Before February, winter in Washington was looking cold and dry. Early January was brutally cold here, and the lack of rainfall had us worried about drought. Then last month happened.

Last month was the third-warmest February on record in Washington, where records go back to 1872. This means we’ve now had our warmest and third-warmest Februarys back-to-back, in 2017 and 2018. Last month was 6.3 degrees warmer than average.

Two days after Governor Steve Bullock declared a state of emergency for parts of the state due to severe winter weather, he got a tour of Browning.

Bullock flew to the Blackfeet Reservation with the Montana Army National Guard on Thursday.

He met with Blackfeet leaders to discuss what help they need, and then boarded a bus and was driven through town to see how big of a problem the snow has become.

As the bus drove down roads, some drifts rose to the tops of homes and snow banks were so tall, they blocked the view from the bus.

Bullock says seeing this situation in person really gave him an appreciation for the work everyone has been doing to help the communities hit hardest by this weather.

The Heart Butte community joined together on Thursday to help stranded families get food and supplies.

Winter storm hitting harder than expected

A "high-impact" winter storm is already hammering Upstate New York. By 8 a.m. 20 inches of snow had fallen in the hills south of Buffalo. The heaviest snow will fall at higher elevations; the Catskills could get 2 feet, and the hills south of Syracuse and in the Southern Tier could see 12 to 18 inches.

"...RECORD DAILY SNOWFALL SET AT BUFFALO NY TODAY...A RECORD DAILY SNOWFALL OF 8.4 INCHES WAS SET TODAY AT BUFFALO. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 6.5 INCHES SET IN 1914.NOTE THAT THIS IS SNOWFALL THROUGH 7 AM...WITH SOME ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATION EXPECTED."

Intense winter weather continues to wreak havoc on Europe as frigid temperatures, heavy snowfall and icy roads create treacherous conditions.

More than 35 people have died in Belgium, England, Scotland, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Spain, France and Germany in weather-related accidents.

Schools and universities have been shut due to blizzards and icing.

Red alerts were issued in England, Scotland, Wales, Croatia and Sweden while an orange alert was declared in France, Spain and Belgium and a yellow alert in the Netherlands.

Parts of the Country received all time high snow. New records were set in numerous towns and settlements ranging from 1,5 meters to nearly full 2,0 meters of snow (Delnice 182 cm (6 ft) on Feb. 28th).

Although affected region is prone to high snows, this event was way out of ordinary. Army Command dispatched 1,000 soldiers with 100 pieces of clearing equipment to assist local services in clearing roads and reaching isolated settlements. It was snowy and cold for the whole past week along Adriatic coast, with snow reaching as far as Dubrovnik and outer Islands.

There were also new negative temperature records on Northern Adriatic, with port town of Rijeka setting new low temp record for the late February with only -9 C.

Yes. How could we ever have doubted it? All this freezing weather we’ve been having is, of course, yet another sign that global warming is real. And anyway, we shouldn’t take any notice of all this white stuff that is shutting down schools, making journeys impossible, and generally freezing our asses off. Rather, we should be focusing our attention on what’s happening way to the north where no one actually lives. Apparently.

Europe remained in the grip of the Best from the East on Friday as temperatures continued to hover below freezing and snow fell across the continent.

Making the most of the bad weather, families in Amsterdam - where the temperature was -1C on Friday - decided skate down the city's frozen canals.

Dozens of men, women and children strapped on their blades and glided along the Prinsengracht canal on Friday, with people even taking their dogs out over the frozen water.

Water authorities imposed a ban on boats on some of the city's canals this week and closed locks and sluices to help the ice develop.

The Northeast is bracing for a 'bombogenesis' that experts say will bring violent 80mph wind, torrential downpour, snow and heavy flooding, resembling the harshness of January's 'bomb cyclone'.

Weather experts said Thursday that Winter Storm Riley will undergo 'bombogenesis', caused by a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure of at least 24 millibars in a period of 24 hours or less.

The drop in atmospheric pressure will force the storm to form into an intense nor'easter into Friday.

A sudden pressure plummet on Friday is expected to hit the Atlantic coast leading into Saturday.

'Please take this storm seriously,' the National Weather Service in Boston said. 'For those living along the coast, this is a LIFE & DEATH situation.'

