Welcome to Winter

Astromonically speaking, we will enter the Winter season tonight as the Winter Solstice begins at 12:30 AM.   So there is a lot of winter yet so don't despair.

Cool video of the 2011 Atlantic Tropical storm season

Time lapse video from Satellite images.   I found it especially interesting to see how the jet stream can just destroy an established tropical storm.

Almost Fall

The Autumn Equinox happens at 5:04 AM this Friday, September 23rd.   Snow covers a good chunk of the Canadian Arctic Archipeligo.  The Arctic sea ice reached its minimum a week ago, second lowest in the satellite era (but not lowest in paleoclimatological record, discussed here) despite the very late start of the Eastern Canadian/Western Greenland freeze season due to a prolonged period of a strong negative AO atmospheric circulation (discussed here) which undoubtedly affected the melt season.