Updraft: November 8, 2007 Archive

The rush is on

Posted at 6:59 AM on November 8, 2007 by Paul Huttner

Here's a new twist on climate change. Something is sparkling in Greenland these days, and it's not ice.

It seems the rush is on in Greenland for diamonds. Newly exposed rock that was under a sheet of ice several years ago has revealed some impressive diamond finds, including a 2.4 carat rock in a western Greenland trial dig.

This highlights a new era of oil mineral, and other natural resource exploration in the new Arctic frontier. As new islands emerge, new land areas jut out from under dissapearing ice.

Greenland diamond rush

PH

'Cookbook ingredients' are used to forecast winter weather

Posted at 2:18 PM on November 8, 2007 by Mark Seeley

Over the years, meteorologists have come up with ingredients methods to
forecast specific weather events, especially winter snowfalls. Such methods
are used along with the numerical guidance models produced by the
supercomputers.

These methods apply a cookbook-style ingredients list that
forecasters can use to estimate the precipitation process and apply to the
size and intensity of storms. Fundamentally, this gets to the formation of water
droplets or ice crystals, their structure, abundance, and longevity in the
atmosphere.

Such methods are often built on case studies (historically documented)
using the pre- and post-storm data sets. In addition to measured precipitation
amounts these data sets may contain winds, mixing ratios, temperatures, stability
indices and other attributes. This approach truly lets history be our teacher.

A description of ingredients methods can be found here.

I am aware that the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, Minnesota has used the Garcia
Method (Crispin Garcia, 1994) and the Wetzel Ingredients Method (Suzanne Wetzel,
2001) for forecasting precipitation from winter storms. I suspect there are a
number of other methods in use as well.

Minnesota's top 5 weather events

Posted at 3:13 PM on November 8, 2007 by Paul Huttner

As put together by the Minneosta climate community. Note the Armisitice Day Blizzard at #2, and the Edmund Fitzgerald storm at #7.

Minnesota's Top 5 Weather Events

PH