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Halloween Surprise: 96-Year-Old Record Snowfall Across U.S.

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A storm that made many areas of the Midwest feel more like winter than fall shattered a 96-year-old winter weather record in Chicago.

The historic storm system— which brought snow and cold over the Colorado Rockies this week— made it to the Midwest on Thursday morning, unleashing moderate-to-heavy snowfall in northeastern Kansas, eastern Iowa, Illinois, and southern Wisconsin. . .

Chicago experienced its earliest snow day of the year where an inch or more of snow fell since October 20, 1989, and smashed its previous record of 0.7 inches at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday with a whopping 1.2 inches of snow. . .

The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, also set a new weather forecast record on Thursday at 7 a.m. when 1.1. inches of snowfall was measured.

Its previous record was 0.4 inches in 1926. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin’s state capitol of Madison, another snowfall record for October was shattered when a total of 5.5 inches was reported on Thursday morning. (Read more from “Halloween Surprise: 96-Year-Old Record Snowfall Across U.S.” HERE)

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The Most-Below-Average Temperatures Anywhere on Earth Are in the U.S. Right Now

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If you think it’s cold for this time of year in the United States, you’re right. The most-below-average temperatures anywhere on Earth are in the U.S. right now.

The map … from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine shows the departure from average temperature – that is, how far the temperature is above or below average – around the globe on Tuesday. Below-average temperatures are depicted by the blue and purple shadings, while above-average temperatures are depicted by the orange and red shadings. . .

The first five days of this month brought the coldest March outbreak in years, breaking daily records and a few monthly records in parts of the Northwest, Rockies, Plains and Midwest. . .

This arctic block has also been responsible for abnormally mild weather in parts of Alaska, including record warmth at America’s northernmost city, Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow. (Read more from “The Most-Below-Average Temperatures Anywhere on Earth Are in the U.S. Right Now” HERE)

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Trump Admin Releases National Climate Assessment With Dire Warnings

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As many as 9,300 more people could die each year because of extreme heat or cold related to climate change by the end of this century, the Trump administration said Friday in releasing a massive new report on the controversial issue.

The range of disease-spreading mosquitoes and ticks will expand, as will extreme weather events — all of which will bring additional mental health problems such as depression and even suicidal tendencies, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, made up of 13 federal agencies, said in the Fourth National Climate Assessment.

All told, the health problems and other damage and mitigation costs will total hundreds of billions of dollars in drag on the U.S. economy by the end of this century, the experts said. . .

How much warming depends on what steps are taken. If the world can achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, warming could be limited to 2 degrees centigrade. But without those limits, global temperatures could rise 5 degrees or more by the end of this century, compared to where they were before industrialization.

While the report acknowledges some uncertainty about the extent of warming and its damages, the conclusions are mostly grim. The analysts said there may be some aspects of the economy that would benefit from a modest warming, but said the rates and pace the country is looking at are likely to be catastrophic overall. (Read more from “Trump Admin Releases National Climate Assessment With Dire Warnings” HERE)

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Northeast Awaits Bitter Cold Blanketing the Midwest

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As the season’s first bitter cold spell gripped the Upper Midwest on Wednesday, schools and officials farther east braced for the icy blast to spread their way as early as Thursday.

People in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin were under a wind chill advisory Wednesday from the National Weather Service, as were parts of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Wednesday’s highs ranged from 20 to 30 degrees below average in the northern U.S., according to the weather service. The temperature was 4 below in Fargo, North Dakota, early Wednesday, and a daylight reprieve in the single digits was short-lived, with lows Thursday morning forecast to be around minus-12. Duluth, Minnesota, was forecast for an overnight low of minus-5. (Read more from “Northeast Awaits Bitter Cold Blanketing the Midwest” HERE)

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WHAT DO THEY KNOW THAT WE DON’T? Feds Preparing for Massive Natural Disaster in Pacific Northwest