Red alert: Country in lockdown as Ireland braces for 'unprecedented' blizzard
Civil Defence mount dozens of operations in 21 counties over the past 48 hours
All schools, colleges and third level institutions closed
Gas Networks Ireland and ESB Networks 'confident there will be no major outages'
Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Luas confirm they will not operate on Friday
Bus Eireann will not operate todayy, but may be able to operate some services in less affected areas tomorrow
Ryanair and Aer Lingus cancel all flights from Ireland on Friday
People urged to be home by 4pm Thursday and stay indoors until Friday 3pm
Taoiseach urges people to pay heed to warning
Storm poses serious threat to life
People should not be on the road today unless it's emergency

THE UK’s largest rail companies have been accused of profiting from passengers’ misery as they pocket millions of pounds in compensation while Britons are hit by cancellations and delays caused by blizzards and sub-zero temperatures.

The Arctic is melting catastrophically! Sea ice levels are experiencing their most precipitous decline in 1500 years! Something must be done – and fast…
Well, so claims the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and we know by now what that means, don’t we?

Yep: the Arctic sea ice is doing just fine. Yep: yet again, the NOAA is telling porkies.

As usual, Paul Homewood has got its number.

Snow, ice, and sub-zero temperatures will hit Milton Keynes this week.

Forecasters at the Met Met Office are predicting the 'Beast from the East' will bring bitter winter weather.

While it will be very cold and there will be snow Milton Keynes looks like it may escape some of the worse weather.

One yellow warning is in place, with nearby towns like Northampton and Kettering being hit by an amber warning - which means up to 15cm of snow.

Even the Swedish prime minister got caught up in the snow chaos on Monday. Here's The Local's live blog of the "beast from the east".

Ørsted must repair up to 2,000 wind turbine blades because the leading edge of the blades have become worn down after just a few years at sea.

The company has a total of 646 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa, which may potentially be affected to some extent, Ørsted confirmed.

The wind turbine owner will not disclose the bill, but says that the financial significance is “small”.

Siemens Gamesa also does not want to comment on the costs, but the company’s Danish subsidiary has just provided 4.5 billion Danish Krone ($750 million) or 16% of its revenue to guarantee its commitments. […]

A group of children in Russia’s northeastern Yakutia Republic have, literally, poured cold water over Leonardo DiCaprio’s concerns that temperatures there have reached record lows.

The children, dressed in karate gear, delivered an ‘ice cool’ video message to the Hollywood actor and environmental activist as they stood topless on the snow-covered ground and threw buckets of freezing water over themselves.

"Hello Leo! Thank you for thinking of us. Don't worry, we are all good. The sun is even shining today. Come visit us, we'll pour cool water. Good luck!", one boy from Yakutsk declared to the camera.

Behind former cyclone Gita is a cold snap, which has brought a dusting of snow to the hills between Queenstown and Wanaka.

The southerly flow behind the cyclone has brought in cold air, MetService said, taking temperatures down to 0.3C on the Crown Range Rd, with snow overnight.

Some of New Zealand's ski fields also reported a dusting of snow on Tuesday. Cardrona Alpine Resort has posted an image on Instagram of snow at the South Island resort.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has yet again been caught exaggerating ‘global warming’ by fiddling with the raw temperature data.
This time, that data concerns the recent record-breaking cold across the northeastern U.S. which NOAA is trying to erase from history.

If you believe NOAA’s charts, there was nothing particularly unusual about this winter’s cold weather which caused sharks to freeze in the ocean and iguanas to drop out of trees.

Here is NOAA’s January 2018 chart for Northeast U.S. – an area which includes New England along with NY, PA, NJ, DE and MD.

You’d never guess from it that those regions had just experienced record-breaking cold, would you?

That’s because, as Paul Homewood has discovered, NOAA has been cooking the books. Yet again – presumably for reasons more to do with ideology than meteorology – NOAA has adjusted past temperatures to look colder than they were and recent temperatures to look warmer than they were.

Collisions forced officials to close a stretch of Interstate 90 in central Washington on Saturday as snow and cold began to invade the northwestern United States.

Washington Department of Transportation reported that westbound I-90 was closed near Ellensburg around midday Saturday, local time, “due to collisions.”

Snow had spread across Ellensburg during the morning hours prior to the accidents.

Around the same time, another stretch of the interstate was closed to westbound traffic near the summit of Snoqualmie Pass due to avalanche control.

Climate alarmists have found a new excuse for the recent dramatic bout of cold weather in the Southeast U.S. which has caused iguanas to drop out of trees in Florida and snow to settle on beaches in North Carolina: a mysterious “hole” in global warming.

According to a scientific study published this month, the Southeast’s colder winter weather is part of an isolated trend, linked to a more wavy pattern in the jet stream that crosses North America. That dipping jet stream allows arctic air to plunge into the Southeast. Scientists call this colder weather a “hole” in overall global warming, or a “warming hole.”

