Weather by the Numbers 2/16/10

* 11 is how many mornings that it has been below freezing out of the first 16 days of this month. So far in February, the Huntsville temperature has averaged 5.3 degrees per day colder than average.

* 12 of the first 16 mornings so far in February have been freezing or lower in Birmingham.

* 46 of the first 77 days this winter have been freezing or lower in Birmingham. Remember, weather people (we really are human) consider December, January and February as winter.

* 8 is how many degrees the month of February has averaged below normal for Anniston so far.

* 69 below zero was how cold it got last winter in Chicken, Alaska. That has not happened this winter so far. Chicken (a tiny town) is located in extreme east/central Alaska only 25 miles from the border of Yukon in Canada. Chicken is in the same general area as Eagle, Northway and Ft. Yukon, which are other cold spots and often are the coldest in Alaska.

* 49 of the 50 states at one time this last weekend had measureable snow on the ground. I really believe it was all 50 states. On the big island of Hawaii, on the summit, Mauna Kea is at 13,796 feet elevation. They often have snow on the ground. We get an hourly report from that location. The temperature there was 30 at 6:00 a.m. HST and the relative humidity was only 9%. It can get very dry at that high altitude.

* 61 below zero is the forecast low for Thursday at Summit, Greenland. That is a revision upward. Earlier their forecast called for 82 below. Did you know that Greenland is the world’s largest island? In the center of the big island, the ice is over 11,000 feet thick and is so heavy that it depresses the ground surface to nearly 12,000 feet below sea level. That blows my little mind. I wonder what would happen if that ice were to disappear in 2 or 3 minutes. Would the ground bounce back like a rubber band and cause a volcano to suddenly form? Just thinking.

* 2/5ths of the lower 48 states are drained by the vast Mississippi River system as it and its tributaries flows 2,350 miles toward our dear friend, the Gulf of Mexico. Even the rain that falls in places like Helena, Montana, extreme Southern Saskatchewan, Cheyenne, Denver, and Western Pennsylvania, flows into the Gulf. There are some exceptions. Some of that rain water does not make it. A considerable amount soaks into the ground to resupply aquafurs. Some of it gets pulled out of the river to supply municipal water systems and may wind up in your shower, your coffee pot or, yes, your toilet. Interesting to note that the rain that comes to Birmingham and Mobile goes into the Gulf through Mobile Bay and never reaches the Mississippi River. By contrast, rain water from Huntsville and Muscle Shoals and the northern part of Valley Head, reaches the Gulf of Mexico by draining westward on the Tennessee River to the SE edge of Missouri where the Tennessee joins the Mississippi and proceeds southward. I love hydrology.

* 18% of the world’s surface fresh water is contained in our own 5 Great Lakes.

* 996 is how many people downloaded our Weather Brains Podcast this past week. That is 100 more than last week. Bill Murray says we are about to cross the 1,000 milestone.

* 18th of February is the date for the next Weather Alert 2010. It will be in extreme north Hale County at Moundville at the Hale County High School. It starts at 7:00 and you get out at 8:15. Attendance has been high this year, so get there early to see some great Alabama weather stories by Ashley, Jason and James. They even give prizes toward the end of the program. Unfortunately, none of the prizes are delicious and delectable brown sugar/cinnamon Pop Tarts, delicious and delectable banana Moon Pies or delicious an delectable Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale. Oh, well.

* 56% of the lower 48 states had a snow cover this morning based on the daily NWS Snow Survey. That compares to 41% one month ago today. As recent as last week, there was 63% coverage. The average depth of the snow cover is 8 inches. That is the number you would get if you were to average hundreds and hundreds of individual reports. That is amazing.

* 288 inches was the deepest snow cover this morning at Alpine Meadows, California on the west side of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains at an elevation of 6,913 feet. These are automated snow detection stations that report daily. This means that some of the city officials in the Western USA are jumping up and down with glee. They love to hear of big snow packs in the mountains, because snow melt is a big part of their municipal water source.

* 175 inches was the snow depth this morning at the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park at the Snake River Station, elevation 6,900 feet.

* 84 was the warmest temperature in the USA yesterday at Whiteman, California.

* 21 below zero was the coldest in the lower 48 this morning at Jordan and Wolf Point, Montana. Wolf Point is out on the open plains of NE Montana and rushing arctic air from Canada can cause huge, quick temperature drops in winter.

* 10 below zero was the coldest in Alaska this morning at Arctic Village. That is not too far from Chicken.

* 18 above zero was the temperature this morning at Mayo in the Yukon Territory of NW Canada. They have been surprisingly mild lately. That is one of my favorite areas to watch closely during the winter for bitter cold buildup of arctic air waiting to come to my house.

* 50 is how many years the U.S. Weather Bureau was a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A lot earlier than that, what weather services the United States had, was a part of the Signal Service between 1870 and 1891.

* 35 inches was the snow depth on Mt. LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park this morning. Their low temperature was 2 below zero. There was 4 inches of snow at Cades Cove. In North Carolina, there was 20 inches of snow at Beech Mountain with a low of 3 above zero. We do not have a report from Grandfather Mountain or Mount Mitchell.

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