How cold was it in Colorado this past week? Too cold for baseball. The third playoff game between the Colorado Rockies and the Philadelphia Phillies was canceled last Saturday after a cold front moved through and snow and ice dusted the Rockies’ stadium. The low of 17 degrees broke the 1905 record for that date, a report from The Associated Press said. That same day, black ice was blamed for a wreck on Interstate 25 in Colorado Springs that involved up to 50 cars.
Meanwhile, several days of steady (and occasionally heavy) rain have soaked parts of the southern US. Rising waters have caused flooding in low-lying areas, created major headaches for farmers, and the steady downpour all but shut down the rides and midway at the annual Arkansas State Fair on Tuesday, a day in which some parts of that state received 5 inches of rainfall before 2 pm. Another front system was due to arrive Wednesday night and soak the state again Thursday.
However, the rainfall in the south had nothing on the big storm (left over from last week’s typhoon near Japan) that swept into the San Francisco area on Tuesday night. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a “storm unlike any other in the Bay Area in nearly half a century,” it dumped up to 10 inches of rain in parts of the region, knocked out power to tens of thousands of people, and was blamed for hundreds of car accidents.
Meanwhile, two storms are working over the northeastern US in sequence. Wet snow will creep into the western and northern suburbs of Philadelphia and New York. Temperatures will be 10 to 30 degrees below average, ranging from the 20s in the north to the 40s in coastal Jersey and the Delmarva at night and mainly in the 30s and 40s during the day (a few 50s in Southern Virginia).
While such storms can be predicted, other major natural disasters can happen without warning. However, the October issue of New Scientist reports on a Japanese study that holds out hope of early warnings for at least one such event: volcanic eruptions. By monitoring cosmic radiation for muons, they hope to be able to detect the mass of material inside volcanoes and predict when there’s a buildup of magma.
You know the response I posted to this was supposed to go under the Kingston piece, right?
I’m sure at least a few PWavers are from the Bay Area – my daughter just moved to Santa Cruz and got hit by a storm like no other – wish I could think that kind of surprise won’t be “normal” (“normal” not being the same as “consistent”.)
Down in SoCal we had COLD and rain mid-week, but yesterday and today it’s hot like dead of summer.
Many of us noticed slowly changing weather patterns a few decades back, but now….wow.
Thanks for posting this interesting tidbit of New York’s history. I grew up in my mother’s hometown, Newburgh, and have long had fantasies of relocating back to the Mid-Hudson Valley. My parents have done a great deal of research regarding the family ancestry and have discovered that a branch of her family pre-dates the Revolutionary War, and that her ancestors dotted the Hudson Valley, ranging from Red Hook to points south. The name Hasbrouck appears several times. We do not know if these are the New Paltz Hasbroucks or those who hosted General Washington in Newburgh. I suspect that both those families are related. In any case the story gets a little more interesting (at least to me) with the addition of a woman named Jenneke Swart, or Black Jenny if you translate. Of course, it just could be that Swart is a surname and not a description. From so far away who could know? We are lucky in that we’ve found so many of our ancestors. Most families, especially most African-American, have not had the successes that we’ve had in that arena.
Again, thanks. I feel that a little piece of the puzzle has been uncovered.