“What we are looking at is an anomaly,” said Jonathan M. Winter, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth University and the principle investigator in the study. “The Southeast is the exception to the rule.”

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has given its prestigious award for Public Engagement with Science to climate scientist, Michael E. Mann.
No, this is not a joke – though it should be.

That’s Michael Mann as in the creator of possibly the most discredited artefact in climate science history: the ludicrous, fabricated “Hockey Stick.”

That’s Michael Mann, the litigious activist and vexatious Twitter troll who dismisses any scientist who disagrees with him as a “denier”; who was exposed in the Climategate emails trying to ruin the careers of his opponents and attempting to shut down the journals who published them.

That’s Michael Mann, the guy who has erroneously claimed to be a Nobel prizewinner on the hilarious basis that, as one of the hundreds of contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he sorta kinda qualifies on account of the fact that the IPCC won the prize in 2007.

Scientists are all seemingly on the same page for once and declaring that the sun’s decreased output could fling Earth into a mini ice age. The scientists determined, based on 20 years of observations and collected data, that the sun will be nearly seven percent cooler and dimmer by 2050 causing a mini ice age.

According to Money Control, a research team based at the University of California in San Diego believe that they have figured out a way to track the sun’s 11-year-cycle. Our sun goes through an 11-year-cycle where it experiences active and rather quiet periods, known as the solar maximum and solar minimum. Now, the researchers believe they have worked out when the next solar minimum could occur.

During a solar minimum, the sun’s magnetism decreases, fewer sunspots form, and less ultraviolet radiation actually makes it to the surface of planet Earth. These conditions mean the sun’s surface appears clearer and becomes dimmer.

Usually, snow blowers would be in the window display facing the street at Havre Hardware and Home, but it was empty Monday.

“It’s been a good winter for business,” says manager Scott Stockdill, noting he’s sold out of snow blowers, not to mention shovels. Even his stock of toboggans is running low.

It’s been a good winter for snow in this community of 9,800, at least to date, as Stockdill can attest.

As of Monday, Feb. 12, snowfall in Havre was 70 inches, with yet another storm expected to hit the snow-battered city Wednesday afternoon.

TRNN speaks with Clayton Thomas-Muller, an indigenous and environmental activist who challenged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's pro-pipeline rhetoric during the PM's cross-country town hall tour

Moroccan authorities announced February 6 they've temporarily closed nearly 900 schools due to cold wave and severe weather conditions expected to continue affecting the country. At the same time, southern Morocco experienced its second snow of this season and the second in 50 years. The current situation comes just 15 days after exceptional snowfall caused unprecedented road conditions across the country, shutting down 5 000 km (3 100 miles) of roads.

This week's closure of schools is mainly affecting rural areas, Morocco's Ministry of Education, Training and Scientific Research said. The decision aims to protect students and teachers from all weather-related hazards, the ministry said, adding that the institutions concerned are the regional academies of Daraa Tafilalet, Marrakech-Safi, Beni Mellal-Khenifra, Fez-Meknes and Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima.

Winter Storm Mateo is already laying down its initial round of snow from Montana to the Great Lakes, and has more in store, including some ice, from the Rockies and Plains to Northern New England through the weekend.

Mateo's wintry mess is being generated by a strung-out impulse of energy riding through a broad southward dip in the jet stream, lifting moist air over a surface frontal system that will plunge southward through the Plains, but then stall out temporarily from near the Ohio Valley to the interior Northeast this weekend.

A man has died after a road accident during Wednesday’s snow storm.

The man in his 70s succumbed to injuries incurred during a multi-vehicle collision that left more than 50 vehicles stranded on Highway 20 West near Mont-Saint-Hilaire.

The pileup sent 15 other people to the hospital with minor injuries. The highway was closed for several hours, Wednesday afternoon. “We have to clear the highway, then tow all the vehicles,” said the SQ’s Montérégie spokesperson Joyce Kemp, adding that minibuses had been dispatched to the scene to take people who are not injured away from the area.

The storm, expected to leave 10 centimetres of snow, also caused traffic slowdowns in the city and at the airport on Wednesday evening.

Highway 30 closed in both directions between St-Constant and Candiac because of another accident involving several vehicles and at least two jackknifed trucks.

The National Weather Service said weather conditions will sharply deteriorate across the state by mid-afternoon and that a longer than expected period of freezing rain will spread across the northeastern and central parts of the state into the evening commute and beyond.

