Recently, our Rotary Club had a terrific presentation about the future of advertising. We got to meet Virtual Liz. She is an amazingly lifelike interactive image that talks to you and responds to your gestures. Today's  Wichita Eagle  has a front page story about the new technology created here in Wichita. "Virtual Liz," is a creation of Integrated Media Group  of Wichita, a company that produces movie scenes (i.e., portions of the movies, "Pursuit of Happyness," "Hancock," "Get Smart," etc.), commercials, and productions you have probably seen.  I believe they are really onto something. Be sure and read the article, it is a fascinating look into the future. UPDATE Monday:  I just thought of the perfect use for this:  Airline check in.  Given how unpleasant many airline employees are these days, a cheerful interactive experience would be a vast improvement.

Wow!!! What a game! I was listening on the radio to the basketball game tonight between rival schools Kansas State University and The University of Kansas. I was worn out from just LISTENING to it. It was a one to two point game through the entire second half. And then there was overtime! Both teams played so well, and it made for a great game. With both teams ranked in the top 10, I knew that it would be good, but had no idea that it would be THAT good.

Electric demand is highest when it is coldest and warmest for heating and air conditioning, respectively. At $300,000 each, these new state-owned wind turbines don't spin when it is cold in Minnesota!  Their special "Minnesota winter" hydraulic fluid freezes. So, what is the plan?  To heat the hydraulic fluid!  Of course, that requires electricity or natural gas which means the net power output from the turbine drops (it wouldn't surprise me if it drops to near zero). Image courtesy KSTP TV  and "Hat Tip" to  Hot Air. But, "its a great project."  

5.5" inches of snow, 0.60" of melted water, all-in-all a beautiful snow. 

The snow and ice storm continues to move east.  Purple colors = freezing rain and sleet. Shades of blue are snow with darker blues = heavier snows in this  AccuWeather MySpace Radar  image. It is still snowing in downtown Wichita as this photo from my office window indicates. Please stay with  AccuWeather's Special Coverage  of this dangerous ice storm.

When you are warm in bed at 1am as the snow swirls outside, meteorologists for WeatherData, AccuWeather, the National Weather Service, and, probably, your local television station are just getting up to go to work.  They battle heavy snow and streets that haven't seen a plow or sand truck (road crews wait until closer to rush hour) to get to work. Once there, they work hard to inform you about the snow and ice storm. They will likely work longer than average hours during one of these multi-faceted storms. TV meteorologists will have the stress of doing extra on air reports. This was posted on  my blog Monday. Four days of warning of a major winter storm.  Tuesday, we were already informing Oklahomans of major power outages so they could prepare.   We told one of our electric utility clients in Kansas "no ice here." Because they knew they would not have ice-related outages in their service territory they, proactively,  sent crews into Oklahoma to augment the crews of O

"Snow Days" are infrequent in Wichita, but today is one.  And, on a Friday no less!  One of the great joys of my childhood would be when my mother would come into the bedroom and say we could go back to sleep because there was "no school." Sledding in College Hill Park this morning! Dad giving his sons a boost! And, the wonders of modern technology. I remember us crowding around the tv or radio to try catch whether St. Catherine's School was closed (out of the hundreds of schools in the KC area). Now, a text message at 5am comes in and everyone goes back to sleep.

From London's Times. The university at the centre of the climate change  row over stolen e-mails  broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has lea rnt.  I apologize for not getting to the "Daughter of Climategate" scandal on the schedule I originally posted. Between the winter storm, regular WeatherData duties, and more book editing and marketing, I have gotten terribly far behind.  I will post it when I can get unburied. 

CAIRO (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

Many non-specialists are unaware of a recently-created industry of companies that use sophisticated models to try to predict hurricane losses and losses from other types of storms. In the previous post, I talk about the SEC's nonsensical decision to "encourage" companies to disclose their exposure to 'climate change.' One method of doing that is to use these computer modeling services. While the models  can and do  provide useful information when a storm is imminent (i.e., Hurricane X will move into location Y with 120 mph winds and a 15 ft. storm surge), they have shown no detectable skill at forecasting losses years (the timescale for "climate") into the future. Another new paper shows this to be the case. Roger Pielke, Jr. has more here.    So, if there is no way to forecast the losses caused by storms, how are companies supposed to -- in advance -- disclose their losses?

