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EXPERTS CALMED
A warning from experts:
A white Christmas may soon be no more than a dream in many parts of southern England because of global warming, experts warn.
In Australia, we’re keeping the dream alive:
Forecasters are predicting the first white Christmas in Australia for more than 20 years, with the possibility of snowfalls on the central Tasmanian plateau and the higher peaks of the Snowy Mountains.
Monday is expected to be cold and wet across southeast Australia … “There might even be enough snow to make a snowman,” Don White of the consulting firm Weatherwatch said.
Snowmen! Sensational. In other Christmas news, we might run a Christmas Day reader photofest here. Prepare your families.
I’m leaving town for a couple of weeks. Staying with Mother at Safety Beach - she isn’t connected. If I don’t get the chance again, Merry Christmas to all who post here, thanks to Tim and Andrea for hosting the best damn blog in the known Universe - and you trolls: hang around. You might learn something.
(Okay, okay - second best. The very best is here.)
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 12 21 at 11:45 PM • permalinkIsn’t it sort of usual that the south of England doesn’t get a lot of snow until later in the year? So real “white Christmases” with nice thick white snow are actually kind of rare in that area? And in fact England is temperate that way because of the Gulfstream current that keeps England from being buried under an ice sheet. I read that somewhere a long time ago.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 12 21 at 11:50 PM • permalinkJeez, it’s a big bastard of a country we got here! Snow in Tassie, 33deg scheduled for Perth. Bring your ski’s folks - water and snow.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 12 22 at 12:01 AM • permalink#8 - yeah, I’m confused too, Andrea. One of the things the warm-mongers say is that warmening will change the Gulf Stream and make England cold (of course, it’s done that many times before industrialization, but we know that doesn’t count.)
So, if England gets warm, that’s bad. And if England gets cold, that’s bad. Apparently, English weather is currently the epitome of perfection.
My long range English forecast - Gloom and drizzle.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 12 22 at 12:06 AM • permalinkWell, you know, for a lot of these people, the history of global climate change only started with the birth of their prophet, Al Gore.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2006 12 22 at 12:09 AM • permalinkIn other Christmas news, we might run a Christmas Day reader photofest here. Prepare your families.
My mother is currently spitting on a hankie, and parting my hair in an unnatural way.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 12 22 at 12:20 AM • permalinkMore on the global warming - rapid drop in temperature theory.
My daughter was judging “holiday” artwork on classroom doors at school this morning when she came across this reference to the fact we had no snow in Minnesota:
“Happy global warming holidays”
This afternoon we got three-plus inches with more to come overnight.
It’s a global warming holiday miracle!
Wish I could have participated in this thread sooner. Spent the day digging 3 feet of snow off the driveway, and pushing extra snow off the roof, then clearing the driveway again, then pausing to reflect on the effiency of that that particular work process flow.
Don’t worry, folks, I did manage to get the chains on our front wheel drive so I could burn some hydrocarbons. Well, more hydrocarbons than the furnaces alone, anyway. That gas meter was sure clicking away.
Hey you Norwich snow fetishists--I moved 72 yards (!) of snow with a freakin’ SHOVEL today, you can have this white Christmas, though I’m sure it would kill you pansies.
Posted by Matt in Denver on 2006 12 22 at 12:50 AM • permalinkToday in Tassie 30 deg celcius -
“global warming”Forecast for Christmas Day 14 deg celcius - “climate change”
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 22 at 01:10 AM • permalinkIt’s a white Christmas for Toronto and region, too, this year that has the GW-phrase being bandied about in the MSM, conveniently ignoring the large snowfall in the continent’s west that currently has Matt digging out and the kids getting the Christmas holiday off to an early start. (It just started raining here a few minutes ago that we don’t have to shovel; so it’s fine with me.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 22 at 01:32 AM • permalinkWait now, if I remember anything from grade school, ain’t it freaking summer in Australia now? What’s it doin’ snowin’?
