http://nation.time.com/2014/01/17/the-polar-vortex-is-probably-coming-back/?hpt=hp_t3

In the first two weeks of 2014, much of the United States weathered a cold snap of unprecedented proportions, as a weather phenomenon known as the “polar vortex” shattered temperature records across the country. Just when you thought it was safe to look forward to February, another vortex is on the way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/01/16/return-of-the-polar-vortex-cold-at-times-downright-frigid-for-end-of-january-increasing-snow-chances/

The remainder or January is expected to be colder than normal, sometimes downright frigid.  The pattern is very similar to the pattern during the first week of January when temperatures plunged more than 20 degrees below normal in the so-called polar vortex event.   This time, the cold could stick around for a longer duration.

comment: Various meteorologists I have talked to are commenting on unusual weather and even some talking of recent volcanic eruptions causing a shift of the axis of the earth and magnetic north.   Is this normal or are their forces at work which may be causing real problems as they pelt the ionosphere and continue to "rush in where angels fear to tread"?

http://www.naturalnews.com/037953_weather_patterns_HAARP_storms.html

Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, a professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, believes that both the Americans and Russians have developed the capacity to manipulate climate with a new generation of "non-lethal weapons." According to Chossudovsky, scientific evidence suggests that "HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions." Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a respected physician and epidemiologist known for her work in the field of ionizing radiation, suspects that HAARP will be combined with space labs as a military operation, capable of delivering a beam of energy (comparable to a nuclear bomb) anywhere on earth.

The hype on Global Warming which has been the theme of many conferences and a push on controlling  the release of gases into the upper ionosphere by industrialized nations may perhaps have as many holes as those created by recent tampering with our weather in a layer vital to protecting us from UV light and skin cancer to most moving about above ground

Zealots and those proclaimed the solidity of this trend may find it is not really the case at all.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/fallacies.html

In reality, there is no guarantee, and perhaps not even a strong likelihood, that the thermometer-based temperature measurements truly reflect the average local temperatures free from any distortions. There is also no proof that the calculations of average global temperatures are consistent and accurate. For example, it is known that at least two of the three leading climate agencies use very different data handling methods and it follows that at least one of them is likely to be incorrect.

It is stating the obvious to say that if we don't know what the global average temperature has been and currently is, then it is difficult to argue that the world is warming at all, let alone to understand to what degree any alleged change has a human cause.

conclusion: The reason for concern on a Flu focused chat site?  The Flu continues to spread and it is not a pleasant picture with many people severely ill and the last thing we need in the U.S. as we approach February when numbers may continue to increase is another polar vortex to shift down ruining the northern part of the U.S. with more icy bone-chilling temperatures, snow, icy roads, closed airports  and staying that way for some time.

Only God can predict the weather really, but despite almost consist wrong predictions and radio stations reporting clear skies in the midst of pouring rain, they will continue to comfort and flood the news with "the chilling cold of winter in the northern hemisphere 2014,  is past."

In the United States and perhaps the world, for many of us may be in for an especially long, cold, lonely winter. 

Ice Age versus the spin of the opposite in the media?

http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/155225/

Chicago - A new "Little Ice Age" could begin in just four years, predicted Habibullo Abdssamatov the head of space research at St. Peersburg's Pulkovo Astrononical Observatory in Russia. Abdussamatov was speaking yesterday at the Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago, which began Sunday and ends today. 

Medclinician

I better run out and buy a fir coat.ice age is on its way.

The sun is going or is in a minimum stage rather than lots of activity. There are scientists that are saying that we could be in for a minimum as big as the Maunder minimum in mid 1600's. This is some of the reason that we are having such cold weather.

In the Mid 1600's the Thames river froze over as did many rivers in Europe. Now some scientists say that even if we have a minimum as cold as 1645 it will not effect Global Warming.

Something is going on but I find it interesting that Farmer's Almanac predicted this very cold winter in the U.S. I stocked up on more wood this year than I ever had based on the Almanac and I have used more wood than ever this year.

I am going to stock up again this fall on more. I usually get 2 cords per year last fall I got 3 cords. I will have at least 2 cords left and I will order 3 cords again this fall.

