February 2011 Weather News!
It seems your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather News spends most of its time reporting on extreme weather around the nation and the world, but parts of February was a force to be reckoned with at The Land, The Phoenix area and the West.
The first week in February was the coldest, and the driest, I have seen in at least twenty five years. Phoenix had the lowest dew point ever recorded on a day in February. Morning lows in the teens at The Land was cold by any standards, and several days during the first week in February, had average temperatures below or right at freezing! Talking Trees and Antelope Hill in New Mexico recorded an average temperature one day of only twelve degrees below zero!
I have always marveled at structural engineering and the construction feats to accomplish building in a way that will allow structures to withstand the forces of the elements and the earth. But as the days unfold after the Great Freeze In The West you will read the prolonged effects on buildings, water and gas supplies. And heavy snows in other parts of the U.S. crumpled structures.
Then at the end of the month comes cold and rain to Arizona, with the snow level dropping to twenty five hundred feet. There was snow visible on mountain tops thirty miles from The Land and looking at the massive snow on Four Peaks with binoculars looked just like Denali from a hundred miles away.
But wait! There is so much more to read about in this exciting issue of Blue Duck Weather! You will read about the shit revealed as record January snows melt in New York City, the fate of pit bulls in Arizona, an extremely rare animal spotted in southern Arizona, a dire warning about melting permafrost, more possible effects of the BP oil spill on baby dolphins, the new Hoover Dam bypass span and its planning for game crossings, how a children’s inflatable play house turns into a nightmare right out of Oz and why Budweiser stopped its production of beer in one state.
The average temperature at The Land was four degrees warmer at the end of the month than the beginning. But don’t let this slight rise fool you. It was 22 degrees warmer than February 2nd! It was nineteen degrees warmer at the end of the month at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill but thirty one degrees warmer than February 2nd!
The average temperature on The Land for February was 49.60 degrees. For Talking Trees and Antelope Hill is was 30.96 degrees.
The average humidity on The Land was 35.69 percent. The average dew point was 20.53 degrees. But on February 2nd the average dew point was a lip peeling seven degrees below zero!
The Land finally received some rain and the total rainfall for the year is .52”. Phoenix, officially has received .70’’ for the year.
Always keeping our beady eyes on the lake levels and the possible demise of all life (at least human) in the desert here’s where they stand: Lake Mead groaned and got up to 40%, Powell is at 56%, Pleasant 83% and Roosevelt Lake 91%.
How many migraines did you have this month? The barometric pressure rose up and down like a roller coaster from the 1st through the 11th. All it produced was cold wind. It fell like a rock on the 15th and on the 16th clouds began to gather. It remained low and on the 19th wind and rain was our guests of honor. Then on the 25th it fell from a very high 28.48 to a very low pressure of 28.11 in one day! The result was more wind and rain.
And now to all of the news that makes Blue Duck Weather so fucking boring. Hell, it’s still better than watching infomercials all day and eating Cheetos.
2-1- Afternoon high at The Land 60 degrees. Add a fourteen mph wind and it was 56 degrees. A Freeze Warning is issued for the Phoenix area for tonight expiring at nine a.m. tomorrow.
One degree was the low at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill this morning.
From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reported a mind staggering 31 below zero with the wind chill at noon!
As the massive front moves to the Midwest and Northeast Houston drops 20 degrees in seventeen minutes. Ten inches of snow in Oklahoma City with two inches falling per hour. Ten thousand flights are cancelled. Blizzard Warnings are issued for nine states; Ice, sleet, rain, snow and even tornados are possible. FEMA is positioned in eleven states with the National Guard on standby. This storm is described as a “White Monster.” I-70 in Missouri is closed due to snow, ice and 40-50mph winds causing whiteout conditions. Tornadoes reported in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Cyclone Yasi, bearing down on Australia, is being described as a “Katrina like storm.” Thousands of people are told to flee this “life threatening cyclone.” Yasi is forecast to directly hit the northern City of Cairns late today with 155mph winds and up to three feet of rain. Four hundred thousand people live in the storm’s path.