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 12 22 at 01:44 AM • permalinkWell, this morning I skated out to the Anti-Gaia Transportation Device™, thanks to freezing rain. I then had to scrape 1/4” of ice off the windshield just so I could drive slowly to the office on really slick roads. Of course, it was all gone by noon.
I shoulda stood home and cranked up the furnance to make up for not driving.
Tomorrow, I’ll be doing just that! BUAWHAHAHAHA!!! Take THAT, Algore!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 12 22 at 01:50 AM • permalink#7 you’re right it doesn’t
there was the ‘mini ice age’ in the mid 19th century when it did get a lot of snow at that time (xmas)
the thames even froze over a for a couple of winters in a row.
Corelius Gore then decided to pack up the family and try his luck in the new world
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 22 at 02:27 AM • permalink#25:
Wait now, if I remember anything from grade school, ain’t it freaking summer in Australia now? What’s it doin’ snowin’?
Right, Shaky, it is the summer solstice and longest day in Oz right now.
What’s it doing snowin? We had a visit from Gorebot last month and Channel 7 is running a moonbat Cool the Planet campaign. The combined effects of these two powerful forces has turned the planet upside down. I’m surprised you guys who are now down under haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.#26 Dave S.
Also from another blog:
Gullible is a good antonym for skeptical.
Unlike skeptics, gullibles are always thought of in a pejorative sense.This reminds me of my least favorite Christmas song, which I have been fortunate not to hear this year:
“There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime...”
I always wondered why it was my fault it didn’t snow around the equator. And how exactly it would help starving children to make them cold as well.
It snowed all day here. So if global warming prevents snow, doesn’t the presence of snow disprove global warming?
Only problem is that weather forecast is just lauhably inept.
I reckon a part-time worker, an old codger flipping coins a few minutes a day, could successfully replace the expensive supercomputers and their modellings.
Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2006 12 22 at 03:01 AM • permalinkCondolences, Matt in Denver; that is some storm you’re having. At least you’ve got power. For now.
And in fact England is temperate that way because of the Gulfstream current that keeps England from being buried under an ice sheet. I read that somewhere a long time ago.
Well, I know parts of Ireland are temperate enough to grow subtropical plants. Isn’t something dire supposed to happen to the Gulfstream once the gerbil worms?
Merry Christmas, SC, to you and yours. Enjoy.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 12 22 at 03:10 AM • permalink#25 Shakey:
Wait now, if I remember anything from grade school, ain’t it freaking summer in Australia now? What’s it doin’ snowin’?Its a big country, Shakey. Cool temperate in Tasmania in the south, to tropical in Queensland and the Territory in the north.
And we have some mountains.
Hence:
...possibility of snowfalls on the central Tasmanian plateau and the higher peaks of the Snowy Mountains..but don’t hold your breath for an Australian bid for the WInter Olympic Games, although Roy & HG did once put forward a bid on behalf of Smiggin Holes.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 22 at 03:23 AM • permalinkMore on the 2010 Olympic WInter Games bid from Roy & HG:
Mottos for Smiggin Holes 2010 include “Unleash the Mighty Mongrel of the Holes”, “Winter Wonder Down Under” and “If you’ve got the poles, we’ve got the holes.”
It was proposed that either Mount Kosciuszko be raised 1000 feet, or that a new mountain be built in Smiggin itself, which would be named Mount Steggall, after Australian Nagano slalom bronze medallist Zali Steggall. “We’ve just got to get the nation to dump all its rubbish on top of Kosciusko, compact it a bit and voila, Mount Steggall.”
Modification of events
Biathlon would “have live targets, something that will make a noise when it’s hit” according to Roy, also noting that “we can have a kangaroo cull. God we’re going to have fun.”Olympic facilities
The caravan park would be used as the athletes’ village, and Dougie Does Dunnies promised the cleanest Olympic Games ever as far as toilets were concerned. The Cooma KFC would provide catering.International reaction
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge described the bid film as “very impressive” when he appeared on “The Ice Dream” (ps: the quote is real)Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 22 at 03:27 AM • permalinkIIIII’m dreeeeaming of a whiiiiiiite...Christ...maaaas....
