Tag: cold
Crypto collapse: FTX’s fall is one piece of a long, cold, contagious crypto winter
FTX is just the latest company facing an uncertain future as cryptocurrency values drop, revealing flaws in risky financial strategies that fueled the recent crypto and NFT boom.
Blizzard webcams show America adapting to the devastating cold and snowfall
A Christmastime winter storm pummeled much of North America over the weekend, leaving 25 dead in the area around Eerie County, New York — which includes Buffalo — and entire communities buried under several feet of snow. In addition to snowed-in conditions in the Buffalo area, the storm was exacerbated by a larger cold weather trend, with snowfall and precipitation stretching across much of the United States and Canada.
Today (Monday) sees the country attempting to return to some semblance of business as usual. Thankfully, the holiday timing of the disastrous weather is sparing millions of people the need to commute to-and-from work in these conditions. Nonetheless, road crews are busy digging the country out of this snow.
It can all be seen on webcams, most of which had been set up prior to the storm for other purposes. Today, however, they show storm-battered communities coping with the blizzard, clearing crucial infrastructure, and cautiously getting back on the road.
Here’s a round up of winter webcams around the country:
Watch Buffalo’s snow-covered border bridge between Canada and the U.S.
This view of the Peace Bridge, which connects Fort Eerie, Ontario to Buffalo, New York, is a great example of real-time adaptation. The road is relatively clear of snow, even as the storm continues in Buffalo, and as you watch, you can see plows continue to operate throughout the day.
Watertown, New York is coming back to life amid the snow
This view of a lively downtown area in Watertown, New York, northeast of Buffalo, shows you how far the region has come in a short time. Cars are now moving freely — if cautiously — through the area even with snow piled up multiple feet on the side of the road.
Multiple live views of snowy Michigan show the state’s winter resilience
This live cam switches between several feeds all over Michigan, allowing the viewer to see pedestrians getting back to relative normalcy, as well as roadways now once again active. There are also breathtakingly scenic views of the snow covered landscape.
It’s still snowing at Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho
This normally placid view of a harbor on Lake Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho currently (as of this writing) shows snow continuing to fall, and dark clouds continuing to pass overhead. Typically allowing a peek at conditions and activity on the lake for boaters and other vacationers, this camera instead shows the extent of the storm, which is dispersed across the entire country.
The winter views are incredible in snowy Washington state
This storm has been a tragic reminder of the devastating power of winter weather. However, this view of Leavenworth, Washington, in the Cascade Mountains, is a reminder of winter’s austere beauty. For the moment, the town’s Bavarian Village actually offers more astonishing snowy vista’s than Bavaria itself.
A note about climate change and winter storms
Importantly, intense winter freezes will still happen in a heating world. Earth is heating relentlessly, and winter is the fastest-warming season, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data compiled by Climate Central, an independent organization that researches climate change. But dynamic weather moving through our profoundly chaotic atmosphere will frequently still have opportunities to spill Arctic air into the Lower 48. (Originally published on Mashable here).
: 4 tips for staying healthy while traveling during this ‘tripledemic’ cold and flu season
Girl, 6, with rare allergy to cold could die outdoors as family consider move abroad
One million energy vouchers unclaimed in cold snap
Extreme polar cold is about to pummel the U.S. over the holidays
This holiday season, the Arctic is gifting big parts of the U.S. extremely frigid temperatures.
The National Weather Service expects that giant swathes of the nation will experience freezing or dangerous conditions over the coming week, with some places seeing their coldest temperatures in decades. Overall, cold polar air will drop south into the Central U.S. on Wednesday, Dec. 21 and continue driving into the Eastern U.S. on Friday and Saturday. What’s more, a major blizzard will slam the Midwest between Dec. 21-25.
Expect wild drops in temperature. For example, the NWS predicts the high temperature in Denver on Wednesday will be 46 degrees Fahrenheit. That will drop to around minus 1 F on Thursday. Meanwhile, temperatures in the New York City area will be in the 40s and 50s Friday morning, but will plummet to around 20 degrees or colder later that day. In some places, wind chill temperatures (the air temperature as it would feel blown on skin) are just bonkers: In Wyoming on Wednesday night through Thursday many temperatures will be well below minus 50 F.