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article  (subscription may be required) detailing the new decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission, to encourage companies to disclose the effects of climate change on their businesses. SEC Chairman  Mary Schapiro , an Obama appointee, said the agency wasn't weighing in on the climate debate and wanted to ensure that investors get reliable information. OK, let me get this straight: Climate evolves over decades and centuries and they want businesses to "disclose" (which implies they know) the "effects of climate change on their businesses" (which means they would have to forecast the weather decades and centuries into the future with a high degree of certainty). The article goes on to say, Meredith Cross, director of the SEC's corporation-finance division, defended the move, saying large investors wanted the information. "Investors have a fundamental right to know which companies are well positioned

The major winter storm continues to unfold over the southern Plains and will move into the Ozarks tonight then into across the Tennessee Valley by Friday night.  Power failures are widespread between Norman and Ardmore, OK through southwest Oklahoma into western Texas.  We have received reports of hundreds of power poles brought down by the ice.  The OKC airport is closed. Over the northern half of the Texas Panhandle, snow amounts of 5 to 9 inches have been reported with as much as 6-8 inches of additional snow likely to fall.  With winds gusting to 40 mph, there are drifts reported to 2.5 feet. To the south, a line of thunderstorms is currently moving through Dallas-Ft. Worth causing flight delays and strong winds.  Wind damage was reported west and southwest of Ft. Worth earlier this afternoon. The ice storm will move across the northern half of Arkansas into western Tennessee tomorrow with heavy snow across southern Kansas and southern Missouri.  AccuWeather is providing spe

Kate Bilo and I discuss this winter storm on AccuWeather.com please  click here  to see the report. As of 1pm, I-40 is closed across the entire width of the Texas Panhandle and into western Oklahoma. All major roads in the Texas Panhandle are closed. Ice storm continues in Oklahoma.  Power outages and lines down in southwest Oklahoma. Freezing drizzle possible late tonight in northern parts of D-FW Metroplex. Line of strong thunderstorms moving into Central Texas.  Tornado warning southwest of Ft. Worth near Stephenville. Full details at AccuWeather.

At 7:13am, the major winter storm is rapidly developing over the southern Plains and is spreading east and north. The purple shades are ice!  This is a very serious storm that will cause power interruptions and road closures. Please plan accordingly -- there may be power outages in Oklahoma and the southeast Texas Panhandle that will last for days. UPDATE 8:48am:   Power failures are now being reported in southwest Oklahoma.  Interstate 40 is blocked by an accident in far western Oklahoma.  It is likely that I-40 will have to be closed before the day is over.  I-35 and I-44 will see seriously deteriorating conditions as the day progresses in Oklahoma and there is a chance they will be closed, also. Some strong thunderstorms may occur in south Texas. Future updates available at AccuWeather . We will be updating our coverage throughout the day.

We are testing some blog software, so I thought it would be a good time display an advertisement for my book. Click on it to order! If you pre-order from Amazon, you will get the lowest price they set on the book which will likely be less than $24.95, but we have no way of knowing the price their algorithm will set. We will be offering inscribed, autographed copies on my web site at Mike Smith Enterprises . We have not set the ordering system up as yet, Kim or I will let you know when we do. The price for the autographed copies will be $30.00 which includes tax and shipping. So, you'll be able to purchase it at Amazon, your bookstore, or autographed from us. Whichever you choose, we are thrilled by your interest and hope you enjoy it when it is published.

The video has been taken down and replaced with newer videos. Keep checking with AccuWeather for Storm Updates Kate Bilo at AccuWeather HQ and I discuss the major ice storm forecast for Oklahoma along the with heavy snow that will likely affect northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas then east into the Ozarks.  Click here to view the report. I-35 between Wichita and Dallas and I-40 between Ft. Smith and Amarillo will see seriously deteriorating conditions tomorrow and tomorrow night and there is a possibility that both roads may be closed. Please plan accordingly .