Just like the ones I used to know
May all your days be merry and bright!
From a Texan whos been there done that back in 2004 when 9-12 inches of snow fell on most of south Texas on Christmas Eve.
Posted by Sharon Ferguson on 2006 12 22 at 04:50 AM • permalinkI remember, back in the olden days, (mid 80s to mid 90s) how we’d have to wear cardigans on more Christmas days than not and how we blamed it on the French nucular tests in the South Pacific. Before then freezing in summer was, for me, an experience linked only to travel to Adelaide and I presumed that was because it was so close to Antarctica.
I understand the French stopped nuking the Bikini Atoll a while ago yet southern summers these days still have way too many brass monkey days for my liking. And what I want to know is, if the weather is supposed to be getting warmer why, these days, is it so frequently, and so unseasonably, cold?
I wish the glowball warmening types would stop flapping their lips. Giving people false hope is just mean.
#3 Swinishcapitalist
Nealry Bought a house at Safety beach in June-Husband hard to persuade to leave broad acres-nice spot and still v disapointed.
Interesting about snow in Southern England- the reasom I am here at all. Mum went to visit her botfriend who was working at Swinbourne in 1940-a heavy snow storm worked up and she could not get home so forced to stay the night. She said nothing happened and knowing my mum believe her , however her father and two brothers were at the bus stop next day and Dad forced at the point of a shot gun ,well almost to make an
Honest woman of her.Six months later they married and I was born a year later so proved he point. I think she blamed me ever afterwards quite unreasonably because with my birth she was truly trapped. How glad that hypocrisy has changed.Have a happy Christmas all
#1 Paco,
“Snowbogans”!?, Comedy, thy name is Paco.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 12 22 at 05:26 AM • permalinkI reckon a part-time worker, an old codger flipping coins a few minutes a day, could successfully replace the expensive supercomputers and their modellings.
Exactly. There was an article in The Age five or so years ago that said research had shown that good weather predictions could be made just as accurately as a supercomputer by sticking your head out the window and having a guess. The Weather Bureau didn’t deny it.
Strange how no one notices how the 5-day forecast never becomes the 4-day forecast, let alone tomorrow’s forecast. Weather predicting even using super-super computers is little more that educated guesswork.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 12 22 at 05:30 AM • permalinkAll this talk of a white christmas, I wish. I’ve lived in the Seattle area nearly my whole life. We’ve never had a white christmas.
We’ve had christmas when it was rainy.
We’ve had christmas when it was windy and rainy.
We’ve had christmas with high winds and heavy rainAt christmas we’ve had:
Heavy mist
Heavy fog
Drizzle
Steady drizzle
Sprinkles
Showers
Intermittent showers
Steady showers
Downpours
Steady downpours
Heavy downpoursAnd days when it started out with (one of the above) later changing to (one of the above).
Makes one wonder why Seattle leads the nation in the rate of suicide, doesn’t it?
Posted by David Crawford on 2006 12 22 at 05:40 AM • permalinkRoll on the lazy, hazy crazy days of Christmas (speaking as an Englishman).
Posted by Torontosteve on 2006 12 22 at 08:07 AM • permalink’you must see an inconvenient truth’ a big screen close up of ellen degeneres face scolded me the very moment i walked in the door after a dull xmas do this evening
‘no thanks’ i slurred loudly
strange looks from family
i gotta stop talking to the telly
my hasn’t Al Gore got fat- who knew saving the world was so bad for the figure?
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 22 at 08:10 AM • permalink#49 works with pollution forecasts too - the head of the EPA used to say if you looked out a window in the CBD & the flag on the Government House tower was flapping, ozone & particle levels would be fine & dandy. he was right - won a few bets based on this. rare instance of a cardigan giving profitable advice
A white Christmas may soon be no more than a dream in many parts of southern England because of global warming, experts warn.