“Snow will be heavy at times this afternoon before changing to sleet and freezing rain from mid to late afternoon,’’ forecasters wrote in a winter storm warning targeting portions of Middlesex, Worcester, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. “Some areas [are] likely to see a 6-hour freezing event.”

Can climate change be sexist? According to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes.

Particularly in the developing world, climate change will force women to shoulder the responsibilities of looking for food, finding firewood and migrating livestock once all of the grass has been transformed into a desert. Unsurprisingly, the future she describes bears an uncanny resemblance to the dystopian future depicted in the "Mad Max" franchise.

It's unclear what responsibilities men will shoulder after the climate catastrophe has arrived in the future envisioned by Clinton.

The "Snow of the Century" – a weekend-long snowstorm in Moscow – has delayed flights, cut power supplies and even prompted school authorities to call a snow day — a highly unusual occurrence in the Russian capital.

An average month's amount of snow fell over the weekend, with the depth of the snow reaching 62 centimetres (24.5 inches) in some parts.

A wave of heavy snow in central and northern Sweden has caused trains to be cancelled and schools to close as even Swedes accustomed to tougher conditions struggle to beat the elements.

A snowstorm is coming for parts of the Northeast, and it will likely be snowing when the world-renowned groundhog prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his burrow this Friday.

JUST two days after the state sweltered through blistering heat, summertime snow has been falling on Tasmania’s higher peaks.

Tonight, Bill Nye “The Science Guy” will accompany Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Trump’s nominee for NASA Administrator, to the State of the Union address. Nye has said that he’s accompanying the Congressman to help promote space exploration, since, he asserts, “NASA is the best brand the United States has” and that his attendance “should not be … seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community.”

After drought, northern Iran blanketed with over a meter of white stuff, shutting roads, airports and schools, and delighting capital's denizens

The Pacific Northwest has been hammered in the past week with multiple feet of freshies. It all stems from an atmospheric river from the Hawaiian islands that has pumped a continuous flow of moisture into the Northwest, which combined with cold temperature to create the most epic conditions of the season!

Starting last weekend, spots in the PNW began grabbing huge snow totals. Whistler nabbed 25 inches Sunday night, while Mt. Baker in Washington snagged a cool 20 inches overnight. And the fun didn't stop there: The snow fell essentially nonstop throughout the week.

The global economy was not the only topic on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week. During a breakout session on Thursday, former vice president and climate change zealot Al Gore spoke on a panel entitled “Stepping Up Climate Action.”

“The survival of our civilization is at stake here, and people are becoming aware of it, and the change is beginning to accelerate, but we have to translate that into political change,” Gore said.

After months of waiting for the snow to arrive, Teheranis were hit by massive snowfall overnight on Sunday (Jan 28) that shut airports and schools but delighted the ski community.

The capital's Imam Khomeini International and Mehrabad airports were shut due to poor visibility "until further notice", state television said.

Some 20 provinces in the west and north of Iran were affected by the snowfall that began last Thursday and peaked on Saturday night, with some mountainous areas receiving as much 1.3m of snow according to official news agency IRNA.

Ian Calderon wants restaurateurs to think long and hard before giving you a straw.

Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

"We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans," Calderon explained in a press release.

Freezing drizzle and fog are causing problems around Winnipeg.

There have been several crashes, including one on the South Perimeter Highway near the Oak Bluff turnoff, one westbound on the North Perimeter near Brookside Boulevard, and one on northbound Kenaston Boulevard just past Lindenwood Drive.

Tokyo’s ambulance service has experienced its busiest day in more than 80 years, officials said Thursday, amid icy conditions as the Japanese capital shivers through its coldest temperatures in decades. The Tokyo fire department, which runs the ambulance service, said it had responded to 2,826 calls on Wednesday following rare and heavy snow that sparked chaos in one of the world’s most populous cities. “Generally, we receive more calls in winter. But we think the combination of influenza, heavy snow and cold weather contributed to the record high number,” a fire department spokesman told AFP. The number of emergency call-outs was the highest since the service began in 1936 and well above the average of around 2,000. The annual number of emergency calls has been on the rise for the past eight years in Tokyo , the spokesman added.

There was no relief from cold wave conditions in Kashmir as mercury stayed several degrees below freezing point in most parts of the Valley.
Kargil town in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir saw the mercury rise by three degrees on Thursday night but settled at a bone-chilling minus 17.8 degrees Celsius, an official of the Meteorological Department here said.
He said Kargil continued to be the coldest recorded place in the state.

Shanghai residents are revelling in rare snow, but the extreme weather has disrupted flights and trains in the region and the city also saw a series of traffic accidents during rush hour on Friday.