I want to have enough wood so that if things get bad I can cut my own wood, split it and wait 1 year for it to get dry.


From Firewood 101 Lumberjacks:

Firewood typically will reach its driest state after about 9 months, or more importantly, one summer. The heat, wind, and lack of precipitation are what dry the wood. After a summer, the wood will reach a moisture content of about <20 %. Once it reaches this state, it doesn't matter if the wood is 9 months or 9 years, the wood won't get any drier. There are variables such as wood type, weather conditions, air flow etc., but typically a summer season is the most crucial factor. It should be noted that wood has to be cut AND split in order to dry in this period. Wood that is cut for 9 months and then split a week prior to being sold will not be dry. With this drying schedule, it becomes apparent how much time goes into producing good dry firewood.

Flu-mom- That's some really good info! However, I think the nine month rule depends on your relative humidity. Our summers here are very humid and our winters very dry so wood here drys out better in the winter. I try to keep two years worth of wood cut, split and stacked. That way I know I have enough.   

Promises of warmer weather continue amid forecasts of even icier temperatures in the week to come. There is a definite pattern in CNN news articles of positive little quips and comments on how cute this is --

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/22/us/winter-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- New Yorkers awoke Wednesday morning to the sound of plows clearing the streets. In Washington, federal workers got in a few extra zzz's. And in Boston, parents scrambled to make other arrangements as kids enjoyed a snow day.

comment: How quaint; "as kids enjoyed a snow day".

Well here is an example of a snow day which is a rather ominous prediction of what could happen if the weather turns really cold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. The film depicts fictional catastrophic climatic effects in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling and leads to a new ice age.

comment: My child is not enjoying a snow day. As per conversation with DrJohn in WV, it is nasty, incredibly cold, and the best option is to stay inside as the temperatures continue to drop with a high wind chill factor.

A second contact in Chicago is holed up and braving dropping temps hoping to avoid a power outage and cannot go anywhere.

http://blog.chicagoweathercenter.com/2014/01/22/cold-front-first-brings-snow-then-dangerous-wind-chills/

A wind Chill Advisory is in effect from 9PM CST this evening until 10AM CST Thursday morning for northeast Illinois, southeast Wisconsin and northwest Indiana including the Chicago area for wind chills between -20 and -30 degrees.

comment: Even the seasoned Northerner will find it a tough go even getting to 7-11 for a pack of cigarettes on foot much less a car with snowplows hard pressed in suburban areas with the schools closed.

With people camped at airports,

"The greatest snowfall is likely for southern New England, where 12 to 18 inches of snow is a distinct possibility!" said D. Hamrick of the National Weather Service. "It will definitely look and feel like a winter wonderland."

comment: I can imagine writer of this article staring out a window as it is toasty warm inside where they are while the poor and homeless, wandering and freezing beneath overpasses, do not find this anything like "a winter wonderland".

The post left by WillobyBrat including

quote -
Incidentally, we are in a short warm patch in the middle of an ice age, and the solar system is going through a dirty patch in space.

is not particularly comforting. The determination "in the middle of an ice age" would not seem to reinforce the whole global warming theme that has been so widely promoted and is really a topic with some considerable questions.

Once more I return to the windy city and look to what is coming next Monday

7/-8 degrees


Alaska appears to balmy compared to large portions of the U.S. with 32 degrees in some places during the day.

Conclusion: Despite the continuing promises of "the storm beginning to go away in the afternoon" there is more snow coming and those temps are going to hit the roads and possibly even power lines if the snow continues. 

This is not reassuring as was such talk in California when snow appears on the mountains and there was once a party in Silicon Valley when it snowed for the first time in decades. The veterans from high altitudes, North Dakota, Canada, and Alaska would say "You think this is cold? It is too hot in here and look annoyed at the thermostat with their 4 layers of clothing which they were used to.

No matter how used to cold you are, you are going to be hard pressed by a -15 degree temp with a -20 chill factor.

And even more unhappy if you are spiking a high temperature, the emergency rooms are closed and the hospitals are full as the new strain of Flu continues to spread.

