Answers About New York Weather

Cold, New York City, Rain, Snow, Weather, Wind

March 4, 2009 T I M E S B L O G

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Answers About the Weather

By The New York Times

Taking Questions Ask the Meterologist

I. Ross Dickman is answering City Room readers’ questions.

Following is the first set of responses from I. Ross Dickman, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service team serving New York City and the metropolitan region. This week, he is answering City Room readers’ questions about his experience and observations working with weather, community planners and emergency managers in the region. Post a question for Mr. Dickman in the comments box below. Please note that this Q. and A. was scheduled before Monday’s snowstorm.

Maybe you could describe the chain of events leading up to the forecasts for this particular storm. When is a decision made to put out an alert or a warning? How did it play out in this case? How precise can you be about the timing of a storm, when it will hit? What data goes into that prediction?

— Posted by Weatherman

For the March 2, 2009, snowstorm, the forecasts were right on target. The local National Weather Service forecast office here in Upton, N.Y. on eastern Long Island issued winter storm watches and warnings with more than 24 hours of lead time as well as heightened awareness of the event that occurred several days in advance. As you might imagine, timely and reliable dissemination of forecasts and warnings is critical to the protection of life and property. When forecast confidence increases to at least 50 percent based on the interpretation of forecast model output, a watch is issued. When forecast confidence increases to at least 80 percent, a warning is issued. Our goal is to issue watches with lead times of 24 to 36 hours and warnings 12 to 18 hours in advance of the storm. For this storm, we provided longer lead times than our goals.

The National Weather Service follows a specific forecast process for all weather situations before putting out a forecast or warning. The process goes something like this: Observations including satellites, upper air data and radar are collected by the local forecast office and then checked for quality, analyzed, and then infused into a suite of computer models at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Millions of calculations occur with these models to generate predictions of storm behavior and the general conditions of the atmosphere. The model results are then evaluated and used in the National Weather Service forecast and warning process.

Unfortunately, these models cannot account for all of the short-term changes in the atmosphere, resulting in forecast error or uncertainty. Interpretations of the model guidance are then translated into forecasts and warnings that are coordinated between the national centers and surrounding local forecast offices to ensure consistency. Once completed, the issuing office generates forecast and warning products for release to the public and emergency management groups.

Somehow it seems that New York City is becoming windier. What is causing this, and where do these strong winds we’ve been having recently come from? Thank you.

— Posted by Darinka Zaharieff

Winds in New York City are greatly affected by the buildings, which can greatly increase speeds. We do not have any indication that winds have been on the increase in recent years. Statistically, February and March are the windiest months for New York City, and August and September have the least wind. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service operates the National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, N.C. The Climatic Data Center is the world’s largest archive of climate data, much of which is online for researchers and the public to query.

When the water surrounding Lower Manhattan rises, what is the projected annual rate of increase? Are the rising waters expected to affect the Hudson and the East Rivers similarly, and what measure do engineers recommend to revamp the seawall?

— Posted by Rima Blair

While I can’t comment on the engineering aspects, I can affirm that rising sea levels and other phenomena like hurricanes are a real threat to the New York City region.

The Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University cites these threats. According to the researchers: “Regional sea level trends of the past century range between 0.08 to 0.16 inches per year (2 to 4 millimeters per year). From a suite of sea-level rise scenarios based on an extrapolation of historical trends and outputs from several global climate model simulations, the researchers projected a rise in sea level of 11.8 to 37.5 inches (30 to 95.5 centimeters) in New York City and 9.5 to 42.5 inches (24 to 108 centimeters) in the metropolitan region by the 2080s. Flooding by major storms would inundate many low-lying neighborhoods and shut down the metropolitan transportation system with much greater frequency.”

Severe hurricanes and associated storm surge have the most serious immediate threat to the coastline. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea, Lake and Overland Surges From Hurricanes model (SLOSH) shows a Category 3 hurricane on the worst-case track projection has the potential to bring nearly 25 feet of water into Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas.

