DC-Area January Among Top Ten Warmest, All Time Record For Least Snow

[hatrack]

Scenes from what is normally the coldest month of the year in Washington: Daffodil foliage is bursting from the ground. Hibernating bats are waking up to hunt for insects. And an outdoor lunch on a park bench in a T-shirt is perfectly comfortable.

What's going on here? This month apparently will be one of the 10 warmest Januaries on record at two area airports and the warmest at Dulles International. Yesterday's high at Reagan National Airport was 64 on a day when it usually is in the low 40s. January also is likely to tie the record for the least snow, with only a trace of it in a month that usually gets six or seven inches.

EDIT

Guyer said this is likely to be the warmest January on the books at Dulles Airport, where records have been kept since 1962. It looks to be among the top 10 at National and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall airports, whose records go back to the late 1800s. "Notable, definitely," he said.

The warm weather and lack of snow have helped birds and other creatures find food and encouraged some to come out early. Someone called the Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale to report that praying mantises were hatching, and manager Michael McDonnell said he saw a pair of bats flying around last week, catching insects at night. Normally, they are hibernating at this time of year.

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001571.html

[Shortyfuse]

1. Climate like Politics

is local. When wealthy countries start having to do without the basics of life then the populace will open their eyes. Of course then , as in politics, it will be too late. In Texas there is a drought that threatening ranch and farms. Wild fires are breaking out all over. However people see this on the news and then go outside to a beautiful day and Bar-B Q. oh and of course they will reelect Rick Perry and defend Tom Delay.

[megatherium]

2. I read Red Sky at Dawn.

The author says the environmental movement scored big victories in the early 1970s because the movement coalesced too rapidly for the corporations to respond to -- and because the issues of the day (air and water pollution) were obviously a serious problem. But now the corporations are much more experienced at deflecting public pressure, and the serious issues of today (global warming in particular) are not something that's obvious to the average member of the public. But after this winter, and the hurricanes, this might be changing.

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Fat chance

Most people would still happily sit in a burning house if you told them it would cut thier heating bills.

[megatherium]

8. Reminds me of an old adage. You can build a man a fire, and keep him

warm for a day -- or you can set him on fire, and keep him warm for the rest of his life!

And remember what Winston Churchill said: Some people stumble upon the truth, but they usually pick themselves
up and hurry on as if nothing had happened.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. lol - thanks...

Hadn't heard the Churchill one... Sad but true

[hatrack]

5. Are we there yet? I have my doubts.

I have this perverse vision of the day it all becomes umistakably clear

The day after a three-week 100F heat wave finally breaks, one that's taken 15,000 lives in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky;

The week after an 820 milibar hurricane erases Miami or Houston;

The month after the North Atlantic Current shuts down, or the Ross Ice Shelf cracks in half;

The hours after 32" of rain falls in less than 12 hours in a previously parched Los Angeles basin, unleashing mudslides and landslips on a scale we've never seen before.

The months after the bulk of America's corn crop is lost through withering drought or unending storms, leaving us with just not quite enough to get through the winter.

Our leaders will rush to ratify various climate "control" treaties, and the corporate greenwash machine will go into overdrive and tens of millions of Americans will start riding the bus and walking to work, and planting trees and gardens, and not a whit of it will do a Goddamned bit of good.

It's kind of like the scene in "Alien", when Lt. Ripley tries to cancel the self-destruct sequence, only to be greeted by the bland and indifferent voice of the ship's computer: "Self-destruct in T-minus five minutes." Will we swing a rifle butt and smash the video monitor as she does? Oh, probably, and it still won't change a thing.

[mikita]

6. I have to agree....

You paint a very dark but prescient picture.

[megatherium]

7. Holy crap, I live in Indiana.

I think you might be right, alas. If these things happen, I hope I live to see the day when the energy industry executives, who have resorted to the "tobacco strategy" to obscure and confuse the issues, are hunted down like vermin and brought to a rough, swift justice. (All within the law of course.)

At any rate it's more than sobering when you read that the debate in the climatology community is no longer "is global warming human-caused" but instead "are we now reaching the tipping point when it is no longer possible to prevent catastrophic change".

[bananas]

4. I wonder if it'll affect the Cherrry Blossoms

http://www.nps.gov/nacc/cherry/updated.htm
http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/metro/041001-1v.htm