Health care- flu season - arctic temperatures - we are no longer in Kansas (Wizard of Oz) - nor would we be much better if we were there tonight

http://www.kansas.com/weather/

at 5 degrees.  Weather forecast for a large part of the United States - cold and going to get colder.

Medclinician

When I began this thread there was far less evidence to support a rather intense prediction - the Coming of an Ice Age

New breaking news concurs and states a "mini-Ice Age" may be on its way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/solar-lull-little-ice-age-sun-scientists_n_4645248.html?utm_hp_ref=science

If you thought the polar vortex was bad, get a load of a new climate phenomenon that just might be coming our way.

Scientists say we could be headed for another "Little Ice Age," given how eerily calm the sun has been in recent years.

First, a bit of background. The sun goes through cycles that last roughly 11 years, marked by the ebb and flow of sunspots on its surface. At peak sunspot activity, the so-called solar maximum, the sun sports lots of sunspots and is steadily unleashing solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Since our current solar cycle, Number 24, kicked off in 2008, the number of sunspots observed has been half of what heliophysicists expected.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this," Dr. Richard Harrison, head of space physics at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, told the BBC. "If you want to go back to see when the sun was this inactive in terms of the minimum we’ve just had and the peak that we have now, you’ve got to go back about 100 years.”

Now, being in a "solar lull" does not mean the sun is completely dormant.

"The sun is most definitely not 'asleep,'" Dr. C. Alex Young, solar astrophysicist and associate science director in the Heliophysics Science Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told The Huffington Post in an email. In fact, on January 7th, 2014, NASA observed a massive solar flare burst from a sunspot group measured to be "some seven Earth's across."

But a relatively quiet sun could cause problems. Some scientists say that this period of weak solar activity may mirror what happened before the so-called Maunder Minimum of 1645 to 1715 -- a period named after solar astronomers Annie and E. Walter Maunder, who studied sunspots and helped identify the sun's strange activity in the latter part of the 17th Century. That time period saw only 30 sunspots (one one-thousandth of what would be expected) and coincided with a "Little Ice Age" in Europe, during which the Thames River and the Baltic Sea froze over.

Medclinician

I  also saw that the Farmer's Almanac had predicted a bad winter this year.  They also said the super bowl was going to be cold and wet. 

On top of that Joe Bastardi  had predicted a period of colder winters about 3 yrs ago and he's been proven correct.  He said that the current weather setup is a 'cycle' that is mirroring what we had in the 70s and early 80s.  He had predicted it would last from 3 yrs to 10 yrs and said we'd just have to keep an eye on it.

Well, so far he's hit the nail on the head.  I keep hearing people whining about how cold it is and how it's never been this cold.... duh!  It was in the single digits in the early to mid 80s here in central NC for days and weeks.  I remember quite well because I was from the coastal area and thought it was so cool to keep getting so much snow.  My whole college experience (2 yrs in coastal town and 6 in Raleigh) were filled with bad winters and record snowfalls and one year we even had a record (never been seen before or since) 10 inches of sleet fall.  I mean it was incredible and looked like snow but was ice so it broke the snow plows.  The temps were in the single digits that whole week so it didn't melt much and the roads didn't get cleared until after a full week but that ice was still sitting in mounds in parking lots for a whole month later in 80 degree temps slowly melting.  People from up north would hear about those mounds of ice and didn't believe it and came down to see it in person.  It was amazing!

and now for some reason (fears of global warming I suspect), everyone is in a tither about the cold and the repeated alberta clippers which have been renamed as 'polar vortexes' in the MSM.  yes, both names apply but what was wrong with alberta clipper?  Not dramatic enough?

I pray for those who are being hurt by this weather.  Those who need heat and can't pay for it.  Those who need the work but can't get to work.  Those who need a certain amount of hours to work in order to keep their health coverage but won't be able to if they can't get to work or if work is closed due to the weather.  I love snow but not if it hurts others. 

Sorry, just needed to vent.

well, Stossel is on fox news right now with a show all about this very topic and none of his 'experts' on the topic are agreeing.

