The "sheet hits the fan"

There have been several interesting developments over the last few weeks in the evolving (intelligently designing?) climate change story. As we reported on CapitalWeather.com last month (reposted here), NOAA's National Climatic Data Center's preliminary report on the climate of 2007 indicated that last year was the fifth warmest on record worldwide. This was confirmed in the final report, issued yesterday.

Meanwhile, an article in Saturday's carbon-based WaPo, "Last Year Among Hottest On Record, Say Scientists", reported that NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies had found that the year was the second warmest on record.

Gavin Schmidt, one of the climatologists involved in the NASA study, appeared on this morning's Diane Rehm show on WAMU, 88.5 FM, along with several other guests to discuss the policy implications of the science. Schmidt is also one of the primary contributors to the RealClimate blog. Streaming audio of the program is available on the show's web site, and a podcast can be downloaded from iTunes.

Locally, the warm last third of December pushed the yearly average to within about one hundredth of a degree of undisputed ownership of 12th place in the rankings of warmest years.

On Monday, the WaPo front page featured an article, "Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica". This was based on the report, "Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling", published online on Sunday by the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. The gist of the latest finding is that the West Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking at a faster than expected rate.

The original paper itself is available only by subscription, but a summary was published online by the related Nature News. Former government energy official Joe Romm comments on the subject in a post, "The Antarctic ice sheet hits the fan", on his Climate Progress blog.

Winter 2.0, The Sequel

Clear commute; wintry mix likely tomorrow

Precisely one year ago today, CapitalWeather.com's PM Update noted that the pattern had shifted exactly halfway through meteorological winter from a mild regime to a more wintry one, and a similar shift is happening this year. With yesterday's return to within one degree of the daily average temperature, the stage is set for a wintry mix of precipitation as a developing low pressure area emerges from the Gulf of Mexico and moves northeastward up the Atlantic coast.

The key to the forecast is the fact that there is cold air in place and a good moisture supply, but the mechanism to hold the cold is not there, and as the wind moves to a southeasterly direction, much of the precipitation is likely to change to rain.

Tonight: After this afternoon's temperatures mainly in the low 40s, some high clouds will be accompanied by upper 30s to near 40 this evening. Clouds will increase overnight as lows reach 30-32 in the city and the mid to upper 20s in the 'burbosphere.

Tomorrow: Unless you sleep as late as we do here at CommuteCast Central, your morning commute should be cold, but dry. Precipitation in the form of snow or sleet will develop from southwest to northeast across the region from late morning into early afternoon. Temperatures in the low 30s will drop a couple of degrees to freezing or below when precipitation begins, but will gradually warm a little toward evening, and precipitation in the immediate metro area will change to freezing rain or plain rain. An inch or two of snow is possible before the change, especially north and west of the Beltway. As usual in this type of situation, the changeover will be most rapid east of I-95.

See Dan's post for the rest of the forecast, including a look ahead to the weekend.

Breezy, Cold After Snow Show

Mostly sunny tomorrow

Some leftover spin in the atmosphere in the wake of the snowstorm departing to the northeast from the Canadian Maritimes brought some vigorous, if brief, snow flurries to the Washington metro area around noon today. (We'll try to have more on the spin factor in a future News&Notes; for a preview, check out the infrared satellite loop at Unisys.)

Temperatures at mid afternoon have been in the mid to upper 30s, with a wind from the west gusting as high as 25 mph.

Tonight: Winds will be gusty through this evening but diminish later on tonight. Commute-time temperatures in the low 30s will drop to lows in the upper 20s downtown to the low and mid 20s in the 'burbosphere under partly cloudy skies.

Tomorrow: Highs will be 40-45 under mostly sunny skies.

See Matt's post for the rest of the forecast, including a look ahead to the weekend, and the Snow Lover's Crystal Ball for the latest thinking on Thursday's snow potential, or lack thereof.

Mediarology: Got $5 Billion?

Apply directly to the forehead!

Raid the piggy bank, weather fans. Today's WaPo has a front-page business section article discussing the previously-announced potential sale of The Weather Channel. Landmark Communications, current owner of TWC, was founded as a newspaper company over 100 years ago in the Norfolk area, so the potential restructuring is viewed in terms of the decline of the printed word as a vehicle for news distribution. Landmark still owns the Annapolis Capital among its newspaper holdings.

