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WHAT IS A BOMB CYCLONE?

                         From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82
July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82
Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85
Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118
Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465
Jan     14       4142     15512        1151        189      712              
Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398
Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194
April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37
May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 
June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95
 July   7          251      8440        1595        817       411
Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532      423 
Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235
          8        1700      9836          250        339     253
        14        1934      9001          709        281      300
        22       2228      9326          839        279      124
        29        2190      8859         643        309     108
Oct    5        1811       7495          686        285     103
          6        2102       8255         543        315       59
        12        1819        7544          201        249       37 
        19        2005      7528         401        160        80 
        26        1451       7535         409        584       53
        27        1594       8671         433        734        62 
Nov   2        1059       6883        164        294        18

Summary:  
  • Looks terrific, but let's wait until tomorrow to celebrate.
  • The former Soviet Union countries are surging in new cases, led by Russia as #2 in the world with 39,699 new cases yesterday, #2 to the USA with 59,413.  
    • As I said last week, just as Republicans don't want to trust the government in the U.S., (vaccination rate:  Republicans 56% vs Democrats 92%) the populace of these former communist countries continues to have no confidence in their leaders, so the vaccination rates are all quite low.  
    • Note that, relative to the World, the USA is not doing all that well in vaccination rate.  We are up to 66%, while Russia is at 39%.  Many African countries remain in single digits and could well be awaiting outbreaks into the future.
  • China had 71 new cases and no new deaths.
  • Taiwan had 4 new cases and no new deaths.
  • In the U.S.
    • Texas had 4910 new cases and 118 new deaths, most in the nation.
    • Minnesota was #1 with 6879 new cases.
    • Wyoming was #2 with 69 new deaths and Georgia was #3 with 66.
    • Interestingly enough, Veteran Affairs reported 52 new deaths.
    • Hawaii had 38 new cases and zero new deaths.  For the first time, our Hawaii football team this Saturday will have no spectator capacity limit.  But everyone has to have been vaccinated and still wear masks.  Only water drinking will be allowed.


On the pandemic front, what should have happened this past mid-summer, occurred today:  5-11 year olds can now receive a COVID-19 vaccine.  While apparently 96% of schools have remained open for in-person learning in the U.S., I haven't seen any statistics about why cases and deaths surged in September, where deaths peaked later in September.  Did 5-11 year olds bring home the Delta virus?  Return to the New Deaths column at the top for the USA:  After hitting a high of 2228 later in September, the new deaths number just lingered on and on for almost two months.  An extra 1000 deaths/day for 50 days amounts to 50,000 Americans who today could still be alive.

The results of elections yesterday should strike fear in the hearts of Democrats.  A year from now (8November 2022) all signs point to Republicans re-taking control of both the Senate and House.  As I indicated on Tuesday, the close race for the governorship of Virginia was won by a Republican, and the easy victory of the New Jersey government is still a toss-up this morning.  When all the votes are tallied, chances are high that Incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy will edge out nobody Republican Jack Ciatarelli, and this difference could well be less than the votes to be earned by the other four candidates.  That poll to the left was taken 10 days ago.

My blog on Tuesday also indicated that there was a 99% chance Michelle Wu, a Democrat, would become the next mayor of Boston, and she did easily win, becoming the first non white-male to be elected mayor in the 200-year history of that city.  Her parent came from Taiwan, she grew up in Chicago and graduated from Harvard.

What happened yesterday?

  • The Republicans now know how to beat a Democrat:  get a Trump endorsement, but keep him as far away as possible, while finding a way not to upset him.
  • So what should Democratic candidates do on 8November2022?  Find a way to get Trump personally involved.
  • What happened in Virginia is a direct result of Democratic intra-party squabbling.  If the U.S. Congress had passed both trillion dollar budget bills, chances are that Republicans would not have done so well.

Some good news for Georgia:

  • The Atlanta Braves won the world series.  Their most recent championship was 26 years ago.
  • The Georgia Bulldogs are the best college football team in the country, and will probably play Alabama on December  4 to see who goes on to the playoffs on December 31, with the national championship to occur on January 10 at Lucas  Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.  They were national champs 31 years ago.
Our economy looks strong.  The Dow Jones Industrials today rose 105 to again break its all-time high record, reaching 36,158.

Have you noticed the media more and more using colorful terms to label weather events?

  • I don't recall ever hearing the term POLAR VORTEX until maybe five years ago.  Turns out that this phenomenon was first described in 1853.  You can read this article to understand what happens.

  • THUNDERSNOW?  Simple.  Snow with thunder.  Quickly find shelter.
  • Ever crunch a GRAUPEL?  It is a snow pellet that forms when a supercooled droplet of water collects around and freeze onto a snowflake,  They are usually around a quarter-inch across.
Another hyperbolic heat incident was that sudden warming over Oregon, Washington and Canada this summer.   Portland got up to 114 F, parts  of Oregon as high as 118 F and Lytton, Canada set a record 115 F.  Now we all know what a heat dome means.

This past month BOMB CYCLONE, kept getting mentioned.  Did some research, and found that the concept was first mentioned by the Bergen School of Meteorology (Bergen, Norway) in the 1940's to describe certain ocean storms as bombs because they developed with a ferocity not seen over land.  By the '70's the more common term was explosive cyclogenesis and meteorological bombs.  Other names like weather bomb and bombogenesis have also been used.

In short, what happens is that the central pressure drops by 24 mbar or more in 24 hours, leading to hurricane force winds at high altitude, generating heavy rainfall.  This occurred twice last month in the Pacific Ocean, creating what happened in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.  Here is one photo you might have seen on TV:

Then the latest nor'easter over the northeast, also here and there called a bomb cyclone.  Yes, the central pressure did drop by 24 millibars within 24 hours.

Just so you are not in the future surprised, commit to memory these 33 weather words:  armogan, bengy, moonbroch, sunblink, wethergaw....

The standard talk, now that COP26 began on November 1, is that these weather extremes must be because of global warming.  Here is an article that five years ago mentioned them.  I'll add another term:  THE VENUS SYNDROME.  Conferees actually recognized checking methane emissions from fossil fuel production.  That is not the problem.  The cataclysmic potential of methane hydrate burps and tundra emissions can only be checked by stopping global temperature increases.

I'll close with Greta Thunberg singing a song for world leaders:  Shove Your Climate Crisis Up Your....  For the very few who don't know much about her:

Broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough told her she has achieved things many others have failed to do, adding: "You have aroused the world. I'm very grateful to you."

Prince Harry praised Thunberg's campaigning, saying "every country, every community, every school, every friendship group, every family needs their own Greta".

Alok Sharma, the president of the COP26 summit, has said that Thunberg's UN speech in 2019 had made him feel "really uncomfortable" because it held up a "mirror" to his generation.

But not all politicians have been as complimentary. 

Donald Trump tweeted that she should "work on her anger management problem" while Russian President Vladimir Putin described her as a "kind but poorly informed teenager".

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