-100 windchill at Mount Washington observatory...

[Manedwolf]

Okay. That's TOO FREAKING COLD. They don't pay the people at the observatory up there enough. 

It's officially the place with the worst weather in the United States, for some reason. Right now it's a windchill cold enough to freeze a mercury thermometer, with 107mph winds. -37 in still air, not that there is any up there.

That's cold.

It's very, very, very cold out there

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

1 hour, 56 minutes ago

The cold snap from Canada is turning a weather cliche on its head. Eggs aren't frying on sidewalks -- they might freeze before they hit pavement.

At the summit of Mount Washington, where temperatures bottomed out at 37 degrees below zero Tuesday morning, weather observers were throwing pots of boiling water in the air to make snow.

"When it's this cold it immediately freezes into a cloud of snow," observer Jim Salge said.

The temperature broke the record for March 6 of minus 23 degrees and came within one degree of breaking the all-time cold record for March, minus 38 degrees, set in 1950.

Winds of 107 mph and climbing were bringing the wind chill to 85 to 100 degrees below zero, Salge said.

"This is the coldest weather we've seen on Mount Washington since January 25, 2004," he said.

During hourly weather observations, summit workers were relying on alcohol-based thermometers to take their readings. "Mercury gets close to freezing at these temperatures," Salge said.

National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Marine said nearly all of New Hampshire would have near-record cold temperatures on Tuesday.

At 10 a.m. it was minus 10 in Berlin and Whitefield, without the wind chill. Factoring in the wind, Portsmouth and Concord were at minus 21 at midmorning.

Marine said a second blast of cold expected Thursday would last until Saturday and likely produce record lows for daytime high temperatures.

"The thing that makes this kind of unique is that we're going into the second week of March now and usually in March it's very hard to sustain this kind of cold," he said.

"The wind chills could get down tonight to minus 20 to minus 30 below."

[mfree]

"Right now it's a windchill cold enough to freeze a mercury thermometer, "

Minor nitpick; if it's not human, windchill doesn't affect it.

Mercury does freeze solid at -40 or so though, so the actual temperature is plenty cold

[richyoung]

...doubtless mankind's CO2 output is to blame...darn Global Warming!

[El Tejon]

Yeah, but if we didn't have all this Global Warming it would be -125 there.

[Manedwolf]

Yeah, but if we didn't have all this Global Warming it would be -125 there.

Though realistically, if there IS climate change, it could shut down the North Atlantic Conveyor that brings warm water up from the carribean area. Europe would become an icecube in a very short time.

Global warming is a bit of a misnomer. It's more a pattern of change that can cascade rapidly. For example, if large masses of ice melt, the cooler water can shut down ocean convection patterns, causing areas that were brought warm water by them to now freeze solid.

It's not all that simple. The global weather pattern is so complex that an equation to describe it would literally be endless, or close to. And changing one variable can result in lots of other higher and lower outcomes further along in it.

Or, to put it in a simpler analogy, picture the global ocean and air currents and convection patterns as the workings of a Swiss watch. All those rotating, interacting currents and conveyors on the ocean that carry weather systems, all the highs and lows and jetstreams and all are like gears, turning each other, cycling back and forth into contact and out of contact.

Now start dropping sand into those gears. Or pull one out somewhere, even a small one.

Is it our fault? Who knows? That's really not the issue. The issue is that the planet is so very big and we're so very small that changes like that can have catastrophic results on the tiny little cities and transport networks we've built.

[El Tejon]

Mane, but I feel guilty for being clean, well-fed and White.  It must be our, er, I mean, YOUR fault.

[HankB]

For example, if large masses of ice melt, the cooler water can shut down ocean convection patterns, causing areas that were brought warm water by them to now freeze solid.

So if large areas of the polar icecap, Greenland, etc., melt, it will cause northern areas near where the ice melts to get colder and freeze solid . . .

I guess that's why when the glaciers melted during the last ice age - sheets of ice hundreds of feet thick extending down to the Midwest - everything got colder and froze solid.

[Manedwolf]

For example, if large masses of ice melt, the cooler water can shut down ocean convection patterns, causing areas that were brought warm water by them to now freeze solid.

So if large areas of the polar icecap, Greenland, etc., melt, it will cause northern areas near where the ice melts to get colder and freeze solid . . .

I guess that's why when the glaciers melted during the last ice age - sheets of ice hundreds of feet thick extending down to the Midwest - everything got colder and froze solid.

More that what would happen is that ocean current patterns driven by warm water flows would suddenly recieve an influx of chilled water, think 40, 50 degrees or so, and it WOULD affect them. They can change their patterns or shut down for a time.

And those current flows are necessary to bring warm water up from the equatorial regions up to Europe. If they didn't exist, it'd be a lot colder there than it is.

There's several other conveyors like that...that's just one of them.

And like I said, it's not an issue of blame. I think the question now should be more on the order of: "Okay, the earth is really big and we're really small. If it changes, how do we not die and not lose all our stuff?

Even for just the possibiity of raised sea levels. As of now, Holland has massive computer-controlled ocean barriers and gates. London has had a flood barrier on the Thames for some time. Tokyo has cathedral-sized underground viaducts with turbopumps powered by 737-type jet engines that can move water in the millions of gallons per hour around the city and into rivers.

The US, around our financial centers and trade centers on the coasts, has...um....er...

Hm. Oh yeah, we have some dark-ages-tech earthen levees that failed down south. Nothing at all around Manhattan. It's kind of sad that the most powerful nation on earth would have been BADLY shown up by the Romans when it comes to flood control and protection technology.