Nine extremely rare blind dolphins are found dead along the Indus River in Pakistan. This dolphin species is only found in this river and in 2006 a count showed 1300 were in existence. They were killed by poison and nets by local fishermen.
2-2- In the summer here idiots say “at least it’s a dry heat.” Well let me show you a fucking dry cold, the worst kind. At the land this morning the low was 31 degrees with a 7mph wind= 27 degrees. The afternoon high was 40 degrees with a 11mph wind= 34 degrees. The average dew point all day was a bone dry -7 degrees. The average temperature for the entire day was 30.50 degrees. You can bet I will wear my “under Rues “ tomorrow. A Hard Freeze Warning is in place for tomorrow.
Thirteen below zero was the AVERAGE temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill today.
With a 70mph wind on San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona it was 64 degrees below zero! 23 below zero in Flagstaff, the coldest since 1990. 44 degrees is a new low high record in Phoenix. 65,000 Salt River Project customers without power due to mechanical problems for six major transformers knocked out by the cold. Fifteen minute rolling blackouts in place to distribute limited power.
Twenty inches of snow on the ground in Chicago with 70mph winds. Missouri closes I-70from Kansas City to St. Louis for the first time in history due to weather. 200,000 people without power in Ohio, 50,000 in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and 54,000 in Dallas.
Cyclone Yasi is now a Category 5 storm and covers an area larger than Italy. 10,600 Australians are in evacuation centers and others are being turned away because of limited space. Winds may reach 186 mph and blow apart “cyclone proof” homes that have been built in recent years.
Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow today and predicts an early Spring. The “prophetic” groundhog has been making predictions since 1887. He has seen his shadow 98 times and only 16 times he didn’t. (no one has confirmed the bastard’s accuracy.)
A Minneapolis woman has been charged with animal cruelty after she tried to mail a puppy to Atlanta in a sealed box with no air holes or food. Postal workers became suspicious when the box suddenly fell off a counter after the idiot woman left the post office.
2-3- Seventeen degree low at The Land with a forty three degree high! Bisbee and Douglas, Arizona closes schools due to the cold. Tucson set a new record of an eighteen degree low and customers are out of natural gas.
Three died when a truck they are in went over a bridge guardrail in Oklahoma. The bridge had been closed due to the blizzard but re-opened. The truck plunged 80’ into an icy river but five others in the truck survived. The ground temperature was -11 degrees. Hypothermia in the water would take only minutes.
In South Dakota rescuers are trying to reach 150 vehicles stranded by snow on I-29. Many drivers were stuck all night and running low on fuel. 70 people have been rescued while others wait due to whiteout conditions.
This latest storm that has affected a third of the nation was rare for its size and strength. “A storm that produces a swath of twenty inch snow is really something we’d see every 50 years” according to a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Nine degree low in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez. This broke a record set back in 1951. Ankle deep snow caused disruptions in a region that rarely sees snow in a lifetime.
One of the “world’s biggest cyclones” has spared human casualties in Australia. One reason is how sparsely populated the country is. Yasi had a diameter of 350 miles and a top speed of 186mph. The biggest damage is the loss of 50% of sugarcane crops. The town of Tully was the hardest hit with 90% of buildings having extensive damage. Several thousand folks are homeless with 180,000 without power.
2-4- Good God, another 17 degree low at The Land. Schools in southern Arizona are closed due to broken water pipes and heating.
Five inches of snow in Dallas as unexpected moisture is drawn from the Gulf mixing with bitter cold. 500 flights are cancelled. Huge chunks of ice fell off Cowboy Stadium injuring 6. Usual temperatures this time of year in Dallas are the fifty’s and sixty’s.
A State of Emergency is declared in New Mexico with no natural gas available in many areas. Record use and rolling blackouts are the cause.
The collapse of a farm building in Connecticut due to heavy snow kills 85,000 egg laying chickens. (At least they weren’t ducks!)
Heavy rain and flash flooding delays recovery and cleanup efforts in Australia after Typhoon Yasi passed. 4,000 troops and 600 police officers help in the city of Cairns.
