located southeast of McNary, AZ, plunged to 40 degrees below zero to establish a state record low temperature for the Grand Canyon State. (The Weather Channel)
• 7 January 1989...Fargo, ND was in the middle of a 3-day snowstorm over which time 24.4 inches of snow fell on the city -- the greatest single storm total ever for the location. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
• 7 January 1992...A rare January thunderstorm rumbled over Sioux Falls, SD. This was the first January thunderstorm recorded in the city since 1939. Meanwhile, thunderstorms produced six tornadoes (one F2 and five F1) near Grand Island, NE -- the first tornadoes ever recorded in Nebraska during January. (Intellicast)
• 7 January 1996...The "blizzard of '96" clobbered a huge area from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast with record snows. A new snowfall record for New Jersey was set when 35 inches were measured at White House. (Intellicast)
• 7-8 January 1966...Torrential rain fell at Foc Foc on the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, with 45 inches falling in 12 hours and 72 inches falling in 24 hours, both world precipitation records.
• 8 January 1859...This is the only day New York City's temperature stayed below zero the entire day. (Intellicast)
• 8 January 1923...The all-time January record high temperature reading was reached at Los Angeles when the mercury climbed to 90 degrees. (Intellicast)
• 8 January 1937...The record low temperature for the state of Nevada was set at San Jacinto when the temperature dropped to 50 degrees below zero. (Intellicast)
• 9 January 1875...The temperature at Cheyenne, WY dipped to an all-time record low reading of 38 degrees below zero. (The Weather Channel)
• 9 January 1899...The temperature at Norway House, Manitoba: 1899 plummeted to 63 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), marking the coldest day ever recorded in Manitoba. (The Weather Doctor)
• 9 January 1954...The temperature reading taken during the British North Greenland Expedition at near Northice, Greenland was 87 degrees below zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Greenland. (The Weather Doctor)
• 9 January 1992...An unbelievable 14 consecutive days of cloudy skies finally ended at Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. Every single weather observation during this time period showed overcast conditions -- 350 consecutive hours of cloudy skies! There was not even a "mostly cloudy" -- all observations were completely cloudy. During this cloudy period, it was very mild. The average temperature from 26 December to 8 January was 19 degrees above normal. (Intellicast)
• 10 January 1800...Savannah, GA received a foot and a half of snow, and ten inches blanketed Charleston, SC. It was the heaviest snowfall of record for the immediate Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S. (David Ludlum)
• 10 January 1949...Snow was reported at San Diego, CA for the first and only time since 1882. Snow was noted even on some of the beaches in parts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.