One of the things I like about Greensburg is its plucky spirit.  I was emailing on this topic with my brother this morning and I recalled that, in addition to the wire tornado in front of the World's Largest Hand Dug Well (see below), is the "tornado swing." When Katie Bay and I visited the city a year after the tornado, we found that someone had pulled a tire and rope out of a debris pile, attached it to a debarked, twisted tree and made a swing.  You gotta love it!

In each edition, the Wall Street Journal  runs a "human interest" story on its front page below the fold. About once a year, usually in spring, the paper runs a story about an attraction in Kansas. It looks like today's story is going to be about the World's Largest Hand Dug Well in Greensburg.  The online link is  here .   (subscription may be required)    UPDATE:  Just went out to the driveway and picked up my WSJ and it is indeed today's human interest story. The town is recovering from an F-5 tornado that destroyed 95% of the city on May 4, 2007. The story discusses a proposal to build an upgraded well museum. I write about Greensburg in Warnings  because of the 200+ lives saved by the meteorological profession that horrible May night. Plus, I've always liked Greensburg. It seems that just about every Midwest kid visited the well at one time or another growing up. My family visited on the way to our first-ever vacation to Colorado.  And, here is a ph

Here is the latest computer model forecast of freezing rain.  The purple areas in Oklahoma may experience power failures with the potential that some areas could lose power for days. Click to enlarge map. Note also the new area of freezing rain forecast in North Carolina. The latest computer models indicate heavy snow, as well. The storm appears to be on a more northern path than earlier today. The highways in the ice and snow areas will be hazardous and there may be road closures even on the interstates. WeatherData's and AccuWeather's meteorologists are working hard on the latest forecasts. Please check with  AccuWeather   in the morning for the latest.

My friend and AccuWeather colleague, Jesse Ferrell, has details  at his blog.

If you have been reading this blog, you know that I have been supportive of the U.S. and other nations' efforts to assist Haiti and counseling patience because giant relief efforts do not materialize overnight. That said, this opinion piece from today's Wall Street Journal , bearing the title  "Obama's Katrina" , has a familiar ring to it: On Wednesday, the day after the quake, we organized a relief team in cooperation with the U.S. State Department and Partners in Health (a Boston-based humanitarian organization) to provide emergency orthopedic and surgical care. We wanted to reach the local hospitals in Haiti immediately—but were only allowed by the U.S. military controlling the local airport to land in Port-au-Prince Saturday night. We were among the first groups there. This delay proved tragic. Exactly  the same problem, that is non-"official" relief on the scene immediately -- only to be prevented from operating by federal officials -- occu

Mother Nature seems to love very sharp snowfall gradients this year.  Here is the latest projection from the National Weather Service's NAM model (note:  I am not  suggesting that this forecast is correct, I am just illustrating the problem that forecasters have with this weather system). Click to enlarge. The forecast snowfall gradient is more than 8 inches in 30 miles near the Kansas-Oklahoma border east into Missouri and in northern Arkansas!  The problem is that, until we get to less than twelve hours before the snow starts, our science has no ability to accurately forecast that type of gradient. So, this is one of those situations where the forecast for your driveway  could be significantly in error simply because the storm shifts 10 miles in either direction. As always, you'll get "The Best Weather on the Web" at  AccuWeather.

The Advance Reader Copies (ARC) of Warnings  arrived yesterday afternoon and they look great.   ARCs go to magazines and other publications that work months ahead so they can have their reviews ready at about the time of a book’s publication. It is the second-to-final edit of the book, the photos are black and white, and it is soft cover (the actual book will be hard cover with a dust jacket and will have a color photo insert). While Greenleaf, the publisher, and Fleishman-Hilliard, the publicist, will be sending out the majority of the ARCs, Kim and I will be sending some to our contacts the next few days. If you know a journalist that might be interested in reviewing, please leave us a comment or send us an email at speeches@mac.com .