This is all interesting but I just keep increasing my wood pile every year. I WAS only going to get 2 cords this next fall but I am going to get 3 cords again. I have plenty of space to store so why not!

If it gets really cold I will stay warm!

This will be the day when the brunt of the second Polar Vortex really hits the U.S. and temperatures will drop to record lows with snow driven by high winds in some areas. An unconfirmed report from a personal source told me of -41 in Sweden with a cold wave freezing a whole lake in seconds as the fish tried to outrun it and were soon frozen solid in the ice.

This was painfully reminiscent of a Mastodon found frozen solid with food in its mouth during a day of cold which brought on the last Ice Age.

No one I have talked online is looking forward to today and I have received reports already of bitter cold -  -6 degrees yesterday evening in New York  and tonight in Chicago it looks very bad.

 http://www.chicagoweathercenter.com/forecast/

-4 F to -19 F

comment: at 40 degrees below zero it is dangerous to go outside and some people would freeze in a matter of minutes.

I saw no major headlines in the main media as we hit a high spot in the waves of arctic air which may proceed a period which could last from now until 2070.  The weather channel on cable has been dropped ironically as they squabble over prices. 

Yet in the weather news we see pretty intense numbers for much of the U.S.

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-forecast/arctic-cold-finish-january-20140117

-25 F in New York City coming not even counting the wind chill.

Jacksonville, Florida in the middle 20s.

Forecast - Very cold - Propane shortage.

No real projections are being broadcast of the effect on this on the airports, those in the South with snow, and a cold blast which covers more than half of the United States.

Medclinician

Well, the media finally woke up and have started reporting stories on the Arctic Vortex sweeping much of the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/28/us/winter-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

"This is a very dangerous situation," Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said in the afternoon. "People need to stay at home. They need to stay there until conditions improve."

Motorists in major metropolitan areas including Atlanta sat trapped in gridlock as schools and offices shut down, unleashing hordes of vehicles onto slushy roadways.

While Northerners may laugh at their Southern friends' panic over a dusting of snow, the threat is real: With relatively few resources to battle snow and ice, public works crews may have a difficult time keeping up with any significant accumulation.

Add to that the fact that millions of Southern drivers aren't used to driving on snow or ice, and things were getting tricky fast.

Snowflakes like you've never seen them before

The storms also snarled air travel across the country.

Airlines on Tuesday canceled more than 3,100 flights within, into or out of the United States, with hundreds each at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Houston's George Bush International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks cancellations due to both weather and mechanical problems.

All told, about 140 million people in 34 states were under some sort of winter weather warning or advisory, from snow and ice to bitterly cold wind chills, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.

Here in Australia we are also experiencing unusual extreme weather patterns. I have a farm in north western NSW that is currently experiencing extreme drought. The usual average rain in our area for January is 94mm, this month we have had 4mm, it was the same last month and the one before that, in fact it hasn't rained since April 2013. The fruit trees have foliage, but didn't flower or fruit again this year (3rd year in a row). My 4 dams are dry, but I have 25,000l tanked water for our use.

Today, I noticed this in the press,

El Nino May Return as Models Signal Warming of Pacific Ocean
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- An El Nino weather pattern, which can parch Australia and parts of Asia while bringing rains to South America, may occur in the coming months as the Pacific Ocean warms, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

Most climate models suggest the tropical Pacific will warm through the southern autumn and winter, the bureau said in a statement today. Some models predict this warming may approach El Nino thresholds by early winter, it said. Australia’s autumn runs from March to May and winter is from June to August.

