U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record
The past twelve months were the warmest twelve months in U.S. history, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Tuesday, in their monthly "State of the Climate" report. Temperatures in the contiguous U.S. during May 2011 - April 2012 broke the previous record for warmest 12-month period, set November 1999 - October 2000, by 0.1°F. The past twelve months have featured America's 2nd warmest summer, 4th warmest winter, and warmest March on record. Twenty-two states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional nineteen states were top ten warm. NOAA said that the January - April 2012 period was also the warmest January - April period since record keeping began in 1895. The average temperature of 45.4°F during January - April 2012 was 5.4°F above the 20th century average for the period, and smashed the previous record set in 2006 by an unusually large margin--1.6°F.
Figure 1. The ten warmest 12-month periods in the contiguous U.S. since record keeping began in 1895. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Figure 2. The average temperature of 45.4°F during January - April 2012 was the warmest on record: 5.4°F above the 20th century average for the period, and was 1.6°F above the previous record set in 2006. January - April temperatures have been rising at about 1.9°F per century since 1895. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
April 2012: 3rd warmest on record
April 2012 was the third warmest April in the contiguous U.S. since record keeping began in 1895. Ten states had a top-ten warmest April, and no states were cooler than average. But what's really remarkable about April was that eight states--Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia--had average April temperatures cooler than their March temperatures, even though their April temperatures were still above the long-term average for the month. These statistics show just how remarkably warm March 2012 was. Most extreme was Illinois, where April 2012 temperatures ranked in the top 20% for warmest Aprils, yet were cooler than March 2012 temperatures.
Figure 3. Temperature rankings for April 2012 in the Contiguous U.S. Ten states had a top-ten warmest April, and no states were cooler than average. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Figure 4. NOAA's U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) for January - April shows that 2012 had the most extreme weather on record.
Most extreme January - April on record
NOAA's U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI), an index that tracks the highest 10 percent and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, and drought, was 42% during the January-April period, over twice the average value, and the greatest on record. Remarkably, 82% of the contiguous U.S. had maximum temperatures that were in the warmest 10% historically, and 68% had warm minimum temperatures in the top 10%, with records going back to 1910. The previous records were 56% (2000) and 57% (1992) for maximum and minimum temperatures, respectively. The percentage area of the U.S. experiencing top-10% drought conditions during January - April was 19%, which was the 17th greatest since 1910. Extremes in precipitation as computed by the CEI were near average for the January - April period.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I saw that.
That would be good.
We wait and see.
That's a good one...what's up W115?
I'm good. How are you ET?
Sauron must not have been so tough after all. Not too bright either. A super-human Balrog WITH an invisibility ring that gives him control over the other major rings of power, but he ...turned off...it's power, apparently?!? That made no sense!
I mean, he lost against Isuldur even when he already had the ring. Who was distracting the 9 Ring Wraiths during this idiotic 1vs1 duel? Then Saruman backstabs the good guys and joins Sauron, and Sauron still loses, with 7 of the 9 Ring Wraiths pretty much doing nothing throughout the story, and 2 of them being killed by mere humans.
These villains were kinda dumb; like worse than Saturday morning cartoon villains in the 1980's.
Don't worry, you'll feel better in the morning.
The book was better than the movie.
Hey Grothar. What's up?
All I know is, I wouldn't want to be around when somebody punches a hole into one of those balls.
Hello, Nigel. I just woke up from my nap. Are we still watching the 384 hour GFS map?
It's been broken since the 29th, presumably, since the last good data update was for the 28th.
Here
It scrambles the searches and just gives you random days.
Have their javascript been hacked or something?
Where are you located? I'm in Jamaica and we've been pretty wet over the past couple months....over the past two weeks are so we have been getting rain primarily from day time heating
Pottery, my man! How's the weather been treating you down in the Antilles?
Yes....it was posted earlier, but it was showing a slightly weaker system
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN JUAN PR
1010 PM AST WED MAY 9 2012
.UPDATE...10/00Z TJSJ SOUNDING SHOWED THAT THE LLVL WINDS HAVE
SHIFTED FROM THE SOUTHEAST TONIGHT. UNDER A SOUTHEASTERLY FLOW...
MOISTURE WILL POOL ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA DURING THE NEXT 24 TO
36 HOURS. WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO DETERIORATE AND
BECOME MORE ACTIVE LATE TONIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY AS MID/UPPER
LEVEL TROUGH APPROACHES FROM THE EAST AND DEEPER MOISTURE MOVES
INTO THE AREA. ALL THESE INGREDIENTS COMBINED WILL RESULT IN
PERIODS OF HEAVY RAINFALL AND ORGANIZED CONVECTION ACROSS THE
PARTS OF THE ISLANDS THURSDAY AND POSSIBLY FRIDAY. IN GENERAL...
THE FORECAST REASONING HAS NOT CHANGED FROM THE PREVIOUS ISSUANCE.
MINOR CHANGES WERE MADE TO THE SHORT RANGE WEATHER ELEMENTS...MAINLY
TO FINE TUNE THE TIMING OF SHOWERS AND STORMS.
LOL
Sauron was neither human nor a balrog. The balrog appears in The Fellowship of the Rings in the mines of Moria, when the wizard Gandalf fell to his apparant death. Sauron was one of the Maiar, a spirit created by Illuvitar, and he became the smith who forged the One Ring.
