The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Despite Global Warming Trends, A Major Winter Storm Can Still Occur Across the Deep South
Dear Diary. Average wise for the lower 48 states December 2025 and this January so far have been ranking up there among the top ten warmest winter months on record. That stated, the weather pattern has switched so that instead of mild Pacific air overrunning the country with Arctic air being bottled up in Alaska, the frigid floodgates are now open with that Alaska air spilling southward from Canada.
Global warming is occurring, obviously, but it is occurring slow enough such that major frigid winter events can still occur. I admit that I was wrong about the Deep South part of the United State’s climate changing enough such that no snow or ice would fall south of Atlanta after about the year 2020. Last year we saw a major snowstorm affecting the Gulf coastal area. This year we are about to see a major snow and ice storm stretching from Texas through every one of the southern states by this coming weekend.
Here is what I wrote on Facebook last night concerning my hometown of Atlanta: I haven’t seen a whopper of a winter storm like this on met models across the South since before the year 2005. People across the South, and especially for my friends in Atlanta, need to be prepared to deal with snow, but freezing rain could be the worst problem. We haven’t seen an extreme ice storm here in Atlanta since 1973 (defined as one that causes power to be cut by at least a week across practically the entire city). A mostly sleet storm here might spare Atlanta, but freezing rain would be bad to our south. Stay tuned to experts from the National Weather Service on this one. P.S. There will be a run on grocery stores, so act accordingly, stocking up Tuesday and Wednesday. And yes, climate change naysayers will be laughing at climate change scientists when all is said and done, unfortunately.
As I have stated many a time, the atmosphere still has a mechanism in place to force near record cold air southward into mid latitudes, which is warm air aloft being forced northward into the Arctic. Look up research by Dr. Jennifer Francis for details. We will have a textbook case of this in place by Friday:
Warm air aloft from Alaska into Northern Canada will force a cold vortex southward into Southern Canada. A storm system moving into California as noted on the above Pivotal Weather chart, which will pull moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico, will be the culprit for producing a big mess across the South.
So, if my power goes out for days due to a crippling ice storm, I’ll be out of commission writing daily blogs. In that case, I won’t be able to keep you posted.
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Tuesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)