The Horn of Africa Nation, Somalia’s continued drought threatens millions of folks. It has increased the number of malnourished children, displaced thousands and killed thousands of animals. A U.N. humanitarian chief said the “situation is dire.”
2-5- 26 degree low at The Land! Due to the recent cold snap in the Phoenix area valley plumbing supply stores have run out of replacement irrigation parts such as valves and vacuum breakers.
Snow fell off of a roof in Vermont burying the home owner up to his neck. After two hours a trooper spotted the man’s head and gloved hand. The trapped man was cold but in good spirits after being pulled out.
The blizzard that dumped a record twenty inches of snow recently in Tulsa has had some residents trapped in their homes for four days. (Wonder what this will lead to in nine months?)
The Boston area has had seventy roofs collapse from snow weight and some schools are closed until February 8th.
The tail end of Cyclone Yasi causes damaging storms and flash flooding at the opposite end of Australia.
2-6- The five inches of snow in Dallas from last week is twice the annual total for the area.
Thirty five zoo animals have frozen to death in Chihuahua, Mexico. The temperature fell to 9 degrees, the coldest in sixty years.
2-7- Natural gas is being restored in Arizona and New Mexico after record cold temperatures last week caused demand shortages.
From flooding to fires in Australia: A forest fire has destroyed forty one homes and damaged nineteen in Perth. Four thousand acres have burned in the last two days.
A strong Pacific Ocean wave has swept two teenagers off of a rocky outcropping at Smelt Sands State Park in Oregon. Both bodies have been recovered.
There were seventy nine worldwide shark attacks in 2010. Thirty four were in the U.S.
2-8- At eleven this morning from his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reported nine below zero with the wind chill and seven inches of new snow. He said it was the most respectable snow storm of the season.
Schools in El Paso, Texas were closed yesterday due to lack of water and water pressure. The deep freeze last week knocked out water pumps affecting seven thousand people.
The Adirondack Sports Complex in New York was unoccupied when part of the dome collapsed due to snow weight over the weekend. The supporting steel frame for the roof simply buckled.
South African game park rangers shoot and kill four rhinoceros poaching suspects after confrontations occur. Three hundred and thirty three rhinos were poached last year, three times as many as in 2009. The increased demand for the animal’s horns is due to a rising middle class population in Asia. The horns are believed to have strong medicinal powers.
A recent survey shows that Americans get the blues more in the winter than any other season. But 15% surveyed said their sexual activity increased when they were cooped up do to bad weather. (Turn the television off dear.)
2-9- An extremely rare ocelot was observed yesterday in the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona. A man was working in his yard when his dogs began barking at a spotted, cat like animal that ran up a tree. The man called Arizona Game & Fish. An officer responded to the sight and verified that the animal was indeed an ocelot. Being on the Endangered Species List only one other animal has been seen since the mid 1960s. The other was a road kill near Globe last year. (The Lovely Mrs. Blueduck reminded me that she was given one of these “kitty’s” when she was in Mazatlan, Mexico when she was sixteen years old; its name was Asa.)
An unprecedented 14,523 pit bulls occupied Maricopa County animal shelters last year, one third of the animal population. 68% had to be put down. The reasons are their reputation for meanness, mass breeding and mistreated as fight dogs or raised by owners who are not prepared for the breed’s active lifestyle.
More than 57’’ of snow has fallen this season in New York City setting a new record for January. As the snow melts it reveals stinking, oozing bags of garbage, rat infested sofas, bicycles, Christmas trees and even bodies. Two men were found slumped over their steering wheels as the snow and ice receded. One man had been shot and the other died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Another body was found in the melting snow and this man died of hypothermia.
Heavy snow began falling in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and north Texas yesterday. Winter Storm Warnings are issued and some areas were receiving one to two inches of snow per hour.
January was colder than average in the U.S. Despite some large winter storms it was the 9th driest January on record going back to 1895.
Shandong, China is facing its worst drought in two hundred years, other provinces in China sixty years. China is the worlds largest wheat grower and the United Nations warn that wheat prices globally will rise. Average wheat prices worldwide grew by 8% last month.
