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Season's Greetings

Steve Scolnik @ 4:30 PM

Winter is back, although this will be a quick visit. Instability associated with an upper-level trough bringing colder air into the Washington DC metro area spawned some brief showers and flurries in the middle of the day today. Here on the Afternoon Update weather patio, these took the form of snow pellets (also known as graupel) which fell lightly for a few minutes around noon. From nighttime highs in the low 40s, temperatures at mid afternoon have fallen back mainly to the upper 30s under diminishing clouds.

North American 500 mb height (color) and surface pressure (solid lines) this morning from Unisys.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Tonight will see our first near-normal lows of the year: upper 20s in the city down to the low 20s in the colder 'burbs. Tomorrow will be partly cloudy and seasonably cold, highs around 42.

"So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish"

From the National Hurricane Center at 4pm:
I SUPPOSE IT IS ONLY FITTING THAT THE RECORD-BREAKING 2005 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON ENDS WITH A RECORD BREAKING STORM. TODAY... ZETA SURPASSED 1954 ALICE #2 AS THE LONGEST-LIVED TROPICAL CYCLONE TO FORM IN DECEMBER AND CROSS OVER INTO THE NEXT YEAR. ZETA WAS ALSO THE LONGEST-LIVED JANUARY TROPICAL CYCLONE. IN ADDITION...ZETA RESULTED IN THE 2005 SEASON HAVING THE LARGEST ACCUMULATED CYCLONE ENERGY...OR ACE... SURPASSING THE 1950 SEASON. SO... UNTIL THE 2006 SEASON BEGINS... UNLESS ZETA SOMEHOW MAKES AN UNLIKELY MIRACLE COMEBACK... THIS IS THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER SIGNING OFF FOR 2005... FINALLY.
Climate Corner

It was buried in the WaPo gossip column, but there was a hopeful sign this week that the climate change issue may be able to break free of ideology's icy grasp. It was reported (evidently not searchable online) that conservative Grover Norquist invited Al Gore to present a talk on global warming to Norquist's Wednesday Group. Norquist was quoted as saying, ". . . if people disagree with Gore, they better be prepared to match him in a debate." Who knows what progress is possible in the New Year? The WaPo editors may even discover that they have an environment reporter.

Today's Diane Rehm show on WAMU-FM featured a discussion on the effects of Arctic ice melting. Streaming audio is available online.

The Beeb has a story online about a study published in the current issue of Nature on the serious disruption to ocean currents caused by rapid global warming 55 million years ago. The research by Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists "is one of the few historical analogs for large-scale sea circulation changes tied to global warming."

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