Weather & Space News Blog
 since Feb. 2003
 WX - Telegraph abbreviation for weather often used with Morse code
 The Wire - Name once given to the telegraph

The coldest air has arrived in the Northeast. How cold is it? The following are official readings from 7 a.m. EST:

-7.1 in Boston with a -29 wind chill, down from a -32 wind chill at 6 a.m. It’s a new record for Boston today, shattering the previous record, -5 back in 1920, and is the coldest day in Boston since Dec. 25, 1980. Details from NWS… Track the last 24 hours of official readings from Logan International Airport here

In Burlington, VT, temperatures are slowly improving. It’s now -7 there, a vast improvement over an air temperature of -20 at 8 a.m. Thursday (with a dew point of -26). It’s 24 hour data is here.

Both of these links, as well as school closings and much more, are in the Boston and Burlington pages under “Current Hourly Conditions At Airport” in the Current Conditions sections.

Portland, ME was at -11 at midnight, and is now at -9.9

How about this forecast: The air temperature may fall to -11 Friday morning in downtown Boston… Brutal Cold Gripping Region

Wind chill values could dip as low as 25 below zero Friday morning in NYC. Cams and conditions are in the NYC page

Much more on the cold in the entries below…

In other weather news: Red Planet Forecast? There are hopes for a Mars weather report in the future. Maybe it will be something like this: Monday’s High: 48, Monday’s Low: -127

Deep Freeze continues. Boston may see low of -8 early Friday, according to WBZ-TV. Cams and conditions are in the Boston page

Cold Weather and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Risks

How ’bout those temps Wednesday morning, not including the wind chill (as of 7 a.m.): Burlington -14; Albany -11; Boston -2. And the Boston area may see on Friday morning a low of -10 and wind chills of -40… Story from TheChamplainChannel.com. More details on the deep freeze in yesterday’s entries.

Homeless in cold being helped in Boston and Hartford

Snow Piles Up Across Metro Detroit. Cams, radars and conditions are in the Detroit page

Check out Airline On-time Performance and Causes of Flight Delays and Airline On-Time Statistics from the Bureau of Transportation website. These have been added to the Air & Road Conditions section in the right hand column of the WXnation National/International page

The Deep Freeze: Weather Service warns against dangerous wind chills | Wind Chills In Upstate NY Could Reach 25 Below | NH: Coldest Weather Of Season Moving In | Long Island: Cold weather causes pipes to burst, evacuations in Freeport and Lynbrook | USA Today: Record cold blast to sting Northeast

Pumping gas can be hazardous in cold weather

Cold Weather Increases Gas Prices

WXnation visitor Steve Swanson e-mailed me about something he caught on the Discovery Channel the other night: Super Volcanoes… From space.com: Is Yellowstone Park dying or just hibernating? and from Armageddon.com: Yellowstone Park, Super Volcano. And another link from the “A Moment of Science” program

Just tell me the @!*# weather! Even the weathercasters get impatient.

Kids plug in to weather data

National Weather Service Forecast for Boston early Friday morning: Near record lows 7 below with wind chill possibly 30 below zero. WCVB-TV has a cozier forecast, only 1 below is forecast as of Sunday night … and in Portland, ME: Lows 7 below. Wind chill 22 below to 32 below zero

The WXnation Fort Worth webcam archive has been updated for Dec. 2003, including these cool snapshots:

It’s cold in much of the country, especially the Northeast.

In Maine, temperatures are forecasted to drop to 15 below zero early Wednesday
morning

Frigid Weather Grips New England, Record Set

A visitor to this site recently reminded me: Cold weather is treacherous for pets

In webcam news (when’s the last time I updated this?): Jennicam: A pioneer webcam gets pushed offline

Volunteered at the NBC 5 HealthFit Expo today. Lots of people!

Tonight’s a good night for checking out moon halos, says SpaceWeather.com

XM Radio plans controversial traffic service

Winter Weather Wreaks Havoc in Northwest U.S

Portland International Airport struggled with the worst weather-related flight shutdown
in its 64-year history Thursday. Details

It could have been worse, says the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Storm qualifies as ‘extreme’ Salem event

National Weather Service Switches to Linux-Based IBM Servers

Bush Reported Ready To Propose Manned Mission To Moon, Mars

Interesting sea smoke images

Cold weather forces more into homeless shelters

Former KXAS-TV Weekend Meteorologist Scott Chesner’s goodbye from Jan. 4 has been posted on KXAS’s Web site, along with a message board. Chesner joined KXAS in 1981, in the days of the so-called World’s Best Weatherman, Harold Taft. He’s been a great co-worker over the past four years that I’ve been at the station and I will miss his presence and forecasting.

Snowstorm Buries Oregon: Links From Google News

Color photo of Mars

It’s cold out there this morning for much of the nation! Here in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, the WXnation.com temp cam read 19.6 degrees at 7:40 a.m.

In Portland, OR: Forecast Calls For 8-9 Inches Of Snow

Snowstorm shuts down schools, businesses in Des Moines Des Moines officially received four inches of snow, but 6 to 7 inches were reported in western suburbs.

Color photos of Mars coming

After 23 years, a respected meteorologist leaves the airwaves… Scott Chesner joined KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth in 1981, when Harold Taft was the chief meteorologist. I know Scott, and he has always been friendly and helpful to me in the four years I’ve been at KXAS. He will be missed by the community… Here’s video of his goodbye (pops up in new windows)

The images from Mars are in!

View all Mars images here

India News: Cold weather continues, claims 400 lives

Mars landing links can be found here

Quadrantid meteor shower peaks this weekend

Weather worsens woes for homeless in Calif. city

WXnation Blackout of 2004! Some of you may have wondered if I’d let my domain name expire, or if I’d retired WXnation and its weblog with no warning. It turns out a server crashed just as the New Year rang in and it wasn’t until this afternoon that the site was restored … well, most of it. I’ve managed to salvage weblog posts from Dec. 10-15, but the Dec. 16-31 posts appear lost (unless Google or another search engine updates its caches very, very soon). Anyway, brand new resolution for 2004: I’ll be backing up this site and weblog more often. I only hope my shares won’t fall over at Blog Shares because of this (what am I saying, I don’t think I have any anyway)! Here are the recovered Dec. 10-15 entries…