2-10- The second blizzard this week buries Oklahoma and Arkansas. Cattle ranchers say if newborn cattle are not found immediately they will freeze in the snow and “stick like popsicles.” Two feet of snow has fallen this week and three people have died. Many roads in Tulsa are still impassible from last week’s record of 14’’ of snow. That storm alone closed schools for six days.
2-11- Oklahoma breaks a state record of -31 degrees in the town of Nowata. Areas in Arkansas hit -17 degrees.
A few weeks ago New Yorkers were whining about the City not plowing snow fast enough. With Tulsa buried by its snowiest winter on record, an army of citizens have stepped in. They have fastened plows on their pickup trucks, check on seniors and lining up to push stalled cars.
The hard freeze earlier this month has hurt Arizona crops. A head of lettuce has risen in price sixty nine cents a head.
2-12- Eighty degree high in Yuma the warmest in the nation.
Arizona Game & Fish rangers in the Pinetop region donated 3100 pounds of wild game meat and fish in 2010 to food banks in the White Mountains. Most of the meat came from seizures resulting from various wildlife violations. ( A thought occurred to me as I was typing this. Suppose Game & Fish busted a “poacher” with a hundred and fifty pound dear. And suppose that “poacher was trying to provide for his family in hard times. The “poacher” is in jail and his family has to go to the food bank. I respect and adhere to all game laws in this state. But if I had to provide food for my family with a gun I would do what I had to do.)
The National Wild Turkey Federation has announced the release of the 200,000th wild turkey in southern Arizona. The bird was one of fifteen Gould’s wild turkeys captured in the Coronado National Forest and taken to Gardner Canyon near Tucson. This canyon has suitable habitat but no turkeys. The wild turkey was on the brink of extinction in the 90s, but today there are more than seven million in the U.S.
Muddy runoff from Australia’s flooding is adding to the stress from pollution and warming seas to the Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems. In recent years the reef has suffered “mass bleaching” in which coral under pressure loses the colorful algae living in their tissues.
China will begin a massive operation to drill 1350 wells across eight northeastern provinces to try and save crucial wheat crops stricken by drought. Seventeen million acres have been affected and three million people are short of drinking water.
2-13- A female Siberian tiger was shot and killed after it mauled a teen to death on Christmas day at the San Francisco Zoo. A federal investigator has submitted a report that the cat was provoked into leaping and clawing its way out of an enclosure before the attack.
2-14- Snow flurries in the predawn headlights on The Land in 1990, the one and only time I have seen snow out here (even if it didn’t stick.)
February 2nd was the driest day on record at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. The average dew point was -10.4 degrees. It was also one of the coldest days in thirty years.
With no rain in January Arizona watersheds are significantly below average. Snow runoff this spring may be 30 to 45% of average.
A wildfire fueled by 40 mph winds destroys eighteen homes on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington State.
A “snow bomb” buries parts of South Korea. The biggest snowfall in a century has prompted rescue operations including twelve thousand soldiers.
2-15- Volunteers in Fargo hope to fill three million sandbags to prepare for the 3rd major flood in as many years. “The Annual Red River Flood Fight” is in response to the National Weather Service predicting snow melt will swell the river to flood stage by spring. In 2009 the flood caused one hundred million dollars in damage.
Due to harsh weather in parts of the world cotton production is down and price are the highest in 150 years (factoring inflation.) All goods made with cotton will increase 10% to 30% in the coming months.
2-16- Cyclone Carlos strikes Darwin, Australia two weeks after the massive Yasi did significant damage to parts of the country. Darwin causes less damage with “only” 80mph winds.
2-17- A strong cold front moved into Utah and parts of Idaho last night. 69mph winds were recorded in central Utah and 85mph at the Snow Basin ski resort. 21,000 people are still without power.
The governor of Montana has defied federal authority over gray wolves in his state and encourages livestock owners to kill wolves that attack their animals. He also said the state will begin killing off packs that attack elk herds. Lawsuits have kept the wolves on the Endangered Species List for a decade even after recovery goals have been met.