El Ninos, which are caused by the warming of the Pacific, affect weather worldwide and can roil agricultural markets as farmers contend with drought or too much rain. An El Nino trend is likely to develop this year, Gavin Schmidt, deputy director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said this month. It’s been almost five years since the last event, which typically occurs every two to seven years, according to Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/El-Nino-May-Return-as-Models-Signal-Warming-of-5181990.php

I've never seen my land this dry and it looks like it's set to continue. I hope to God we don't have a fire.

i opt for an Ice Age ,

Reason,

the melting ice on Greenland will shut down the Global Conveyer ,

plunging the Northern Hemisphere into an Ice Age

carbon20 wrote: Cold? Blame the warm Pacific Ocean Above-average water temperatures bent jet stream north and arctic air south The Pacific Ocean may be thousands of miles from Chicago, but higher temperatures in the gigantic body of water could still be partly to blame for the arctic air that has come carpetbagging into the Midwest this season, according to meteorologists. Unusually warm conditions in the northern Pacific helped give rise this fall to a massive dome of mild air over western North America. Acting like a chute, that ridge has hurtled bitter blasts into the area since about November, sent temperatures plunging during the "polar vortex" earlier this month and is expected to keep the cold coming for the remainder of the winter. That means that — at least for now — the pipe-freezing, frostbiting chill more normally associated with Alaska and Canada is here to stay. "The problem is, a pattern like this feeds on itself," said WGN meteorologist Tom Skilling. "They keep coming at you in waves." There will be intermittent respites. For instance, after the mercury falls below zero Tuesday, temperatures are expected to rise into the upper 20s by the end of the week. Yet in the coming month, weather forecast models hint at the probability of additional bitter flirtations.

This is one aspect of what is happening and also the water is losing it's salinity as the ice caps melt from the global warming.

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/global-warming-affect-ocean-currents

Some scientists have proposed that global warming could potentially disrupt thermohaline circulation (THC), which is a massive, worldwide system of ocean currents that is responsive to many factors, including the temperature of various climates, ocean depth and salt content in the seawater.

Global warming is responsible for melting huge amounts of Arctic ice. As this ice melts, voluminous amounts of cold, fresh water dump into the world's oceans. This fresh water dilutes the warm water in ocean currents and disrupts them. A 2005 study of the North Atlantic, for example, has shown that this flow of fresh water already has reduced Gulf Stream currents by as much as 30 percent [source: Schmidt and Mann]. This effect on the thermohaline circulation of the ocean system could even cause a climate change chain reaction. Ocean currents have a great influence on the climates of different regions around the world. As climate change causes changes in ocean currents, new ocean currents could begin to cause additional changes in regional climates [source: NOAA].

Global warming's effect on the oceans is not limited to current alteration. Research has shown that Earth's average temperatures are slowly rising, and with these average temperatures, the sea level is rising as well. Many believe this is happening because the icebergs that float throughout the ocean are melting. In actuality, melting icebergs do not significantly affect ocean levels. Icebergs are floating masses, so they already displace water and raise sea levels, whether they are solid or liquid. However, a continuous increase in temperature can still raise sea levels in powerful ways: Warmer seasons can cause glaciers and parts of the polar ice caps to weaken and crack apart, dropping more ice into the ocean. This causes the ocean level to rise. Another reason that ocean levels are rising is fluctuation in the temperature of liquid water. Heat makes water expand, so it takes up more space, and as a result, the ocean rises.

comment: Beyond the hard care science there a few realities. There is nothing that can be done fast enough or with the cooperation globally on industrial nations to fix this quickly enough to prevent what is currently happening.

A conservative viewpoint is that although a few arctic vortexes do not an Ice Age make does not dampen the effect of people in the South being hit with snow and unprepared to deal with and stranded at work, at schools, and on slick roads.

The bottom line is -- how long is this going to go on?  Is this the last cold wave or will there be more?  It is rather clear this is not hitting everyone. I am sitting in the Bay area in shorts at 6:00 a.m. with the heater off. It is not that cold.

I sympathize with the user who posted we have in the middle of a drought and here in the West and in the Sunbelt there are some high temps up in the 80s in the middle of this freeze hitting the Midwest and the East Coast.

As my lady friend pointed out IRL, the people have not panicked yet, but people are getting pretty stressed holed up and trapped in places as they dump dirt on the roads having no salt being a Southern state unaccustomed to snow.

The media is now swarmed with stories of people in real trouble and another bottom line is what can be done or even could have been done or would have been done, to prepare for this?

In terms of affecting our lives at a hard time in the Flu season which is all over the United States and troubled health care - it does - a lot.

