ScienceCasts: What Happened to all the Snow?

Visit http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/17jan_missingsnow/ for more.

Winter seems to have been on hold this year in some parts of the United States. Snowfall has been scarce in places that were overwhelmed with the white stuff at the same time last year. In this ScienceCast, JPL climatologist Bill Patzert explains what's going on.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• ScienceCasts
• SMD
• Science Mission Directorate
• Science@NASA News
• La Nina
• El Nino
• snow
• weather
• climate
• winter
• Iditarod
• ski season

[TiaDayful]

The picture of the highway is not Cordova, Alaska. If you look closely at the photo the cars are driving on the left hand side of the road. You might want to pull that photo.

[ScienceAtNASA]

@TiaDayful The images used here show the situations being described, but not necessarily those instances in Cordova. Sorry for the confusion!

[Flutter8ye]

Leave it up to the general public to cry about not being mentioned. Sad. Thank you NASA for this lovely video and for all the hard work you do keeping us up to date. :)

[emory7825]

gnivag, the sunspot cycle is, surprise, cyclical so that cannot explain a warming trend. And in fact, sunspots are cool (dark) spots, so you might even expect the opposite. And if the sun really were getting hotter, we wouldn't be having debates over whether it's actually an issue.

[1emanres]

IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!! OUTLAW LAWNMOWERS!! STOP BREATHING WARM AIR!! BAN ELECTRICITY'S MASSIVE CARBON FOOTPRINT!! MAKE APPLIANCES ILLEGAL BELOW FIVE THOUSAND FEET ALTITUDE!!

[Diamonddavej]

@TiaDayful Yes, it's the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route in Japan, it's a famous tourist attraction.

watch?v=zZeGekZjx0o

[TenneyNaumer]

only thing is that the AO went negative for 3 weeks and we still had warm weather in the Midwest. Last time it did that (last winter and the winter before that), tons of super cold air spilled out. Anybody remember February 2011 when the Arctic air brought freezing temperatures all the way down to Mexico? So this video does not make a lot of sense with respect to February 2012.

[maxxasvideo]

we have had lots of snow and cold this winter in colorado. i would say above average in the Denver area!

[maalaea]

Nasa - There's nothing to worry about with he Challenger and the Columbia. Everything is all right. We the Nazis designed and built and stand behind it 100%. But we're not going for a ride in it.

[Randomstlhero]

Bring on Winter!!

[kneewrencher]

@TiaDayful - 'course they may have flipped the pic when processing...

[LinealChampion]

We've only had accumlative snow here Michigan like 3 times so far and its a few days away from Feb.