[gunsmith]

Europe would become an icecube in a very short time.

The sooner the better, at least they would quit that global warming yap

[Fly320s]

Okay. That's TOO FREAKING COLD.

Yeah, but it is only that cold in theory. 

Or, to use the Las Vegas analogy.

Yeah, but it's a dry cold.

[Gewehr98]

Regarding Manedwolf's interpretation of imminent doom...

I left THR when a character there went into a mouth-frothing rage over the imminently catastrophic repercussions of global warming and started leveraging his superior education while denigrating other THR members for their skepticism.  I jumped down his throat, then realized I wasn't exactly adding much light to the discussion, just more heat. at that moment I knew it was more productive to walk my dogs the extra mile or two each day vs. arguing on an internet forum. Art Eatman (bless his heart) eventually tried a light-hearted calming method, describing the phenomenon as "globular worming".  I doubt our hero's toned down his rhetoric since, but I for one don't see his postings anymore, anyway. 

The Air Force was kind enough to me to train me on meteorology, with emphasis on what it means for aircrews.  The agency I gave 20+ years to used meteorology in wonderful fashions, running mainframes and some of the most complex met transport models I've ever seen to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, then they'd send me and my posse aloft to go collect that particular needle.

Suffice it to say, Manedwolf's analogy of small variables creating large shifts strikes a particular note with me.  In my business, we called it the "butterfly fart" relationship - changing one tiny variable in the weather generation pattern can create large shifts in the greater scheme of things.  Monitoring and predicting transport layer winds with respect to the regional high and low pressure fronts was easy.  The devil in the details was tracking all the butterfly farts that cascaded into influencing those pressure fronts. There really isn't enough computing power or software coding power to work that angle.

That's something the global warming acolytes don't take into effect.  Butterflies have been farting since they took wing back in the Cretaceous portion of the Mesozoic era, according to the fossil record.  And they will continue to do so... 

[MechAg94]

Or, to put it in a simpler analogy, picture the global ocean and air currents and convection patterns as the workings of a Swiss watch. All those rotating, interacting currents and conveyors on the ocean that carry weather systems, all the highs and lows and jetstreams and all are like gears, turning each other, cycling back and forth into contact and out of contact.

Now start dropping sand into those gears. Or pull one out somewhere, even a small one.

Yeah, but the gears are 50 foot thick and 300 yards wide.  A little sand ain't going to make that much difference. 

When you talk about cold water and the ocean currents, how much water would it take?  Most realistic models I have seen in the past don't predict really fast changes in temperatures that would "suddenly" dump the ice.  Are they also predicting reverse storms that pull cold in from the upper atmosphere and just happen to be sitting on every populated place in the northern hemisphere? 

[Manedwolf]

Or, to put it in a simpler analogy, picture the global ocean and air currents and convection patterns as the workings of a Swiss watch. All those rotating, interacting currents and conveyors on the ocean that carry weather systems, all the highs and lows and jetstreams and all are like gears, turning each other, cycling back and forth into contact and out of contact.

Now start dropping sand into those gears. Or pull one out somewhere, even a small one.

Yeah, but the gears are 50 foot thick and 300 yards wide.  A little sand ain't going to make that much difference. 

When you talk about cold water and the ocean currents, how much water would it take?  Most realistic models I have seen in the past don't predict really fast changes in temperatures that would "suddenly" dump the ice.  Are they also predicting reverse storms that pull cold in from the upper atmosphere and just happen to be sitting on every populated place in the northern hemisphere? 

As to the sudden dumping of the ice, look at the photos of the very fast demise of the entire McLaren ice shelf. That's the sort of thing I mean.

[Sergeant Bob]

When I was stationed at Kinchloe AFB, in the U.P. of Michigan, we had a cold snap when temps reached somewhere below 30F.
I was living in the barracks and went out to try and start my car. Once I got the door open (with some really loud creaking) and sat on the hard as a rock seat (yes, foam rubber freezes) then tried to start it. It was a real fight to get it into neutral and I could barely turn the ignition. Click! that was it.
Only two or three cars in the whole parking lot would start and there were about 20 people in each car.
The wind chill hadn't been invented yet so I don't know how cold I was supposed to feel.

The rest of us walked the mile and a half to work.

[Cosmoline]

Windchill is a bunch of nonsense.  I can tell you from extensive first hand experience that a "wind chill" of -40 is not the same as -40.  Not in any way, shape or form.  Last week I biked into a headwind of about 40 mph in about five degree air.  By the book, that's about -20 wind chill.  But having biked at true -20, I can tell you there's nothing similar about the experiences.  Even with the headwind, I was far less drained on the windy day than the cold one.  Indeed I felt refreshed.  True deep cold will sap your energy like nothing else.  The "windchill" can be defeated with simple clothing, but deep cold is far more difficult to deal with. 

[Gewehr98]

Well, Duh!

The "windchill" can be defeated with simple clothing, but deep cold is far more difficult to deal with.

Wind Chill is defined as the apparent temperature felt on exposed skin due to the combination of air temperature and wind speed, particularly the human face.  You can stay outdoors quite a while at -20 degrees Fahrenheit, assuming it's calm.  Throw some wind into that -20 equation, and your exposed skin had best be bundled up or it'll get that gray waxy appearance right quick.

I lived in Fairbanks (Eielson) for only about 2 winters' worth. Really, Cosmo, I though you knew better.