Severe and strange weather sweeps nation, threatens holiday travelers

Severe and strange weather sweeps nation, threatens holiday travelers
The weekend before Christmas, Mother Nature is gifting — or, rather, clobbering — the United States with a little bit of everything. Ice storms, snow, flooding, thunderstorms, tornadoes and record-setting warmth are all in store, and with this maddening mix comes a massive headache for more than 94 million expected holiday travelers.

Blizzard to Reach From NYC to Boston Thursday Night
A major snowstorm will reach from across part of the Midwest to the central Appalachians and New England Thursday into Friday. A blizzard will evolve from the storm in parts of the Northeast. The storm will affect more than 70 million people in the Midwest and the Northeast combined and could have a major negative impact on travel…

Watch the Interactive Map of Real-Time Wind Currents That’s ‘Utterly Hypnotic’
Cameron Beccario, a software engineer, created an interactive map that shows near real-time currents of Earth’s wind using data from the U.S. National Weather Service. The Earth Wind Map, launched earlier this month, has been hailed as “utterly hypnotic.”

Another Damaging Wind Storm Aims United Kingdom On Wednesday, With Paris, France Affected As Well
These are not the average storms, but surface low bombs that keep on coming in, much like an airline landing pattern. Another is coming for Wednesday. 

Huge Fireball Over Iowa Likely Meteor
A very huge fireball in the Iowa skies awed and amazed several witnesses in Des Moines and across the U.S. Midwest. There were hundreds of reports received by the American Meteor Society (AMS), of a bright ball of fire streaking across the night sky. Experts agree that is very likely a meteor entering and burning up in our atmosphere.

SUBSIDING PROTONS, MORE TO COME?
Energetic protons are swarming past Earth in the aftermath of a magnetic explosion on the sun’s western limb on Dec. 28th: movie. At its peak, the radiation storm registered “S1” on NOAA storm scales, which is to say it was a minor event with minimal effects on Earth-orbiting satellites and aviation. The storm is subsiding now. Stronger radiation storms are possible in the days ahead 

SLIGHT CHANCE OF FLARES
Sunspot AR1934 has a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Because the region is directly facing Earth, any flares today would surely be geoeffective.  

SOLAR ACTIVITY IS HIGH
2014 began with a bang. At 18:54 UT on January 1st, big sunspot AR1936 erupted, producing a strong M9-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion’s extreme ultraviolet flash.

Sun has ‘flipped upside down’ as new magnetic cycle begins
The sun has “flipped upside down”, with its north and south poles reversed to reach the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, Nasa has said. Now, the magnetic fields will once again started moving in opposite directions to begin the completion of the 22 year long process which will culminate in the poles switching once again. 

Media Glosses Over Irony of Global Warming Scientists Trapped in Antarctic Ice
Somewhere far, far to the south where it is summer, a group of global warming scientists are trapped in the Antarctic ice. If you missed the irony of that situation, it is because much of the mainstream media has glossed over that rather inconvenient bit of hilarity. As an example here is an Associated Press story that avoids mentioning the real mission of the scientists aboard the icebound Russian ship 

Heatwave kills seven in Argentina
A heatwave affecting Argentina has left at least seven people dead – most of them elderly – in the past week, officials say. The heat has been compounded by power cuts, which have prevented many people from using air conditioning. In Santiago del Estero and other northern provinces temperatures have soared to over 45C (113F).