Warming temps should end worst cold snap since 2000
By Tim Mowry
Published Monday, February 11, 2008
-->There is light at the end of the ice fog, and residents in Alaska’s second-largest city should begin seeing it today.
While it was 48 degrees below zero at Fairbanks International Airport on Sunday, the coldest temperature recorded so far in Fairbanks’ worst cold snap in eight years, forecasters were calling for a significant warming trend beginning today.
Temperatures should be above zero by Wednesday, said meteorologist Daniel Robinson at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.
“The high pressure system that’s been locked in over us is finally starting to retreat toward Siberia and Russia,” Robinson said. “Hopefully we’re going to see an end to these minus 40 temperatures.
The cold air mass will be displaced by a low pressure system from Canada that will bring warmer temperatures and the chance of snow by midweek, he said.
The overnight low on Sunday was still expected to dip to about 35 below, Robinson said, but the high temperature today could climb into the single digits below zero, a marked contrast to the past week when the high temperature barely broke 30 below. Forecasters were calling for a high between 5 and 10 below today.
“That’s a significant improvement over 40 below,” Robinson said. “The difference between 20 below and 40 below feels great to me.”
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Record Cold for Northern Minn.: 40 Below
Feb 11, 2:03 PM (ET)By JEFF BAENEN
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - It lived up to its name: The temperature in International Falls fell to 40 below zero Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the "Icebox of the Nation."
It was so cold that resident Nick McDougall couldn't even get his car trunk lid to close after he got out his charger to kick-start his dead battery. By late morning, the temperature had risen all the way to 18 - below zero.
"This is about as cold as it gets, this is bad. There's no wind - it's just cold," said McDougall, 48, a worker at The Fisherman, a convenience store and gas station in the town on the Canadian border. "People just don't go out, unless you have to go to work."
Residents of the area use electric engine block heaters to keep their cars from freezing.
"You plug in your car, for sure, and you put the car in the garage if you can," McDougall said. His garage is full of other things, so he had to park outside - a "big mistake."
The previous record low for Feb. 11 in International Falls was 37 below, set in 1967, said meteorologist Mike Stewart at the weather service in Duluth. The cold was expected, he said: "When the winds finally died off and the skies cleared off, it just dropped."
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Coldest since the 60s in Northern US
Snow in Israel, Jordan, Syria, lebanon, Iran, Iraq - first in 100 years.
Greenland ice returns
Coldest winter in Siberia and parts of Russia.
Southern California - a couple weeks below 40 at night
Wisconsin - snowiest on record, one of the coldest.
South America - coldest winter in decades
Canada - coldest again with more snow than decades past
Polar bears are cold
China - snow and cold - extremes and rare. Historically cold records. Millions stranded.
Australia - moderate winter (summer) temperatures, rainfall.
The world is freezing or very cold. Even Gore's global warming efforts with his flying around the world doesn't seem to be helping.
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