NOAA

Assuming that the dismal non-farm-payrolls print in January was "due to the weather," we suspect economists, strategists, and weather-forecasters everywhere are holding their breaths over the February print given the following 2 charts...

Really? It's all climate change?

Leading Scientist On Fukushima Radiation Hitting West Coast of North America: “No One Is Measuring So Therefore We Should Be Alarmed”

Is Low-Level Radiation Dangerous … Or Harmless?  How Much Radiation Will We Be Exposed To?  How Can We Protect Ourselves from Radiation?

While it took Japan over two years to admit the Fukushima situation on the ground is "out of control", a development many had predicted for years, a just as important topic is what are the implications of this uncontrolled radioactive disaster on not only the local environment and society but also globally, particularly Japan's neighbor across the Pacific - the US. To be sure, there has been much speculation, much of it unjustified, in the past two years debating when, how substantial and how acute any potential debris from Fukushima would be on the US. Which is why it was somewhat surprising to see the NOAA come out with its own modeling effort, which shows that not only "some buoyant items first reached the Pacific Northwest coast during winter 2011-2012" but to openly confirm that a debris field weighing over 1 million tons, and larger than Texas is now on the verge of hitting the American coastline, just west off the state of California.

Radiation Levels Will Concentrate in Pockets at Certain  West Coast Locations

  Radiation Levels Will Concentrate in Pockets In Baja California and Other West Coast Locations

Bullish for GDP, foodstamps and BLS scapegoating of the weather as the reason for a weak May jobs report.

What’s Causing the Mass Die-Off and Starvation of California Sea Lions?

The budget for "rat fees" comes to $125m.

2012 was a historic year for extreme weather that included drought, wildfires, hurricanes and storms. But, as NOAA reported yesterday, 2012 marked the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States. The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year. Rainfall was dismal also at 26.57 inches, 2.57 inches below average, making it the 15th driest year on record for the nation. NOAA also adds that the U.S. Climate Extremes Index indicated that 2012 was the second most extreme year on record for the nation, nearly twice the average value and second only to 1998. 2012 saw 11 disasters that reached the $1 billion threshold in losses. Climate Central also confirms that fully two-thirds of the lower 48 states recorded their first-, second- or third-hottest years, and 43 states had one of their top 10 warmest years ever recorded. Globally, 2012 appears to be the eight warmest on record.

The good news is that we can't foretell the future; if we could, it wouldn't be interesting at all.

Update: good news: the storm surge is now receding. The water level has to decline by 2-3 feet for the flooding to subside.

Curious how many feet of water the rats in downtown NYC are under right now? The real-time answer is available after the jump below, courtesy of the NOAA and this tide height tracker at New York's Battery.

As meteorologists have been repeating all day, the biggest threat for NYC is not so much the rain, or even the wind, dangling cranes hundreds of feet above ground notwithstanding, but the storm surge. The threat here is that Hurricane Sandy will hit land just as the tide comes in, resulting in a double whammy which Wunderground has called a "gigantic bulge of water that will raise waters levels to the highest storm tides ever seen in over a century of record keeping." Add to this the impact of the full moon, which means that high tide will be 5% higher than average for the month, and Wunderground's conclusion is inevitable: "This is a higher destructive potential than any hurricane observed since 1969, including Category 5 storms like Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Camille, and Andrew." How high are we talking: Sandy's storm surge will be capable of overtopping the flood walls in Manhattan, which are only five feet above mean sea level... According to the latest storm surge forecast for NYC from NHC, Sandy's storm surge is expected to be 10 - 12' above MLLW. Since a storm tide of 10.5' is needed to flood the subway system, it appears likely that portions of the NYC subway system will flood." Luckily for all, the NY Fed's tungsten gold, which is 50 feet below sea level (and 80 feet below the surface) and is in the Zone C flood evacuation area, will be perfectly "safe." And after all tungsten gold will never just float away.

UPDATE: 37ft waves in Bermuda (compared to 5 feet last week) and a side-by-side of Irene and Sandy

She's wet, windy, and bringing a world of hate to the Atlantic Seaboard - but where did she come from? NOAA offers the complete animated real-life of Hurricane Sandy...