“It’s tremendous temperature changes across a 24-hour period,” Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland, told Mashable. “Really cold air will displace relatively mild air.”
Check your local NWS office for more region-specific weather updates. National and local NWS updates on Twitter are still valuable, easily-digestible sources of information, even as Twitter itself struggles with incoherence and absurdity.
You’ll probably want to take a hard look at your holiday travel plans, too. Some areas will have blizzards; others high, cold winds. “Dangerous cold will continue through the holiday weekend,” tweeted the National Weather Service office in Chicago.
“Very impactful weather is coming up over the next several days,” noted Oravec. “I imagine there will be a lot of airline delays.”
“It’s tremendous temperature changes across a 24-hour period.”
On the NWS weather map below, you can see the cold air moving south and east across the U.S. this week, through December 24. The colors show temperature departures from normal (meaning climatic averages over the last 30 years). Blue is a dominant shade on these maps, meaning temperatures some 20 to 40 degrees below normal (depending on the shade).
What’s driving the extreme polar cold
During some winters, Arctic air spills southward into the U.S. That’s what’s happening here.
You’ve probably heard of the jet stream: It’s an extremely influential band of powerful winds that separates colder northern air from warmer southern air, somewhat like a barrier, up near where commercial planes fly. It travels west to east. But sometimes, large scale weather events perturb this stream of air, causing it to meander wildly north or south. When it falls south, it opens the Arctic’s refrigerator door, allowing unusually cold Arctic air to spill southward.
Credit: NOAA
Some years, the Arctic’s polar vortex — strong winds that circle westward around the pole during winter — can play a role in nudging or destabilizing the jet stream, letting cold air move south. In the current case, as the jet stream bent downwards, parts of the polar vortex lower in the atmosphere are moving and reforming farther south, explained Oravec. This allows “a big chunk of cold” to move over parts of the U.S., he added.
Importantly, intense winter freezes will still happen in a heating world. Earth is heating relentlessly, and winter is the fastest-warming season, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data compiled by Climate Central, an independent organization that researches climate change. But dynamic weather moving through our profoundly chaotic atmosphere will frequently still have opportunities to spill Arctic air into the Lower 48.
Extreme cold spells won’t disappear. “A warming world is still one where we have many types of weather events. We’ll still have cold snaps,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather told Mashable last year following the extreme freezes in Texas.
“A warming world is still one where we have many types of weather events. We’ll still have cold snaps.”
A hot area of continued atmospheric research, however, is if climate change is making Arctic cold air outbursts more likely. As Mashable previously reported: Some research has suggested the possibility that as the Arctic rapidly warms, it can make weather extremes more likely: Specifically, the heating Arctic might make the jet stream more prone to meandering north or south, kind of like a loose, droopy rope. This could, for example, allow polar air to more easily swoop down from the Arctic. But other research hasn’t found such a link.
What’s certain, however, is Arctic air is on its way to impact much of the country this holiday season. Take it seriously (nearly a quarter of U.S. car crashes happen on snowy, wintery roads). Be ready.
Final hours of cold snap before temperatures jump – but rain and ice alerts remain
Trump hawks crappy NFTs in ‘SNL’ cold open
Things under former President Donald Trump were often so strange that Saturday Night Live hardly had to fuss about reality to turn the reality star into a joke.
And, well, they were up to their old tricks on Saturday night. Fantastic impressionist and cast member James Austin Johnson opened the show as Trump, hawking crappy, cartoonish NFTs, which of course, the real former president did.
The show’s cold open featured Johnson as Trump doing an infomercial for the trading card NFTs.
“Trump cards are each $99, which seems like a lot,” Johnson says. “Seems like a scam, and in many ways it is, but we love Trump cards.”
One hallmark of Johnson’s version of Trump is that he’s absurd. Well, absurd in a different way than the real former president. True to form, Johnson’s Trump launches into an explanation of his NFTs that touches on Pokémon, Avatar, and Ron DeSantis looking like a Roblox.
Per usual, Johnson’s impression was a delight and you just never know where things are going to go until he gets there. Most hilarious of all, perhaps, is the impossibility of parsing what SNL made up and what came from reality. The NFT cards from the real world were just that crappy and weird.