There has become a kind of attitude polarity from person used to cold temperatures saying - "Do you think this is cold?"  Well, it is cold. We are not ready for the northern U.S. to have Canadian climate. The main cities to the North i.e. New York and Chicago are hit hard with flights cancelled and there may be more cold on the way.

When a person's house freezes over and they can't get in it- it is too cold. When a friend's car I spoke to is covered with an inch thick of solid ice you can't pee on the lock to get your key in and open the door.

Medclinician

If 3 Inches Of Snow Can Cause This Much Chaos In Atlanta, What Will Economic Collapse Look Like?

http://www.blacklistednews.com/If_3_Inches_Of_Snow_Can_Cause_This_Much_Chaos_In_Atlanta%2C_What_Will_Economic_Collapse_Look_Like%3F/32461/0/38/38/Y/M.html

"So if three inches of snow can cause this much chaos in one of our major cities, what will a full-blown economic collapse look like? Most Americans have no idea how fragile our way of life is. In the event of a major natural disaster, a massive EMP blast or a complete economic meltdown, our lives would change very rapidly, and most people are totally unprepared for that."

"So what would happen if a real crisis happened?

For instance, what would happen if something caused the trucks in America to stop running?

What would life look like?

Well, according to a report put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled “When Trucks Stop, America Stops“, life would get “apocalyptic” quite rapidly…

A Timeline Showing the Deterioration of Major Industries Following a Truck Stoppage

The first 24 hours

• Delivery of medical supplies to the affected area will cease.
• Hospitals will run out of basic supplies such as syringes and catheters within hours. Radiopharmaceuticals will deteriorate and become unusable.
• Service stations will begin to run out of fuel.
• Manufacturers using just-in-time manufacturing will develop component shortages.
• U.S. mail and other package delivery will cease.

Within one day

• Food shortages will begin to develop.
• Automobile fuel availability and delivery will dwindle, leading to skyrocketing prices and long lines at the gas pumps.
• Without manufacturing components and trucks for product delivery,
assembly lines will shut down, putting thousands out of work.

Within two to three days

• Food shortages will escalate, especially in the face of hoarding and consumer panic.
• Supplies of essentials—such as bottled water, powdered milk, and
canned meat—at major retailers will disappear.
• ATMs will run out of cash and banks will be unable to process
transactions.
• Service stations will completely run out of fuel for autos and trucks.
• Garbage will start piling up in urban and suburban areas.
• Container ships will sit idle in ports and rail transport will be disrupted, eventually coming to a standstill.

Within a week

• Automobile travel will cease due to the lack of fuel. Without autos and busses, many people will not be able to get to work, shop for groceries, or access medical care.
• Hospitals will begin to exhaust oxygen supplies.

Within two weeks

• The nation’s clean water supply will begin to run dry.

Within four weeks

• The nation will exhaust its clean water supply and water will be safe for drinking only after boiling. As a result gastrointestinal illnesses will increase, further taxing an already weakened health care system.

This timeline presents only the primary effects of a freeze on truck travel. Secondary effects must be considered as well, such as inability to maintain telecommunications service, reduced law enforcement, increased crime, increased illness and injury, higher death rates, and likely, civil unrest"

When Trucks Stop,America STOPS

http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/What%20We%20Do/Image%20and%20Outreach%20Programs/When%20Trucks%20Stop%20America%20Stops.pdf

ummm

a pandemic could easily shut down large parts of the economy

studies show 30% or better of doctors and nurses would be absent from their jobs

truck drivers would be out sick

things could  EASILY grind to a halt

utility company employees would be sorely missed

eg

a hurricane or ice storm brings down the power lines

instead of a company having 200 linemen working to restore power

they might have half that

need I go on ???

Planning for disaster includes pandemics. FEMA courses dealing with pandemics emphasize planning for a 40 percent absentee rate along with disruption for both customers and suppliers, service providers, transportation providers and just about everything else associated with commerce and business. The timeline presented above is an excellent forecast of what will happen if we have a major pandemic - - Yes it pertains to the flu.

http://avianflutalk.com/new_reply_form.asp?TID=30658&PN=2&TR=34

Another storm hits the U.S.

