DENVER — After enduring last summer’s destructive drought, farmers, ranchers and officials across the parched Western states had hoped that plentiful winter snows would replenish the ground and refill their rivers, breaking the grip of one of the worst dry spells in American history. No such luck.
Thin Snowpack Signals Summer of Fire and Drought – NYTimes.com
The current dry spell is hardly one of the most severe in history. It is actually quite ordinary and cyclical.
Colorado, Palmer Modified Drought Index (PMDI), 36-Month Period Ending in January, 1898-2013
Most our precipitation for the year comes between March and June, which hasn’t even started yet. In 1995, there was very little snowpack in Mid-April, and record snowpack in June. Same thing in 2011.
We are up to our necks in snow along the Front Range, which is where the fires occurred last year. Many places on the western slope have plenty of snow too.
They have no way of predicting what the fire season will be like at this time. Their level of journalism is completely in the gutter. We are expecting up to 600% of normal precipitation over the next week.
The 30’s, 50’s and 60’s never happened; it was all made up by evil oil shill skeptics.
Have you read this? Shell is surely ousted from the Arctic waters by the anthropogenic global warming… http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/business/energy-environment/shell-suspends-arctic-drilling-for-2013.html
Last year was a disaster for them because there was too much ice in the Chukchi Sea. Apparently the writer forgot to mention that.
Great link. Please pass this on to al-Khwarizmi (from the Arctic Melt thread). He is utterly convinced the oil companies are leapfrogging one another all the way to the ice-free Arctic, to cash in on the easy money.
Between 2004 and 2009 the NYT lost 80% of its stock price and is now holding steady as its recent paywall further isolates it from online culture. The skeptical Wall Street Journal is much more popular with subway riders now, though tabloids dominate. Metrosexual urban men are still running scared however due to militant hatred of Republicans by urban women. The only hope for a crack in urban armor is to enlighten the rebellious mostly male nerds who are buried deep in hipster social bubbles and still faithfully believe alarmist TV show scientists as if they were saints sent to Earth to validate their dorkiness.
Nik,
you post some of the most complex concepts and ideas, and I really do enjoy them. Keep it up.
Is it worth enlightening the urban “male nerds” and how would you suggest it be done?
If you take concepts in “The Fourth Turning” and combine it with Spiral Dynamics value memes, it goes some way to unpick the urban memes you have noted and crack that urban armor. I think the jury is still out on whether the “metrosexual urban men” are worth the effort or should they be written off as a lost cause I’m speaking of the Australian urban condition which seems the same as the US condition.
The corporate-controlled “mainstream media” latched onto the global warming scare story a long time ago. They figure its a great way to scare up more readers and viewers with amusing stories of an impending global warming Armageddon, which, of course, is based on nothing more than exaggerated claims and junk science.
Reporters play along because it’s an easy story to tell and doesn’t require any investigative research. Just regurgitate outrageous claims manufactured out of thin air by “consensus” scientists who are seeking fame (media exposure) and fortune (research grants, book royalties and science awards).
The mainstream press loss credibility long ago. They’ve morphed into a bunch of lazy stenographers. One has to go to the blogosphere to find unadulterated investigative journalism.
1910-1930s looked impressive. What caused it?
I hear the same crap each spring…just how dry the Canadian Prairies are, and that crops are in danger….this is all put out in april and may….however, they always forget to mention that June/July are the wet months up here….and oh….sometimes….they are dry….and sometimes….makes you shake your head each time….
Steven,
The precipitation outlook graph is a month old, from January. Browser cache has been freed, and three different browsers show a month old precipitation outlook.
You have earned the benefit of the doubt, what purpose have I missed?
Looks like a browser cache problem at my end.