Wow, This Global Warming Punch Getting Stronger By The Hour

Updates

December 27, 2012: "Anonymous" noted that even with this storm, 2012 will go down in US history as the warmest year on record. No one has yet told me what the correct temperature for the earth is, and who sets the thermostat. Since 1880, the earth's temperature has risen 0.6 degrees. Since 1940, the earth's temperature has risen 0.5 degrees. Half-a-degree. The biggest green house gas is water vapor, accounting for 95 to 97%. CO2 accounts for less than 3% and only a portion of that is anthropogenic.  However, the bigger question to ask: are there benefits with a warming climate? Longer growing seasons? Shorter passage to Asia through the Northwest Passage? Lower utility costs for heating? More research spending on drought-resistant crops?

Original Post

MDW first started blogging about "Draco" "Euclid" two or three days ago; the storm keeps getting bigger.

Far more potent than the snow event headed to the Northeast just in time for Christmas, this storm will unload windswept and burying snow on its northwestern flank.

While snow will push through the Rockies--including Denver--into tonight, the worst of the snowstorm will take shape Christmas Day across the southern Plains.

The nation desperately needs the snow pack.

The snow will continue for several days after (Christmas Day). Wouldn't it be a hoot if Congressmen (and the President) couldn't get back to Washington before the end of the year? Mr Santelli will really have something to yell about.

Some data points:

• the last time there was snow in Oklahoma City on Christmas Day was almost a century ago, 1914, as in one hundred years ago
• more than 150 million Americans could see snow when they wake up Christmas Day (the granddaughters are hoping)
• meteorologists predict snowfall could blanket nearly half the nation on Tuesday - from Dallas to Maine - as a massive snowstorm moves from the Great Plains and up into the Northeast
• Pittsburgh is expected to take the biggest hit of any major metropolitan area, with 10 to 18 inches possible by Saturday evening

That will shut the city down.