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Starting on June 7th, FEMA will be conducting a large scale drill that has been named “Cascadia Rising” that will simulate the effects of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and an accompanying west coast tsunami dozens of feet tall. According to the official flyer for the event, more than “50 counties, plus major cities, tribal nations, state and federal agencies, private sector businesses, and non-governmental organizations across three states – Washington, Oregon, and Idaho – will be participating”. In addition to “Cascadia Rising”, U.S. Northern Command will be holding five other exercises simultaneously. According to the final draft of the Cascadia Rising drill plan, those five exercises are entitled “Ardent Sentry 2016″, “Vigilant Guard”, “Special Focus Exercise”, “Turbo Challenge” and “Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore”. The primary scenario that of all of these participants will be focusing on will be one that involves a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone followed by a giant tsunami that could displace up to a million people from northern California to southern Canada.

We have never seen such a disaster before in all of U.S. history.

Do they know something that the rest of us do not?

It is funny that they are preparing to deal with the effects of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, because that is precisely the size of earthquake that I warned about in an article back in March.

The San Andreas Fault in southern California gets more headlines, but the Cascadia Subduction Zone is a much larger threat by far. This fault zone is where the Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American plate, and it stretches approximately 700 miles from northern Vancouver Island all the way down to northern California.

If a magnitude 9.0 earthquake were to strike, the immense shaking and subsequent tsunami would cause damage on a scale that is hard to even imagine right now. Perhaps this is why FEMA feels such a need to get prepared for this type of disaster, because the experts assure us that it is most definitely coming someday. The following comes from the official website of the “Cascadia Rising” exercise…

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and the resulting tsunami is the most complex disaster scenario that emergency management and public safety officials in the Pacific Northwest could face. Cascadia Rising is an exercise to address that disaster.

June 7-10, 2016 Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to conduct a simulated field response operation within their jurisdictions and with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.

If you don’t think that the scenario that they are studying is realistic, perhaps you should consider the fact that the largest earthquake in the history of the continental United States stuck along the Cascadia Subduction Zone back in 1700. The following comes from CNN…

In fact, “the Cascadia” already has made history, causing the largest earthquake in the continental United States on January 26, 1700. That’s when the Cascadia unleashed one of the world’s biggest quakes, causing a tsunami so big that it rampaged across the Pacific and damaged coastal villages in Japan.

Yes, we all remember the big Hollywood blockbuster about the San Andreas fault. But if they wanted to be more realistic, they should have made the movie about the Cascadia Subduction Zone. According to a professor of geophysics at Oregon State University, the Cascadia Subduction Zone has the potential to create an earthquake “almost 30 times more energetic” than anything the San Andreas Fault can produce…

Everyone knows the Cascadia’s cousin in California: the San Andreas Fault. It gets all the scary glamor, with even a movie this year, “San Andreas,” dramatizing an apocalypse in the western U.S.

Truth is, the San Andreas is a lightweight compared with the Cascadia.

The Cascadia can deliver a quake that’s many times stronger — plus a tsunami.

“Cascadia can make an earthquake almost 30 times more energetic than the San Andreas to start with, and then it generates a tsunami at the same time, which the side-by-side motion of the San Andreas can’t do,” said Chris Goldfinger, a professor of geophysics at Oregon State University.

And the kind of tsunami that would be created by such a massive quake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone would absolutely dwarf the massive tsunami that struck Japan back in 2011. In fact, an article in the New Yorker quoted the head of the FEMA division that oversees Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska as saying that “everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast”…

If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one.

…By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

In the Pacific Northwest, everything west of Interstate 5 covers some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people.

We live at a time when the crust of our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. Based on my research, I have come to the conclusion that we will soon see major earth changes on a scale that most of us would never even dare to imagine.

All over the world the Ring of Fire is roaring to life, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone lies directly along the Ring of Fire. Just last week, I wrote about the alarming earthquake swarms that we have seen directly under Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, and now we have learned that FEMA is about to hold a major drill that is going to simulate a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and an accompanying west coast tsunami dozens of feet in height.

Of course most Americans aren’t concerned about this threat at all.