I daresay the Brits might follow the Spanish model and just give up on celebrating Christmas at all so as not to offend their new Muslim overlords, so the lack of snow won’t be a problem after all.
Apparently, English weather is currently the epitome of perfection.
Much like the Simpsons, there’s a Mark Steyn quote for everything:
The British, if you’ll forgive a gratuitous racist generalisation, seem to be remarkably obtuse about matters meteorological. Perhaps this is a natural consequence of living in a country where it’s 54 and overcast all summer and 53 and overcast all winter ...
David Crawford and Andrea, a new theory states that it’s not the Gulf Stream that makes the Sceptered Isles warmish and wettish, just their proximity to a large heat sink known as an ocean. Just like Seattle, which has no warm(ish) ocean current nearby but is near the same lattitude.
There will be no white Christmas here in middle Tennessee. My neighbor Al Gore (we even share a zip code) isn’t celebrating Christmas here.
Oh yeah, and Ecuador also has
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 12 22 at 10:33 AM • permalinkGoredamit! No snow in Fairfax, Virginia this year. High temperatures have been in the upper fifties (that’s fahrenheit for those of you who use the other scale - centipede, I think they call it).
Which, actually, is ok with me. We’re so far back in the neighborhood, up a twisty little cul de sac, that the snowplows probably wouldn’t even know we’re there. It’d be like the Donner party, most like.
Have these bloody idiots looked at the weather in England right now? In the South East it’s below freezing, with 100% humidity. Anyone who’s ever experienced freezing fog will tell you that it is one of the most vile weather conditions to endure. A spot of warming would do nicely at the moment.
Posted by David Gillies on 2006 12 22 at 11:26 AM • permalinkThis reminds me of my least favorite Christmas song, which I have been fortunate not to hear this year:
“There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime...”
Yes indeed, RK.
I always wondered about the line, “Do they know it’s Christmastime?” in that song, too. I mean, why the hell should these poor starving Africans know anything about it being Christmastime, seeing as how many of them are either animists or Muslims? And if they’re unfortunate enough to be starving and living under Sharia law, wouldn’t celebrating Christmas be rather frowned upon by their morality police? And isn’t wondering whether these poor starving Africans taking time out of their endless miserable days to ponder such a Christian holiday, Bob, Bono (he of the other magic hat), Sting, et al, rather, I dunno, imperialist of you?
And since Christmas has become an offensive holiday now, all Christiany-like and stuff, should these bastions of celebrity do-goodism even still consider singing such an devisive song? Perhaps the lyrics should be changed to, “Do they know it’s the Winter Solstice Holiday Season, Pagan High Holy Day that was Usurped by the filthy Christianist Hordes and turned from its True Meaning to be attached to a Fairy Tale that serves a greater Giant Lie and allows these Vicious Fundamentalists to Rape Mother Gaia, Promote Imperialist, Oil-Grabbing Wars, and live in Perpetual Disharmony with the otherwise Peaceful Multicultural and Metrosexual Oneness of All Mankind?”
Just asking…
Nothing but rain here where there’s usually Christmas snow. Oh, no! Someone call Al Gore to visit in his giant conastoga wagon, stat!
Some0Seppo
My neighbor Al Gore (we even share a zip code) isn’t celebrating Christmas here.
Well ain’t you lucky. You have a world class big mouth and we have Dolly Parton, with a world class...well, we have Dolly Parton. I doubt she will be in the area. She’ll probably be at her Nashville place, but you never know. She just may surprise her Parton clan here.
Snow possibilities or a dusting of, do exist with precip’ hanging around and a cold front dropping down. Right now the prediction is for snow showers, Tuesday...Obviously, if one is slower in moving out and the other faster in dropping down, just may have those snow showers Christmas day/evening. Higher elevations will be lovely viewing though.
Merry Christmas.
