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Heat top 2010 weather story says Weather Channel
The Weather Channel (TWC) has ranked the top 10 weather stories of 2010, and heat is #1.
TWC assembled an impressive list of heat records from around the world to justify its choice, including [bold, emphasis added]:
Hottest summer on record: Louisville... New York City ...Raleigh ... Asheville, N.C ... Greenville, S.C ... Miami ... W. Palm Beach ... Ft. Lauderdale ... Washington, D.C. ... Baltimore ... Monroe, La ... Little Rock ... Tallahassee ... Gainesville, Fla ... also for 10 states (RI, NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, TN, SC, GA, AL).
Globe's hottest first six months of a year on record
Hottest so late in the season: Memphis (100 on Sep. 20) ... Washington, D.C. (99 on Sep. 24) ... Los Angeles (98 on Nov. 3) ... San Diego (100 on Nov. 4) ... Fresno, Calif. (90 on Nov. 5).
Moscow, Russia's record hot summer: Parts of city reach 100 degrees for first time on record. Some parts for 5 days! Choking smog from peat fires in western Russia. Mortality rate doubled in Moscow. Head of state weather service: "Worst heatwave in 1000 years of recorded Russian history."
The above are just a few examples in TWC's excellent aggregation, so check out the full list yourself.
Perhaps the top weather story of 2010 in Washington, D.C. (though you could also make a strong argument for heat), "Snowmageddon" ranked 6 on TWC's list, which considered weather stories from all over the world. Nonetheless, TWC was clearly impressed by the mid-Atlantic's winter, noting historic snowfall totals about four times above average in Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlantic City, and Wilmington while recalling the individual major storms.
Here's the full top 10 list...
#1: Heating up the Globe
#2: Atlantic Hurricane Season
#3: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
#4: Pakistan Flooding
#5: Haiti Earthquake
#6: Winter 2009-2010: "Snowmageddon"
#7: U.S. Flooding
#8: Tornadoes
#9: Iceland Volcano
#10: Wild December
It's interesting that TWC included three stories that were not strictly weather in its list. The oil spill was an environmental disaster and the Haiti earthquake and Iceland volcano were geologic events. Nonetheless, I suppose it's not a stretch to argue these events should be included given the interconnectedness of the environmental/earth sciences with weather. Would I have included them? Probably not.
Early next week, Capital Weather Gang will post a comprehensive review of 2010's weather in Washington along with some of our favorite weather images of the year.
By
Jason Samenow
| December 30, 2010; 11:15 AM ET
Categories:
International Weather, Latest, U.S. Weather
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Posted by: BobMiller2 | December 30, 2010 11:33 AM | Report abuse
Any info on who coined the term "snowmageddon"??
Posted by: BobMiller2 | December 30, 2010 11:35 AM | Report abuse
My thoughts too Jason.
Oh well, money-making websites are so "SEO" these days, not much one can do...
Posted by: jaybird926 | December 30, 2010 11:41 AM | Report abuse
An earthquake is not "weather".
Posted by: FIREDRAGON47 | December 30, 2010 11:59 AM | Report abuse
Since this an international Top Ten, I'm wondering why the extreme cold and snow over Britain and Europe were not included in the Wild December category.
It's also interesting of what was not included, e.g., well above average number of tropical storms/hurricanes w/o landfall.
Posted by: SteveT-CapitalWeatherGang | December 30, 2010 12:02 PM | Report abuse
It's hard to include the oil spill and the earthquake in WEATHER stories for 2010...but we all know that volcanic activity can have an influence on future weather events.
Posted by: Bombo47jea | December 30, 2010 12:27 PM | Report abuse
Bombo47jea - true.
Steve, is it possible Americans have started tuning out our recent decade of above-average tropical activity? (in conjunction, we have had below-average U.S. landfalls, right?)
Posted by: Camden-CapitalWeatherGang | December 30, 2010 1:06 PM | Report abuse
"How about the "largest earthquake ever recorded in Washington DC" on July 16th !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5NFgoEyPZk&feature=fvw
Camden, people's attention span is limited and I'd not be surprised if most in areas vulnerable to hurricanes have already tuned out to the overblown alarmist rhetoric following the high impact years of 2004 and 2005. Until, that is, the next big hit by which time the lessons learned from the mid-decade experience will be the lessons forgotten.
Posted by: SteveT-CapitalWeatherGang | December 30, 2010 1:50 PM | Report abuse
Photos of the devastation wrought by the the DC earthquake
Posted by: SteveT-CapitalWeatherGang | December 30, 2010 1:53 PM | Report abuse
Top local weather-related story of 2010: Invasion of the Stinkbugs!
While heat and snow may come and go,
Stinkbugs last 'til winter is past.
Posted by: JerryFloyd1 | December 30, 2010 2:29 PM | Report abuse
Snowmageddon most certainly deserves better than this "list"!
Posted by: TheAnalyst | December 30, 2010 5:40 PM | Report abuse
I'd vote for the string of perfect weekends in Sept/Oct. Did we figure out if that broke any records?
Posted by: eric654 | December 30, 2010 5:58 PM | Report abuse
Found a video of Bastardi explaining why global warming is not a problem... http://www.accuweather.com/video/73146202001/why-the-globe-will-%28is%29-cool%28i.asp
What struck me is the seeming nonsense he said about kinetic energy, that because the relationship between T and KE is exponential, a 15- to 20-degree rise in temps in polar regions can be offset by just a 1-degree drop in temps over the warm equatorial ocean.
1) Unless I am much mistaken, I thought that temperature and (average) kinetic energy ARE linearly related, i.e. K = (3/2)kT.
2) Considering that he was talking about wet bulb stuff, I went and did the calculation for saturated air, taking latent heat into account. It is still way off. The advertised 1-degree drop can only accomodate a 5-degree rise, not a 15- to 20-degree one.
Um, am I missing something here? Or did he seriously just make so BS of an argument?
Posted by: cleombrota | December 30, 2010 8:55 PM | Report abuse
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I say Snowmaggedon is #1!!