Most Americans just assume that life will continue to go on normally just as it always has.

But I happen to agree with the experts that are promising us that an absolutely massive earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone will strike someday, and when that happens life in America will be permanently altered. (For more from the author of “WHAT DO THEY KNOW THAT WE DON’T? Feds Preparing for Massive Natural Disaster in Pacific Northwest” please click HERE)

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Polar Vortex to Plunge Cold Into Midwestern, Eastern US in Early April

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Arctic air will plunge into much of the central and eastern United States, as the polar vortex shifts its position during early April.

Following a pattern favoring more warm days than cold days into next week, a change will likely bring record cold to parts of the Midwest and East . . .

“From Sunday, April 3, through Monday, April 4, temperatures will be below-average from the northern Plains to the mid-Atlantic coast,” Lundberg said. “We expect nighttime temperatures to drop near the freezing mark as far south as the Tennessee Valley.”

Temperatures will average 15-30 degrees Fahrenheit below normal with the core of the cold air directed at the North Central states. Normal highs during the first week of April are in the lower to middle 50s in Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit and in the 60s from Kansas City, Missouri, to Nashville and Cincinnati.

“The intense cold could impact play for opening day MLB games in Pittsburgh and Kansas City, Missouri, on Sunday, as well as games elsewhere in the Midwest and Northeast on Monday,” according to AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok. (Read more from “Polar Vortex to Plunge Cold Into Midwestern, Eastern US in Early April” HERE)

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Nine Dead in Storm-Related Incidents as Blizzard Bears Down on East Coast

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The powerful blizzard packing gale-force winds, heavy snow and coastal flooding across the East Coast has left at least nine dead in storm-related accidents as of late Friday.

Five of the nine deaths occurred in North Carolina. Gov. Pat McCory said one person who was injured in an accident in Wilkes County Wednesday died and another motorist was killed in a separate crash on Interstate 95 in Johnston County. A 65-year-old woman hit an “extremely icy” patch and overturned her car eventually landing in a creek and dying, according to state Highway Patrol.

In Forsyth County, a 55-year-old woman was killed when she slid on the icy road way, crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into a pickup truck head on. A 4-year-old died Friday died after a pickup truck carrying his family spun out on Interstate 77 and crashed, State Highway Patrol Sgt. Michael Baker said. Troopers said the boy was restrained in a child seat and died as a result of the impact.

In Tennessee, a car slid off the roadway due to speed and slick road conditions, killing the driver and injuring a passenger, the Knox County sheriff’s department said. A woman was killed after the vehicle carrying her and her husband slid down a 300-foot embankment Wednesday night, Carter County Sheriff Dexter Lunceford. The woman’s husband was able to climb the embankment and call for help.

A man died in Kentucky Thursday after his car collided with a salt truck, state police said. The man was pronounced dead at the scene on state Route 92 in Whitley Country. A Virginia man died Friday after his car went off the snowy George Washington highway and slammed into a tree, Officer Leo Kosinski said. (Read more from “Nine Dead in Storm-Related Incidents as Blizzard Bears Down on East Coast” HERE)

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Polar Vortex to Usher Widespread Cold, Snow Chances Into US During Mid-January

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A glancing blow from the polar vortex will direct cold air southward and could raise the chance of snow in the central and eastern United States toward the middle of January.

The pattern of cold air coming and going will be a theme through January.

According to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, “Arctic air will leave quickly, after giving the Great Lakes and Northeast a cold shock this week.”

Temperatures will rebound to above-average levels in much of the Midwest and Northeast during the latter part of this week and this coming weekend.