If you live south of U.S. 400 in Kansas / U.S. 50 in Colorado and to the north of the Red River, pay attention to the weather the next few days.  Ice and heavy snow will move into the region, but it is too soon to pin down exact amounts and locations.

Donna LaFramboise, the Canadian proprietor of the  "no consensus" blog has tracked down 16 other World Wildlife Fund assertions in the IPCC reports that are supposed to be solely based on peer-reviewed science.  She has also found Greenpeace assertions listed as peer-reviewed science. The lists are  here.    Hat tip:  Watts Up With That. Whatever one thinks of the WWF and Greenpeace, they are hardly disinterested science. WWF and Greenpeace are political advocacy groups and their pamphlets are hardly "peer reviewed." My sense is that this is pretty much the end of the IPCC's pretensions. There are enough people on top of this now that, even with the American media's self-imposed blackout and the excuses they are making for the IPCC, that Congress will not move forward with cap and trade. It will also be interesting to see if the Congressional attempt to repeal the EPA's regulation of CO2  gains traction. UPDATE: Apparently, I am not the only pe

Thanks to commenter "MR" for bringing this parody of Hitler learning about "Glaciergate" to my attention:  Click here   It is amazing how quickly Glaciergate has gained traction, in spite of the near total blackout by the U.S. media.   As I watching, the thought came to me:  Hitler + absurdity + over-the-top claims = a job for Mel Brooks! And, please, keep the comments coming.

The carbon trading market is falling apart.   Today's article from the London Guardian.

Here is Tom Fuller's take on the events of the last few days: A picture is emerging of a UN organisation apparently out of control, fixated on having the proper story ready in order to drive the agenda at Copenhagen. It appears from the outside that they may have realised that this was their last best chance, with skepticism rising and the economies of the developed world falling. There are serious questions about the historical temperature records as reconstructed by Mann and the Hockey Stick Team. There are serious questions about recent temperature records (like, where are they?) as put together by a climate fanatic (James Hansen, and I'm actually not being critical of him--he believes and is acting on his beliefs--I'm just not sure we should follow him), and the absent minded professor, Phil Jones, who knows he left the data around somewhere (did he check behind the sofa?) and anyways, he 'could probably reconstruct it, given time.' We have seriously inflate

Earlier in this series, I wrote about the "scrubbing" of the NASA web site. Roger Pielke, Jr., has found another scrubbed site,  details here.   Who knows how many others might be out there? Earlier  I wrote  about why I usually put 'global warming' in "scare quotes." The purging of data without any note or notice, as if it hadn't existed, is the very antithesis of science. It is something straight out of George Orwell's Animal House. In the Q & A after I present my global warming speeches, I am often asked why this topic distresses me so. It is because I suspected global warming was corrupting science, a point that is indisputable in the wake of Climategate and subsequent scandals. As I posted in December, it is exactly  the corrupting influence  that President Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address. Here is a great essay, written in the immediate aftermath of Climategate, that explains why honest scientists are taken aback by all o

At the end of Post #3 I asked, "Where is the U.S. media? Courtesy of one of our readers, the answer is:  Making excuses for the IPCC. He forwarded this Washington Post story from this morning with the headline, "U.N. climate panel chief: Error shouldn't derail global warming efforts in India." It goes on to quote IPCC head Pachauri, "chairman of the Nobel-Prize-winning panel" about the "mistake."  Note it is mistake, singular. Because these posts are rather long, I'd like to summarize them for you. As you know, the IPCC holds itself out as the epitome of objective, peer-reviewed science. The first three posts have shown that the IPCC has stated, as scientific fact, non- peer reviewed materials from political advocacy groups on two occasions, in spite of being warned that the information was not scientifically correct. We also learned that the incorrect claim about glaciers (why some are calling this 'glaciergate') was intention