TWC, one of the last privately held cable channels, is based in Atlanta and reaches about 97% of cable and satellite households in the U.S. The web site, weather.com, is in the top 20 sites by traffic, with 30 million unique visitors and $130 million in annual revenue. That's a lot of Head-On ads!

Potential buyers include Time Warner, Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications, News Corp., and NBC Universal. Industry estimates for the value of the cable and web properties are as high as $5 billion.

In hindsight, TWC's success appears forehead-slappingly obvious, but the early history of the channel was marked by a series of financial crises as the fledgling operation tried to find a market. The meteorologist with the original idea, John Coleman, walked away with $20 for his original 20 shares of Class A stock and turned over control to Landmark after being unable to raise $1 million to exercise an option and save the company from bankruptcy.

Raindrops Falling on Your Head

Now

Cloudy, cool. Following sunny skies this morning, clouds have overspread the Washington metro region this afternoon ahead of a low pressure area developing in the Mid-Mississippi Valley. By mid afternoon, rain and showers on radar had reached as far as the southern Blue Ridge and most of West Virginia. At 4pm, Charlottesville reported light rain had just begun, with only a trace accumulated. The rain will move into the area this evening, generally from southwest to northeast.

Temperatures are on the mild side for this time of year, reaching the upper 40s in most places. The daily highs were: National 50°, Dulles 48°, BWI 47°.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Rain, mild. Rain, developing this evening, will continue overnight, with temperatures nearly steady in the low to mid 40s. Rain will end tomorrow morning, with decreasing clouds in the afternoon and highs 50-55°, but turning colder late in the day and at night.

Scroll down for Camden's outlook through the rest of the weekend and New Year's Day.

Mediarology/Meteor-ology

One of the things the atmosphere does for you is to keep raindrops falling on your head at times, but it also keeps other, nastier stuff from falling and killing you. Today's SciFri on NPR reported that NASA's Near Earth Object Program is tracking a 50-meter wide asteroid, discovered when it was near the Moon, which is on its way to a 25% chance of impacting Mars. The object, if it hits on Jan. 30, could produce quite a show. Since the atmosphere of Mars is less than 1% as dense the Earth's, an object of that size could do some significant damage, creating a crater about half a mile wide.

Mars image from NASA/JPL

DC: Definitely Changeable

Now

Mostly sunny, mild. While yesterday's coastal storm has pulled away off New England, mostly sunny skies across the Washington metro region have helped temperatures climb above the forecast range, to the mid and upper 50s in most places. On the southern fringe of the area, Culpeper and Fredericksburg broke the 60° mark.

The double-digit above average daily highs were: National 58°, Dulles 54°, BWI 54°. Going into the last few days of the year, the month overall is now running about 1.5° above the long-term average. This keeps 2007 on track for a 4-way tie as the 12th warmest year in Washington records.

As Josh has already noted, a pattern of fast upper-level westerlies will keep things unsettled heading on into the end of the year.

NWS Precipitation Analysis above for the 24 hours ending 7am this morning shows half inch or greater amounts (green) to the southeast of DC and progressively lighter amounts to the north and west. The lightest blue area covering most of Frederick and Loudoun Counties represents less than 0.1", and inside the Beltway was generally in the range 0.1-0.25".

Tonight and Tomorrow

Partly cloudy, cool, then chance of rain. Lows tonight under variably cloudy skies will range from the mid and upper 30s inside the Beltway to 28-32° in the outer 'burbosphere. Clouds will increase tomorrow afternoon with a 30% chance of rain by evening and highs 45-50°.

Scroll down for Josh's outlook through the weekend and into New Year's Day.

Seminar Series

The PowerPoint slides from Fred Singer's presentation to this month's DC MIT Club seminar series, "The Great Climate Change Debate", have been posted to the Club web site. Prof. Singer "is a leader among those who have emphasized natural factors over anthropogenic causes to explain global warming."

Next month's lecture is "The Findings and Forecasts of the Climate Change Scientists", by Prof. Ronald Prinn, Director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. Having had no takers so far, PM Update's previous offer to host any TV meteorologist at the seminar series still stands, provided seats remain available.