High temperatures will return to the 30s in Minneapolis, the 40s in Chicago, the 50s in Washington, D.C., and the 60s in Atlanta for multiple days. The warmup will be of short duration. (Read more from “Polar Vortex to Usher Widespread Cold, Snow Chances Into US During Mid-January” HERE)

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Missouri Ravaged by Historic Flooding as Disaster After Disaster Continues to Hit America

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Why does this keep happening to America? Since the month of September, the United States has been absolutely pummeled by a devastating series of disasters, and this most recent one may be the worst of all. Right now, communities all along the Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas rivers are dealing with “historic” flooding. In Missouri, it is being said that nobody “that is living has ever seen anything like this“, and it is being projected that rivers could reach levels not seen since “the Great Flood” of 1993. Portions of Interstate 44 have been totally shut down, and thousands of people have either already been evacuated from their homes or are preparing to evacuate. It would be difficult to overstate the utter devastation that we are witnessing. Personally, I have some very good friends in southern Missouri, and I will definitely be keeping them in my prayers.

The governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, is warning people to be very careful. Thirteen people have already been killed by the flooding, and Nixon says that the waters are going “places they’ve never been before”…

Thirteen people in Missouri have died in floods caused by severe storms over the weekend, and although the rain has moved on, swollen rivers are still rising and won’t crest for days, Gov. Jay Nixon said.

“It’s very clear that Missouri is in the midst of a very historic and dangerous flooding event,” Nixon told reporters Tuesday. “The amount of rain we’ve received, in some places in excess of a foot, has caused river levels to not only rise rapidly, but to go to places they’ve never been before.”

A state of emergency was declared in Missouri on Monday, and yesterday Governor Nixon activated the National Guard. But the river is still rising, and the worst is yet to come.

At this point, some communities have already been totally wiped out. This includes the little town of Rockaway Beach, which is not too far away from Branson. The following comes from USA Today…

In Missouri, some areas have already been hit hard by the first wave of rising water. Rockaway Beach, located near Branson in southwest Missouri, was swamped by waters from the swollen White River.

The tourist town of 800 “has just been demolished,” Mayor Don Smith told KYTV. “It’s devastating, and we are all so exhausted.”

It is being reported that the Mississippi River is now a mile wide is some places, and there are debris piles that are up to two stories tall. Authorities are projecting that the flooding along some areas of the river will match or break all-time records that were set back in 1993…

In some parts of the Missouri, rivers are expected to crest as high as they did during devastating flooding in 1993, which is known as the “great flood,” Nixon said.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Mississippi River at Chester, Illinois, would crest at 49.7 feet Friday, matching the 1993 record, the governor’s office said. The Mississippi at Thebes was expected to crest Saturday at a record-breaking 47.5 feet.

The Mississippi River is expected to reach nearly 15 feet above flood stage on Thursday at St. Louis, which would be the second-worst flood on record, behind only the devastating 1993 flood.

What is happening in the center of the country right now is just the continuation of a trend that has been building for months. Just check out this list of flooding events that we have seen in the U.S. since the end of the summer…

-Moisture from Hurricane Joaquin caused the worst flooding in the history of the state of South Carolina.

-Flash flooding caused “rivers of mud” to cover highways in southern California.

-The remnants of Hurricane Patricia caused tremendous flooding in many parts of Texas.

-One of the strongest El Ninos ever recorded has sent an endless stream of storms barreling into coastal areas of Oregon and Washington. This has caused horrible flooding in some areas.

Meanwhile, we continue to witness a rise in earthquake activity as well.

Oklahoma, which had already shattered an all-time state record for earthquakes in 2015, was hit by a 4.3 magnitude earthquake yesterday.

And just within the last 24 hours, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit near San Bernardino, California, and a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook northwestern Washington and Vancouver Island.

Also, let’s not forget all of the wildfires that have been happening. On Christmas Day, a massive 1,200 acre blaze erupted near Ventura, California, and that topped off a year during which wildfires burned more acres in America than ever before.

Of course I could also mention the extremely rare EF-4 tornado that ripped through Garland, Texas just a few days ago and the ongoing multi-year drought that is still plaguing most of the state of California.

On top of everything else, a huge solar storm is going to hit our planet on New Year’s Eve. Fortunately, authorities do not expect that it will do that much damage.

Nobody can deny that our weather is getting really, really crazy.

So precisely why is this happening?