Scripps Institution of Oceanography has always commanded my respect.  Some of the work of Jerome Naimas and Dan Cayan in the early 1980’s caused me to begin to understand El Nino and its effects on the weather around the world.  Their work was the inspiration for a session that I organized, The Pacific and How It Affects Us, at an American Meteorological Society conference in 1985.  So, it was with great sadness that I viewed the press release from Scripps this past week that signaled its transition from an institution of research to a political advocacy organization.  “Climate Change Denialism” along with a graphic logo, "Refuting Denialists," is unworthy of science in general and this great institution in particular. In my view, the content of the press release compounds problem created by its icons and headlines. It is the same old platitudes, starting with the first item. 1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. This is solid s

The news continues to break almost as fast as I can post. Here is the headline from the Sunday London Daily Mail. Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified Here are the opening paragraphs of the story... The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders. Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research. The story also acknowledged that the World Wildlife Fund, a political advocacy group, was the source of the nonsensical scientific "fact" and has claimed responsibility. We also get this tidbit: Last week, Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 203

Taking a break from 'global warming' for a moment, This map (click to enlarge), from the National Weather Service, shows the one week rainfalls across the Southwest. Note the areas with more than 15" in California!  Los Angeles received nearly a quarter of its annual rainfall in one week.

The news continues pour out of Europe with regard to what I have called (see post #1 below) the Himalayan Glacier Melt Fiasco and that some are now dubbing "Glaciergate."  Before reading further, please read the post below. OK, thanks. The Times of London  has been conducting an investigation into Glaciergate and has found there is an interesting connection between the head of the IPCC and the "conversation" that lead to the "glaciers melting by 2035 claim"... ( entire article here ) What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along w

Since the Climategate document dump, a number of enterprising scientists have been following up the various inconsistences and questions those documents pose. More recently, a Freedom of Information Act request yielded many more documents from NASA’s climate group.  So many charges and countercharges have been made, I have held off posting about them until I could take the time summarize them in a cogent manner. The first I will call the “Himalayan Glacier Melt Fiasco.” Turns out the IPCC, which holds itself out as the epitomy of peer-reviewed science, told us that the glaciers in the Himalayas were going to melt by the year 2035, just 25 years from now (found on page 49 of the IPCC synthesis report).   What does the IPCC say now? It has, however, recently come to our attention that a paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers.

Via Roger Pielke, Jr.'s blog is this  thought-provoking essay  written by Bill Gates regarding decarbonization and the best way to go about it.  I agree with him that "a little more insulation" is certainly not the answer if we believe it is imperativ e to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. To me, that "imperative" is a huge "if." That said, I agree 100% that another 2" of insulation in every home will not come anywhere close to that goal and that the real answer is innovation. Fuel farming (i.e., growing crops with high energy yield), revolutionary increases in solar energy to electricity conversion, new and much less expensive nuclear power, the possibilities are endless and -- most likely -- the answer will be something we have not even thought of. In the comments section, Sharon F. says,  As I have said, instead of bicycling to work our time might be better spent as calculus tutors so more kids might go into engineering... This dovetai

I am watching the  "Hope for Haiti Now "  telethon as I type this. They cut to Anderson Cooper a few minutes ago who, like so many, was complaining about the speed of the relief effort. I have  written about this before,  but I would like to do so again with an aerial tour via Google Earth. If you will recall, the seaport was destroyed by the quake, so it could not be used immediately after. Besides, ships -- while essential to the rebuilding effort -- are too slow to provide immediate relief. So, the only feasible way to get supplies and expert help to the nation was via the Port Au Prince Airport.  This photo, taken January 16, shows the one runway airport (click to enlarge). Note how a single aircraft blocks the taxiway between the small apron and the runway. The apron is full of planes and there are a number of planes parked on the grass. The infrastructure does not exist to quickly move and unload aircraft. Once the airplanes are unloaded, the supplies and rescuers

Here is the  story  of a young boy swept out of a pickup truck and presumed drowned in the Arizona flooding yesterday.  It is a cautionary tale about the danger of driving into a flooded area. It is never safe to drive into a flooded area, particularly if the water is flowing. You never know whether the road has been undermined or has washed away. As the National Weather Service says, "Turn around, don't drown."