Let's Do The Weather ... Breaking News -- 900,000 Lose Power In Midwest, Northeast Due to Global Warming

Breaking news -- 900,000 lose power in midwest, northeast due to global warming, climate change, extreme weather. TD Waterhouse is reporting:

Almost 900,000 homes and businesses were without power in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast early Wednesday following severe snow and ice storms overnight, according to local power companies.

The hardest hit state was Pennsylvania with over 640,000 customers out Wednesday morning. Other affected states were Maryland, West Virginia, Arkansas, New Jersey, Kentucky, Delaware, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and New York. 

A link from Drudge ... IceAgeNow is reporting that 4,406 record low temps were set in January, 2014, due to global warming, climate change, extreme weather. And the fact that it was winter, and that the earth quit warming 18 years ago.

The Billings Gazette is reporting:

Classes have been cancelled and most of the Montana State University Billings campus will be shut down through Thursday due to a weather-related natural gas shortage.

An MSUB news release said Chancellor Rolf Groseth decided to cancel class and close the campus offices beginning Wednesday and continuing through at least Thursday due to a gas shortage spurred by the recent cold snap that's struck much of the U.S., including Billings.

Another record-breaking month for Duluth, MN. Duluth News Tribune is reporting:

They found it in a little-known statistic of “winter with most days where the temperature dipped below zero.”

So far this winter, the temperature has dropped below zero on 50 different days. We aren’t at the record yet, only in 11th place. But we are on pace to break the record, forecasters said Wednesday. The record is 59 days with below zero temps set in the winters of 1958-59, 1916-17 and 1874-75.

Duluth also could set the record for the most consecutive days with the daily low temperature below zero. As of Wednesday, that streak sat at 17 days in a row. The record is 22 days in a row set in 1936 and 1963.

Meanwhile, in Midland, TX, MRT.com is reporting:

A layer of soft snow blanketed streets and vehicles, and icicles formed on eaves Thursday morning as record-setting temperatures dipped into the teens.

The Permian Basin region is no stranger to frosty weather. Two arctic blasts shut down major roadways and sparked widespread power outages late last year, and Midlanders woke up Super Bowl Sunday to snowy scenes out their windows. 

On Thursday, the low exceeded 1989’s record single-digit temperature by only four degrees, according to the National Weather Service. But the high in 1989 was 28 degrees, earning Thursday’s high of 21 a low-high temperature record. 

“We broke that one pretty easily,” said NWS meteorologist Andrew Arnold, noting this year’s fickle weather is nothing out of the ordinary.

Unless you're a warmist.

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I just rode my bike against a strong, strong north wind in 28-degree (Fahrenheit) weather, about a six-mile ride, I suppose. I had warm gloves on but not roughneck-winter-North-Dakota gloves and by the time I reached the Grapevine, TX, library, my hands were pretty cold. First aid courses came in handy; went to restroom and warmed them using cold water first, never using hot water.

I can type pretty well now. Felt nauseous for maybe fifteen minutes (the feeling is gradually going away), but no chest pain, so all's well that ends well, as William used to say.

A reader noted this with regard to Texas, cold, and wind:

... on Monday morning only 17 percent of ERCOT’s wind capacity (1,782 megawatts of the approximately 10,400 megawatts of wind capacity) were operating at that time.  According to Fuel Fix, this means that "on Monday [wind] only contributed about 3.2 percent of electricity used during peak demand…"

It is obviously a judgment call whether 17 percent of capacity and 3.2 percent of total generation is indeed “massive quantities” of wind or merely middling amounts.

And then this little bit of trivia. According to wiki, Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. Glad to know it's there when you need it. NOT.

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A Note to the Granddaughters 

For The Archives

CNS News is reporting:

Dr. Don Easterbrook – a climate scientist and glacier expert from Washington State who correctly predicted back in 2000 that the Earth was entering a cooling phase – says to expect colder temperatures for at least the next two decades.

Easterbrook’s predictions were “right on the money” seven years before Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for warning that the Earth was facing catastrophic warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide, which Gore called a “planetary emergency.”

“When we check their projections against what actually happened in that time interval, they’re not even close. They’re off by a full degree in one decade, which is huge. That’s more than the entire amount of warming we’ve had in the past century. So their models have failed just miserably, nowhere near close.

And maybe it’s luck, who knows, but mine have been right on the button,” Easterbrook told CNSNews.com.

“For the next 20 years, I predict global cooling of about 3/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, as opposed to the one-degree warming predicted by the IPCC,” said Easterbrook, professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University.