Is it likely that we will have another big snow event during the rest of the season (winter-spring 2009)? Statistically speaking, where is the coolest place in Brooklyn to chill out during the dog days of summer?

— Posted by Brooklynite

While we could have another significant snowstorm (six inches or greater) this month, it is not likely. Typically, New York has one big snow a year, most commonly in February. On average, March has only a 1 in 5 chance of a significant snowstorm. Interestingly, we have to go all the way back to March 13-14, 1993, to the last time that we had a snowfall of six inches or more, though we came close on March 16, 2007, with 5.5 inches.

As for where to cool off in summer in Brooklyn — Coney Island is the place. The daily sea breeze keeps temperatures the coolest around during a hot summer afternoon.

How can I be a Weather Service storm spotter?

— Posted by David

Your National Weather Service offers the Skywarn Spotter Program to volunteers who are willing to assist Weather Service meteorologists in making warning decisions. A free three-hour spotter training class will be offered this spring, which will be posted to our Skywarn Web site by April 3. You will have to register for a class. You will be trained to recognize and report features associated with rapidly developing, mature, and dissipating thunderstorms that cause hazardous weather. For further information on our Skywarn program, please contact Brian Ciemnecki.

Taking Stock Of The Claims Against Michael Steele

Stories

Steele Trap? Taking Stock Of The Claims Against The New RNC Chief

tyson

TALKING POINTS MEMO M U C K R A K E R
By Zachary Roth
February 9, 2009,

So what to make of the allegation against newly elected GOP chairman Michael Steele, that his 2006 Senate campaign made payments to a company run by his sister, for work that was never performed?

It’s not yet clear. The claim comes from a court filing made last March by Alan Fabian — Steele’s finance chair during that campaign — who was facing unrelated fraud charges and hoped, in vain, to get credit for cooperation. In the end, Fabian was sentenced to nine years in jail for swindling millions from businesses and banks.

So there’s reason to be skeptical.

But there isn’t reason to dismiss the claim out of hand. For one thing, the Feds appear to be taking it seriously: Agents have spoken to Steele’s sister about the issue, according to a Steele spokesman.

Steele told ABC’s This Week that the FBI is “winding this thing down” but didn’t explain how he knew that. And although Steele added that the payments were for legitimate work, the explanations from his camp don’t yet add up.

At issue is a February 2007 payment of more than $37,000 made by Steele’s unsuccessful Senate campaign to Brown Sugar Unlimited, a company run by Monica Turner, Steele’s sister (and also the former Mrs. Mike Tyson, incidentally).

According to campaign finance records, reports the Post, the payments were for “catering/web services.” But a Steele spokesman told the paper that Turner “did a lot of media stuff” for the campaign. The spokesman then showed the paper an invoice for catering services for two events. But the invoice was dated December 2006, although the events occurred in October 2006 and July 2007. The spokesman attributed this to a typo.

So, was it media, web services, or catering? How many companies do all three?

There’s also the fact that, as the Post reports, “Turner filed papers to dissolve the company 11 months before the payment was received”. (Steele told ABC yesterday that Turner believed the company was still in existence when the payments were made.)

The payments to Turner aren’t the only allegations Fabian is making against Steele. There are three additional — and apparently less serious — claims.

One is that Steele, who at the time was Maryland’s lieutenant-governor, used his state campaign to pay bills invoiced to his 2006 Senate campaign for printing services, totaling around $38,000 — which would violate campaign finance law. Steele’s spokesman says the printing was related to Steele’s lieutenant governor’s office.

Another claim is that Steele paid $75,000 from the state campaign to the law firm of Baker Hostetler, for work that was never performed. The payment was listed in campaign finance records as an in-kind contribution to the state GOP. And a lawyer for Baker Hostetler — who was also chief counsel for the RNC — told the Post that the payment was for legal work on challenging Maryland’s 2002 legislative redistricting.