Snowfall in excess of one foot is also expected in the snow-thirsty Sierra of California, which is welcomed news for concerns about California reservoir levels heavily dependent on spring snowmelt from the Sierra and other nearby ranges. As of January 29, snow water content in the Sierra was only 11-20 percent of average for this time of year.

comment: While this storm is a God send to California during its drought and will hit the much needed icepack, it is likely to create more messes as it travels across the MidWest and to the East Coast.

Unnatural cold and snow to the Southern states is creating not only hardship for drivers but increasing difficulty for Preppers as we in the U.S. will see a further hit on the economy and cold fronts making people more likely to have lower resistance and catch the flu.

A period of extreme cold and winter in the Northern Hemisphere is one reason we have a Flu season in the first place and  plays a huge part in our planning for a Pandemic and time when the viruses mutate and many more people become infected.

The Storm's name is Maximus.

This isn't just a mountain event either. Significant snow accumulations over six inches are also expected along parts of the High Plains of Montana, southern Wyoming, northeast Colorado and the Panhandle of western Nebraska, including Denver and Cheyenne, Wyo, as well as the Salt Lake Valley.

Maximus isn't just a western concern, however.

Conclusion: There is a real possibility of an approaching Ice Age. The climate is  definitely askew with Sun low activity, dilution of the Gulf Stream as large amounts of ice melt and we are losing the warming effect necessary to keep glaciers from forming much further down south. 

As I said a year before the 2009 Pandemic, not if, but when.  It is not a matter of it if a small Ice Age is coming, despite the fact we are in an Ice Age already.  It is whether another period of cooling has started and how fast and how much it will be. A small Ice Age is predicted by some as lasting for perhaps 50 years from 2020 -2070. 

Watching and waiting - and preparing - that is what many of us do here on AFT.

Medclinician

Watching news tonight. Weather people made the point that in Atlanta, warm rain fell on cold ground and then froze before snow fell. So, there was more than a few inches of snow to deal with. I've seen his before - - ice storms are tough to deal with.

If you put [ url ]  [ /url ]  *no spaces between brackets and urls* ,  with the link inbetween the two urls brackets, it'll be clickable :)

some years ago a book called the Coming Global Superstorm was written by a guy named Strieber

the movie The Day After Tomorrow was based on it

at the time the book and theory presented were basically laughed out of town by most

now I'm not so sure he wasn't on to something

here's his theory

"the sequence of events is this:There has to be greenhouse warming,and it has to reach such an extreme that the Arctic itself begins to melt>The Arctic Ocean has to be flooded with enough fresh water from that melt to cause it to get warm enough so that the temperature differential with tropical waters equalizes sufficiently to cause the current to weaken. When the current ceases to penetrate into Arctic waters,their temperature will drop. This will cause the tropical air flow to stop and will result in cold air,which has been held high in the Arctic,to plunge southward,colliding with the warm air mass that has move north. The situation will be exacerbated by the extreme cold of the stratosphere ,which will greatly intensify the violence of the storms that result.
If these conditions are met,vast storms will be INEVITABLE." (my emphasis)

but of course a couple of bad storms and one bad winter do not a climate make

BUT

IF patterns start to emerge....

This has to be the dumbest one yet, polar vortex, new ice age, do me a favor and get a life. It's called winter, get over it and quit trying to make up stuff. So far on this site the sky has not fallen,you people set on the internet and try to find something that's going to happen and so far you can not find anything.

Technophobe, your reply to me is laughable, first of all I promise you no one on this site is more prepared for a disaster than I am, however after saying that most people on this site starts the sky fallen for some people, and they get scared and run out and start buying all kind of supplies they cannot afford, this is called fear mongering and that is flat out wrong. I'm not saying your doing it but there are people on this site that does and they cause financial hardship for people who don't have the extra money to spend on stuff they think they need right now to survive. If I was a little rude I'm sorry about that but some people need to be more responsible on what they say and post.Finally I believe Albert should reply to this thread and I hope he can see my point in all this.