Global Warming Getting An Early Start in Williston This Year; Smoldering Coal Veins In the Badlands

For September, 2012, according to The Bismarck Tribune:

Most of North Dakota was cooler and drier than normal during September, October and November, except for Williston and Dickinson.

Williston got 16 inches of snow, or 7.1 inches above normal, during that period. That compares with 5.5 inches of snow — or 3.4 inches below normal — during the same time last year.

Yes, note: "most of North Dakota was cooler than normal this year." Global warming?

Williston got 16 inches of snow during the last three months -- seven (7) inches more than normal!

When I was growing up in Williston, we generally did not see snow until late December. I remember many, many snowless Christmas eves -- or at most a light powder. As children we were desperate for snow on Christmas eve -- that was the only way to see Santa's sleigh tracks. Four, five, or six of us kids in a sedan driving with Dad, looking for sleigh tracks.

During the summer, Dad would take us to the Badlands so we could chase prairie dogs and see the burning coal seams.  One almost wonders if the faux environmentalists have ever measured the cumulative CO2 produced by these burning coal seams. Now that I think about it, I wonder what has produced more CO2 over the millenia: Harold's flaring or burning coal mines in North Dakota?

Deep smoldering coal veins that seemed to send a sulfurous breath from hell were once common enough in the Badlands for a campground to be named for them.

The Burning Coal Veins Campground west of Amidon has slumping earthworks where the vented coal veins burned underground for decades before finally burning out.

The phenomenon still occurs, but the U.S. Forest Service has a policy of mechanically extinguishing the coal veins where they’re burning on the Little Missouri National Grasslands in order to prevent grass fires.

Or cattle-produced methane? 

By the way, we never caught any prairie dogs.