Finally, Fabian claims that Steele or an aide transferred more than $500,000 in campaign cash from one bank to another without appropriate authorization. The bank transfer appears to have angered aides to former Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich, who had hoped to use the money for other states races, including Ehrlich’s. But there doesn’t appear to be evidence that it was illegal.

There’s also no evidence that the Feds are looking into any of these latter three claims.
So it’s those payments to Steele’s sister’s company that appear to be where the action is. And until we get a fuller explanation of what those payments were really for, this story will probably linger.

That can’t be a prospect that will please a Republican Party that just made Steele its major national spokesman

David Letterman Rips Limbicile

Stories

Letterman shreds Limbaugh, calling him ‘bonehead,’ ‘gangster

David Edwards and John Byrne
Tuesday March 3, 2009

Raw Story

In a scathing rebuke to Rush Limbaugh, CBS’ David Letterman excoriated the conservative talk show host while talking to CBS anchor Katie Couric on the network’s ‘Late Show’ Monday night.

“What about this bonehead Rush Limbaugh? Honest to God, I mean, what is going on there?” Letterman said.

“Dave, don’t do this to me, please,” Couric interjected. “Don’t do this to me.”

“He gets up in Washington and he’s the keynote speaker at some function and he comes up and he looks like an East European gangster,” Letterman continued. “He’s got the black jacket on, the black silk shirt and it’s unbuttoned like, oh yeah, when you think Rush Limbaugh, you think, ‘Ooh, let’s see a little flesh.’ Honestly. What is he doing?”

“On a serious note — although I’m thrown by the Rush Limbaugh flesh in the same sentence — I think it’s sort of indicative of the power vacuum in the Republican party right now… and there are ideological differences about role of government but I just don’t know if the country can waste time talking about different sorts of approaches and whether Keynesian economists agree with other economists about the free market.”

Remarked Letterman: “We get used to Republicans like Newt Gingrich, and Newt resembled a Newt — but a smart guy. And now you’ve got Rush Limbaugh, who says, ‘Sorry, the casino’s closed.’ Leave us alone.”

“So much for my interview with Rush,” Couric concludes.

Playboy Mysteriously Pulls Rick Santelli/Koch Industries/Tea Party Astroturfing Article

Astroturfing, Cato Institute, CNBC, Exiled Online, Freedom Works, John Birch Society, Koch Industries, Playboy, Politics, Rick Santelli, Stimulus Package, Tea Party, Teaparty, The Socialism Canard

Can you say: “goddamed bloggers!”

EXILED ONLINE


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Chris Matthews: “You’re up there with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity… It’s quite a team.”
Rick Santelli (smiling and nodding): “It is quite a team!”
Hardball, MSNBC, Feb 20, 2009

Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli’s “rant” last-week calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest President Obama’s plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere and shot right up into White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ craw, whose smackdown during a press conference was later characterized by Santelli as “a threat” from the White House. A nationwide “tea party” grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama’s economic policies.

Continue reading →

Canceled: Life on Mars Is Dead

ABC, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Television

Seattle Post-Intelligencer


jason-omara-life-on-mars-photo

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

By MICKEY O’CONNOR
TV GUIDE

ABC has canceled Life on Mars, but will allow the cop drama to complete its full one-season run. The network has opted not to extend the series beyond 17 episodes, according to Variety.

It’s not all bad news, though. Rather than wait until May when on-the-bubble shows are typically told whether or not they’ll be renewed or canceled, ABC told the producers now, so that they can plan for a proper series finale — a courtesy not extended to the recently unplugged ABC shows Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. “We felt it was the right thing to do for the producers and the fans and creatively,” ABC Entertainment Group President Steve McPherson told TelevisionWeek. Calls to ABC were not yet returned.

This is particularly important for Mars, as its mysterious premise — an NYPD cop is hit by a car and spontaneously time-travels back to 1973 — requires some explaining. Is Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) in a coma, at the mercy of supernatural forces or something else entirely?