2-18- There is a one hundred percent chance of rain forecast for the Phoenix area tomorrow. (An ominous prediction; you only have to go back through the Blue Duck Weather archives to find out what the rare one hundred percent chances meant to friends and me camping.) A Winter Storm Warning is issued for northern Arizona with high winds and snow. 41mph winds already occurring in Winslow.
A wildfire near Patagonia, Arizona in the Coroado National Forest has grown to 2,000 acres. There is no word on how it started.
The National Weather Service issued a flooding forecast today for the central U.S. Many of these states have a 95% chance of severe flooding when spring snowmelt begins from mid March to mid April.
Permafrost is irreversibly thawing and within twenty years will release more carbon than it currently stores. Carbon is held in the form of frozen plant material and adding more to the atmosphere would raise temperatures even higher.
An abolone diver off the coast of southern Australia is killed by two Great White sharks.
2-19- Morning low at The Land 65 degrees with an afternoon high of 51 degrees! There were 15-20mph sustained winds all day until the rain began at two p.m.
Winter Storm Warnings are still in effect for northern Arizona until tomorrow at five p.m. Nine inches of snow reported at Bellmont. I-17 north is closed at the Sedona exit. Highways 89 and 180 are also closed.
The forest fire near Patagonia in southern Arizona is 70% contained. Still no word of the cause.
A rabid javelina attacked a pet dog earlier this week twenty miles south of Prescott. It wandered into a yard and bit the dog on the hindquarters. The dog’s owner beat the collard peccary to death. After the dead pig tested positive the poor pooch had to be put down.
Parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range has received NINE FEET of snow in the last five days. One ski resort near Lake Tahoe reported four feet of snow in twenty four hours!
74mph winds recorded in Washington D.C. area. With extremely low dew points a half dozen brush fires are fought and 18,000 people without power due to falling trees on power lines. A National Christmas tree, planted near the White House in 1978 is blown over. The tree was forty seven years old and forty two feet high.
Last July a troubling set of numbers on a computer at a key weather forecast center near London appeared. But nobody at the center noticed and officials in Pakistan failed to interpret the signal as a warning. The numbers meant “Expect massive, unprecedented rain in northwest Pakistan.” If information had been properly analyzed Pakistan could have been warned a week ahead of the disaster. There was a 80% probability of severe rain predicted nine days ahead of the event. Weather forecasters are hesitant to “cry wolf” and cause mass panic in case the forecast is not accurate.
2-20- The morning low at The Land was a wet and cloudy 49 degrees. The high of 52 degrees plus a 12mph wind reduced the temperature to 49 degrees.
Twenty seven inches of snow in Winslow, Flagstaff fifteen inches and snow/rain mix as low as Cave Creek, Arizona.
50mph winds in New York City fans an apartment fire, killing one person.
Another major winter storm is heading for the Midwest dropping temperatures 40 degrees in twenty four hours.
2-21- The new Hoover Dam bypass bridge has three smaller concrete spans for wildlife, especially bighorn sheep to cross. Critics questioned the need to build wildlife bridges that cost 4.8 million dollars. This is a first of its kind project to help preserve Arizona’s largest herd of bighorn sheep.
Another major winter storm strikes Wisconsin, Michigan and northern Ohio dumping a foot of new snow. The eighth snow emergency day is called in Minneapolis, the most ever declared in a single winter.
2-22- Two young girls were hurt, one with serious head injuries, when a gust of wind picked up an inflatable castle in Marana, Arizona last weekend. A neighbor told reporters the girls were playing in the toy when she saw the play house rolling over a nearby roof.
The latest snow storm in Minnesota left 19’’, the highest total, in Madison on the far western end of the state.
Baby dolphins are washing up dead along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts at ten times the rate of stillborn and infant deaths. This is the first birthing season since the BP oil spill last spring and summer. Tissues and organs are being gathered for forensic study to determine the cause of deaths.
2-24- After flood waters finally began to recede two days ago in Brazil firefighters had to remove a five foot long alligator hiding behind a couch in a home. A woman living there found her three year old son petting the beast before calling for help.