#35 - No problem, we had power every second of this storm, and the city did a great job plowing the main roads. Only snag seems to be trash pickup, which is delayed for us 1 week for trash and 3 weeks for recycling, but it’s not like people have lots of garbage after Christmas or anything. I’ll just load the excess into the Trashapult(tm) and it’s all “tragedy of the commons” after that.
This storm definitely:
* beats working
* beats 50cm of hail (the cars! the poor cars!)Posted by Matt in Denver on 2006 12 22 at 12:32 PM • permalinkEl Cid, I know you are a transplant to East Tennessee (notice I didn’t capitalize ‘middle’ Tennessee? I grew up in ET.) so you are excused from completing the sentence about our Dolly with the word ‘heart’. Check out Dolly’s big heart in this great column from Today’s Tennessean about Jessica Simpson’s butchering of “9 to 5”.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 12 22 at 12:47 PM • permalink#64
BethB, I’ve seen bus ads all over town about the SaveDarfur fund, so I’m surprised that we haven’t been subjected to that dreary bit of nonsense.
As for the charity itself, I figure they’re raising funds to either:
1) Start a private army to stop the killing in Darfur, which is the only thing that will work;
2) Bribe the government into stopping their buttbuddies, the Janjaweed; or
3) Pay to send world-class frownie faces like Bill Clinton to neighboring countries to frown for a while.
Which do you think they’ll do?
#51 Were you in Toronto about 6 years ago when we had the record-setting snowfall, Steve? Now you know why some of the natives don’t share the tourists’ delight at the white stuff. 8^)
Cool. So how’d you build a snowman?
#48 Scott, if the snow is wet and so will cling together (we call it ‘packing snow’), start by making a largish snowball. If it’s powder snow, then you’re out of luck. (Although I suppose you could try adding your own water to turn it into packing snow.) Then roll the snowball along the snowy ground so that it accumulates more snow that you then pack more tightly by hand into a good ball shape. Repeat this process for two more balls--a largish one for the middle for the smowman’s trunk, and a smaller top one for its head--that you’ll have to lift by hand into place after you’ve rolled them up to size on the ground.
Then you can decorate him, or her, with a hat; something for the eyes, with coal lumps being traditional, although sunglasses would look cool if you’re in Oz; add branches stuck into the snow body to mimic arms etc. Our new Korean neighbours and their kids made one last Christmas, when it did snow here, that I assume was their first (even though I know Korea has coldish winters too).
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 22 at 01:28 PM • permalinkSome0Seppo
Well ya got me there...been here since 1990 though..:). You are 100% correct in Dolly’s big “heart”. It’s even housed in a lovely package.
Her big heart has produced:
A school that keeps getting larger, in Caton’s Chapel, oddly not a stones throw from where Dolly was born and raised.
An entire A-Z Elder care wing at Fort Sanders Sevier, same with an Obstetrical wing. Along with many, many other items to which her heart and her money, are attached.
More and a longer period of employment for locals with her adding to Dollywood every year.
A fine, talented, bright and decent lady...she just turned (as she says) “Sexty”.
In other words, “horror of horrors, the children will be deprived of a White Christmas™”.
It’s never,"the lack of snow will mean less hardship on humans”.
Never had a white Christmas growing up in SoCal (nor one as an adult, neither). But whenever I rhapsodize about the idea to my Calgarian friends, I get threats involving shovels. The phrase ‘head first into a snowbank’ has also come up once or twice.
(Though that’s nothing to what they said the time I complained about getting sunburned at a Christmas pool party).
Here in Chicago, we’re enjoying weather in the mid-50s F (say, 12C or so, for the Fahrenheit-challenged). The snow that clobbered Denver and the plains hit us as rain. Apart from a little seepage in the basement, it was no trouble at all.
Given that our weather usually oscillates between too damned cold and too damned hot, this is great. Give me more of it!
Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2006 12 22 at 04:00 PM • permalinkO/T - Good article in The Australian about the traitor Wilfred Burchett. Says that John Pilger is a modern-day Burchett.