For now, it seems, the fans will get that answer.

Did Life on Mars deserve the ax? Is ABC getting an itchy trigger finger on the cancellation front? And how would you like to see the series end?

Doughy Pantload Wants Obama to Fail

Doughy Pantload, Politics, Rush Limbaugh

What a surprise…

serious douchechills….

doughy-pantload

The tired war on Rush Limbaugh

The conservative commentator said he hopes Barack Obama fails. But what’s so radical about disagreeing with an agenda he doesn’t believe in?

Jonah Goldberg

March 3, 2009

Here we go again. Rush Limbaugh is public enemy No. 1.

Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh’s statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails.

Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too. Of course I want the financial crisis to end — who doesn’t? But Obama’s agenda is much more audacious. Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state. And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort?

What movie have they been watching? Because I could swear that conservatives opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do. It’s Aesopian. The scorpion must sting the frog. The conservative must object to socialized medicine.

Besides, since when did hoping for the failure of ideological agendas you disagree with become unpatriotic? Liberals were hardly treasonous when they hoped for the failure of George W. Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme.

Regardless, the war on Limbaugh from the left is a tired rehash. In 1995, Bill Clinton tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush. In 2002, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democratic opposition, claimed that Limbaugh’s listeners weren’t “satisfied just to listen.” They were a violent threat to decent public servants like him.

In just the last month, Obama suggested that Republicans were in thrall to Rush. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has anointed him the GOP’s leader. Rep. Barney Frank complained that Republicans didn’t give Obama enough standing ovations during his address to Congress because they are afraid of Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Does anyone think that Republicans, absent fear of Limbaugh’s lash, would be throwing flower petals at Obama’s feet as he sells the Great Society II? If that’s true, I say thank goodness for Limbaugh’s lash.

Just because the Democrats’ shtick is old and often dishonest doesn’t mean it’s tactically dumb. Limbaugh and other right-wing talkers are popular with a third of the country. Fairly or not, they turn off moderates and self-described independents (and, for the left, conservative talk radio is the font of all evil). Most politicians would prefer to have 70% of the public on their side at the cost of losing 30%, even if that requires being less than fair to the 30%.

The more interesting war on Limbaugh comes from the right. My National Review colleague John Derbyshire has written a thoughtful article for the American Conservative disparaging the “lowbrow conservatism” of talk radio. His brush is a bit too broad at times. Some right-wing talkers, such as Bill Bennett and Dennis Prager, can be almost professorial. Michael Savage, meanwhile, sounds like the orderlies are about to break through the barricades with straitjacket in hand. Derbyshire is nonetheless right that conservatism is top-heavy with talk-radio talent, giving the impression the right is deficient in other areas and adding to the shrillness of public discourse.

Another point of attack comes from “reformist” conservative writers, such as blogger Ross Douthat of the Atlantic and former Bush speechwriter David Frum. They argue that conservatism is too attached to talk-show platitudes and Reagan kitsch. They want conservatives and Republicans to become more entrepreneurial, less reflexively opposed to government action. Hence, the New Reformers object to Limbaugh’s role as an enforcer of ideological conformity. What’s good for Limbaugh, many of them argue, guarantees that the GOP will become a powerless rump party only for conservative true believers.

I’m dubious about that, but I do have a suggestion that would help on both fronts. Bring back “Firing Line.” William F. Buckley Jr., who died almost exactly a year ago, hosted the program for PBS for 33 years. He performed an incalculable service at a time when conservatives were more associated with yahoos than they are today. He demonstrated that intellectual fluency and good manners weren’t uniquely liberal qualities. More important, the “Firing Line” debates (models of decorum) demonstrated that conservatives were unafraid to examine their own assumptions or to battle liberal ones.

As Democrats try to ram through the “remaking of America” (Obama’s words) by exploiting a financial crisis, we need those debates. PBS could actually live up to its mandate to educate and inform the public. It would be the kind of entrepreneurial government innovation even right-wingers could get behind.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com