2-25- Tragic news from a major storm that hit the South yesterday; four Amish children were washed away to their deaths in southwestern Kentucky. The buggy they were riding in with their parents tried to cross a rain swollen creek. They were only a mile from home.
With this storm five inches of rain fell in parts of Missourri. An unconfirmed torndado reported in Arkansas with 60-70mph winds and twenty seven thousand people without power. Heavy rain and 60-80mph winds in Memphis.
Budwieser has stopped beer production in Georgia. Instead they are canning fresh water to prepare for severe spring flooding predicted. They have done this in the past to help communities prepare for disasters. (I must commend them for their community support but why don’t they just give out free beer and forget the water?)
Hard freezes in Texas and Mexico have driven up the price of tomatoes by twenty cents per pound. There will be no relief until Arizona tomato production begins in about a month.
A sea lion blinded by a gunshot wound to the face on a Sausalito, California beach may have a new home at the San Francisco Zoo. The animal cannot survive in the wild.
2-26- Winter Storm Warnings are in effect from Flagstaff to the Rim. Snow may drop to two thousand feet by morning.
According to the latest U.S. Forest survey there are 214 red squirrels on Mount Graham. This is down from 250 in 2009 but biologists are optimistic. This type of squirrel has been on the Endangered Species List since 1987.
San Francisco receives its first snow since 1976. For snow to fall and accumulate in this city as sea level, the temperature must drop to 36 degrees, percipitation must be falling and the ground must be chilled for several days beforehand.
The storms that pounded the South two days ago have struck the East. Flights are delayed and New York is closing some schools. There are flight delays in New Jersey. Winter Storm Warnings are posted across the northern third of Ohio. Heavy rains have drenched southern Ohio.
Five more baby bottlenose dolphins have been found in Missisippi and Alabama pushing the total to 67 since January 1st.
A diabetic couple was found alive in Cougar, Washington after five days of being trapped in a snow bank in their vehicle. They turned the engine on and off to run the heater and stay warm. Four campers discovered the couple.
2-27- Woke up this morning to a quarter of an inch of rain overnight and a temperature of 38 degrees with an eight mph wind chill factor. There was snow on Table Top Mountain, about thirty miles south of The Land. The elevation of that mountain is 4373’. I haven’t seen snow on it for at least ten years.
Unconfirmed snow totals in north Scottsdale of one to four inches and a dusting in Tucson. Hail was reported in Mesa, Cottonwood had three inches of snow, Flagstaff nine inches of snow, And the Snowbowl has fifty inches in the last two weeks. (Editor’s prediction, this is it for winter desert storms and I believe it is over. Spring is on the way and will give way to summer with a vengance.)
The rare snow your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather reported in San Francisco yesterday “doesn’t count.” No snow was observed downtown and the dusting doesn’t apply toward official records according to one meteorologist.
Northern California did tie or break long standing record low temperatures. San Francisco got down to 37 degrees, tying a record set in 1962. San Jose tied a record set way back in 1892, and Oakland got down to 34 degrees, breaking a record set in 1987.
2-28- Three homes are destroyed by an unconfirmed tornado in Kentucky.
Major street flooding and power outages in parts of Ohio and Indiana. 25,000 Ohio residents are without electricity. Most of central Indiana is under a flood warning until tonight.
One hundred and ten thousand acres have burned in west Texas wildfires that have destroyed 70 homes. Downed power lines by wind started several fires, a welder started another blaze and a spark from a car’s tire rim after a blown tire caused another. (It must be dry as Hell in west Texas!)
Heavy rain collapses an entire hill top in La Paz, Bolivia and 400 homes are destroyed. Amazingly enough there were no deaths.
The quote of the month is from a T-shirt that TwinkyDuck gave me, a shirt I will wear with honor on Earth Day. “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we can’t eat money.”- Cree proverb.
And finally, much to your relief if you have read this entire shit, the song of the month is “It Sure Got Cold..” by ZZ Top.
Thank you for your continued loyalty all of my Blue Duck Weather readers. Your fine staff promises you the future editions will be as boring as this one and all of the others in the past.
The Distinguished, Honorable, Professor MR BlueDuck