There is certainly a lot of debate about this. It is almost as if someone flipped a switch in September and turned on a disaster machine, because since that time there has been an endless parade of major events.

Do you have a theory that can explain what we are witnessing? (For more from the author of “Missouri Ravaged by Historic Flooding as Disaster After Disaster Continues to Hit America” please click HERE)

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U.S. Experiencing Freaky Weather, Earthquakes over Christmas Holidays

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By Steve Almasy. A county in northeast Mississippi was getting hammered by thunderstorms on Christmas, with some areas receiving 10 inches of rain with more on the way, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Friday.

Monroe County residents can expect 2 to 3 more inches of rain after some people in the northern part of the county saw 10 inches since 6 a.m., meteorologist Jim Branda said.

Many roads are flooded and some people are dealing with rising water in their homes, Sheriff Cecil Cantrell said.

“We’re just a mess here. It’s a really serious situation. We’ve got all our deputies out. We’ve got all the fire departments out. I wasn’t expecting this.” Cantrell said. “It’s raining so hard now you can’t see. It’s a terrible situation. I hope the good Lord lets it stop raining for a while.”

Other towns in the South were dealing with similar pain. (Read more from “U.S. Experiencing Freaky Weather, Earthquakes over Christmas Holidays” HERE)

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Earthquake Swarms Rattle Nevada

By CBS News. A series of more than 30 earthquakes that rattled the Reno area over the past two days occurred on the most significant fault structure in the area, and scientists are monitoring for potentially bigger shock waves to follow, experts said Wednesday.

The quakes began Tuesday evening and continued into Wednesday morning. The largest — a magnitude-4.4 late Tuesday — shook homes and businesses in a 300-square-mile area near the Nevada-California line.

No significant damage was reported.

Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, was at home when the biggest quake hit and described it as “quite a jolt.”

I was basically right on top of it,” he said. “In scientific terms, it was a 4.4. But for us, it was one heck of a kick in south Reno.” (Read more from “Earthquake Swarms Rattle Nevada” HERE)

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2 Tornadoes Hit Northern California on Christmas Eve

By Maneeza Iqbal. Two tornadoes touched down in Northern California Thursday afternoon — one in El Dorado County and one in Stanislaus County, the National Weather Service said Friday.

NWS determined a tornado touched down in El Dorado County through video evidence it received. They first got reports of the tornado at 3:15 p.m. KCRA viewers reported seeing the tornado just after 3 p.m.

A tornado warning was issued for southwest El Dorado County and northwest Amador County as the storm moved through the area and expired at 4:30 p.m.

The thunderstorm that produced the tornado was moving east at about 20 mph, threatening El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Rescue and Shingle Springs. It’s unlikely the tornado was on the ground the whole time. As the storm moved east, it is more likely the tornado hopped up and down from the cloud.

The tornado traveled through western El Dorado County from Folsom Lake to Cameron Park — a 5- to 8-mile path. (Read more from “2 Tornadoes Hit Northern California on Christmas Eve” HERE)

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15 Killed as Tornadoes Rip Across Southern US Days Before Christmas

By Katy Galimberti. On a day when many were putting final touches on holiday plans or traveling, destructive tornadoes struck the southeastern U.S. as severe storms rattled the region.

At least 15 people were killed on Wednesday as a result of the storms in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas. Eight people died in Mississippi and six died in Tennessee, officials in both states said.

In Pope County, Arkansas, an 18-year-old woman was killed when a tree crashed onto her home. Four other people in the house survived, according to CNN.

A 7-year-old boy was killed in Holly Springs, Mississippi, while in a car with his family. At least 40 people throughout the state suffered injuries.

Northern Mississippi suffered some of the worst damage due to a tornado with an exceptionally long track, according to the National Weather Service. If confirmed to be continuous, its 150-mile-long path could be the longest for a December tornado in the Mid-South, the NWS office at Memphis, Tennessee, said. (Read more from “15 Killed as Tornadoes Rip Across Southern US Days Before Christmas” HERE)

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