Thus, Sauron was an ancient god created at the beginning of Middle Earth, and the balrog was a fire demon. Sauron placed most of his power into the One Ring that he forged in secret.
The battle was not one on one, but was a battle of an alliance of elves and men against Sauron.
And now all of you know I am a huge nerd who reads the Silmarilion!
Do they jump before or after they pump the ridge?
I was never clear on this...
Naughty!
Won't hold that against you. That is the only one I didn't read. The good old days.
1.) You need to read up.
2.) I won't tolerate a Lord of the Rings hater. Nothing more epic has ever been written and then filmed.
Hahaha I think this year we may need to be concerned about "Super Hurricanes" where the storm's cloud canopy turns a flamboyant yellow color and the winds inside the eyewall reach over 9000 mph.
Agreed
See, if the previous poster had read the Silmarillion then he would know that Isildur was a direct descendant of Earendil, thus no ordinary man.
(I'm surprised I remember that much.)
440 biff4ugo: The volume of air isn't much bigger...
"The air sphere measures 1999kilometres[1242miles] across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. As the atmosphere extends from Earth it becomes less dense. Half of the air lies within the first 5 kilometres of the atmosphere."
Do you mean all the fresh water on earth rolled into a ball? It looks like all the ocean around your ball would fill at least a couple of them, that is if the graphic is to scale.
Over 9000!?
Note the numbers trend last 12 mth's, and esp last month.
co2now.org
396.18ppm
The Battle wasn't 1vs1, but Isuldur beat Sauron in 1vs1 combat.
Balrogs:
[q]In later writings they ceased to be creatures, but are instead Maiar, lesser Ainur like Gandalf or Sauron, spirits of fire whom Melkor had corrupted before the creation of the World.[3] Power of the order of Gandalf's was necessary to destroy them,[20] and as Maiar, only their physical forms could be destroyed.[/q]
So technically, Gandalf, Sauron, and Balrogs are all the same type of "being," they simply choose different forms of expression.
I'll leave it alone, because it's off topic.
Heartland Stands By Its Climate Change Denial As Donors Jump Ship
Posted: 05/09/2012 7:41 pm Updated: 05/09/2012 8:01 pm
No, Gandalf and the Balrog were similar; Sauron was a higher order and was created at the beginning. The order of wizards were sent to Middle Earth to unite all forces against Sauron. And it's time for this nerd to dust off the books and go to bed :)
1) I don't hate the books, I read them several times.
2) The movies were a tragic let down, including a couple ridiculous scenes where the original text was totally butchered.
3) I would have preferred if the movies were done using Tolkien's style of English for the dialogue, just as in the book, instead of the "modernization" of the language. Who cares if half the modern audience is too dumb to understand it? They can get a thesaurus.
4) As for the writing:
The first 4 books of the Wheel of Time series were off the scale compared to LotR. I'd say the first book past page 70, when the introduction is over and the action really starts, and the third book are probably the best two pieces of High Fantasy or Science Fiction novels I've ever read, and I used to read quite a few.
That was when the series was still quality "from the gut" story telling. Later on, it just got old and a lot of filler. Jordan was very, very superior to Tolkien when it comes to character development, describing battles with somewhat realistic fighting mechanics, and individual character and racial styles and habits, the "mechanics" of their special abilities, 3rd person partial knowledge of villains, and so on.
They really aren't even in the same league. Jordan's works were far more dynamic and descriptive of characters and mechanics, not to mention believable character rivalries and backstabbing and such. Even though I would say Jordan had some places where his writing was really horrible, overall I'd give him a landslide victory over Tolkien. It's true that there are some similar concepts to Tolkien, but in terms of style and execution it's just not even comparable.
TYVM,
..we all can make a difference.
Thanx for contributing as well.
M 3.5 Wyoming
Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 01:18:30 UTC
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 19:18:30 Local
Tolkien wrote the LoTR series starting in 1937 (with The Hobbit). Jordan didn't start until 1984. Also, LoTR was initially designed as a "children's book" (closer to young adult reading level, actually), while WoT was designed for a more adult audience.
Comparing LoTR and WoT is akin to comparing Mark Twain and Shakespeare. Both wrote stuff, but entirely different audiences and timeframes.
I got that from the official encyclopedia entry.
It's been like that since it was written.
From "Maia":
Melkor (known in Sindarin as Morgoth), the evil Vala, corrupted many Maiar into his service. These included Sauron, the main antagonist of The Lord of the Rings, and the Balrogs, his demons of flame and shadow.[4] These are called in Quenya �maiar.
Therefore, Sauron and Balrogs are the same thing, and they are also the same thing as Gandalf, Saruman, and the other "Istari" or "Wizards," as I stated, and as the other article quote also stated.
They are all shapeshifters, and immortal, and none of them can ever actually be killed, even if their physical body is destroyed.
In reality, almost nothing is ever said about Sauron or Balrogs in the actual LotR trilogy, except possibly in the appendix. Sauron is one of the least described villains in the history of literature, at least within the trilogy. In fact, you learn more about Tom Bombadil than you do Sauron, and he was totally cut from the movies, mercifully, because that was one of the dumbest scenes in the books anyway.
Hey Rocky, watch me pull the GFSx outta my Hat!!
Clearly you have never marveled at the complete collection of the He-Man animated series.
Two more years until we break 400! Come on gang! Don't let up now! We're almost there! /snark
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