In his book Again Korea, published in 1968, Burchett wrote, “Kim Il-sung . . . has the warm human touch, the simplicity of the great and a down-to-earth manner, rare among men in his position. This comes through in his speeches. Even dealing with such unromantic problems as heavy industry there is always some little aside to remind his listeners, especially if there are bureaucrats among them, that the end result of everything is to make life better and gayer for everyone.”
...
A similar political trajectory to Burchett’s can be found in the journalism of London-based Australian expatriate John Pilger. A Burchett admirer, Pilger is following his reporting example to some extent in the television era. He is a relentless anti-American ideologue who has lamented the end of the Soviet Union and recently endorsed the cause of insurgents in Iraq, advocating their victory.
...
[Burchett] was in reality an agent and propaganda mouthpiece of numerous communist dictatorships...But there is no doubt that he served some of the world’s most horrendous tyrannies, such as those of Stalin, Mao, Kim and Pol Pot, while they were enemies of Australia. Burchett was a de facto traitor to his country and a moral traitor to Western civilisation.
-- as is the appalling Pilger.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 12 22 at 04:17 PM • permalink#43 Sharon- Howdy back to the old country! I missed that particular snowstorm, but my sister in SA regaled me with tales of amazed locals celebrating their luck.
I was fortunate to still be living there in ‘85(?) when we had our record snowfall of 14”. Made a sled with a friend out of HVAC sheetmetal and slid down the hill at St. Anthony Seminary, wearing sweats over my jeans and ziploc bags over my tennies.
Best snowfall ever!!!
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2006 12 22 at 04:26 PM • permalink#74 El Cid- What a classic!
Hitler himself would have had his own page on MeinKampfSpace.
ROFL!!!
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2006 12 22 at 04:29 PM • permalink#79 walterplinge
[Burchett] was in reality an agent and propaganda mouthpiece of numerous communist dictatorships...But there is no doubt that he served some of the world’s most horrendous tyrannies, such as those of Stalin, Mao, Kim and Pol Pot, while they were enemies of Australia. Burchett was a de facto traitor to his country and a moral traitor to Western civilisation.
-- as is the appalling Pilger.
Here in America, one could say the same of Noam Chomsky and his ideological forebears, I. F. Stone and Walter Duranty.
Every age has its enemy propagandists masquerading as “objective journalists”, I suppose.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 22 at 05:02 PM • permalink#76 Pic of kangaroos frolicking in snow would be great thank-you ..
Here’s one in the bush
http://www.pbs.org/kratts/world/aust/kangaroo/index.html
O O O snow balls.......
1.618 -
For Sale $12,900 please cut and paste and then send the cheque to Andrea at admin here, ta.
Do you honesty think she’ll forward it to you? Andrea Harris? The evil administrator?
Hah! Sucker.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 12 22 at 07:22 PM • permalink#76 Pic of kangaroos frolicking in snow would be great thank-you
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 22 at 08:01 PM • permalinkpic linked to above taken by cross country skiiers at mt kosciusko national park
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 22 at 08:13 PM • permalinkFor some reason the Google .ca [for Canada] page has two kangaroos, a mother and a joey it looks like, stringing tinsel along the Google logo-type. Is the same graphic being used at the US, UK and Aussie sites too?
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 22 at 11:48 PM • permalinkI don’t think there’s been a white Christmas in Southern England for all my life, so this is bunkum.
I think the last, and only one, was the famous year of 1963, when even the seas froze around Brighton.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 12 23 at 03:07 PM • permalinkYes, Achillea, I just noticed the odd, extremely odd, knitting the pair is doing, so it must be the same graphic all over.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 23 at 04:53 PM • permalinkWere they suspected of icing someone, robertw25?
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 24 at 12:25 AM • permalink
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Forecasters are predicting the first white Christmas in Australia for more than 20 years.
Crikey! What do you do when it gets that cold down under? Wear two pairs of bermuda shorts?
Enjoy making snowbogans!