Snowmageddon East, 2015 smashes warmest year record

#Snowmageddon2016. #Snowzilla. #Snowvechkin?

The Twitterverse is on overload as weather history is in the making this week along the east coast. The strongest winter storm of the season looks likely to land a top-five all-time snow event for Washington D.C. and may challenge for the No. 1 spot.

The reality of the "hype" surrounding the projected weekend storm along the East Coast? The probability of the storm actually delivering crippling 1- to 2-foot-plus snowfall totals and near hurricane-force wind gusts?

As the Magic 8-Ball would say, "Signs point to yes."

'Textbook' Mega-Storm

Meteorologist Paul Kocin literally wrote the book on winter storms. On Tuesday he called the setup for this impressive winter storm "textbook."

Indeed the latest model runs continue to crank out an impressive, even amazing storm along the East Coast Friday and Saturday. The Euro (ECMWF) model below develops an intense low pressure center around 990 millibars along the coast by Saturday morning.

At 990 millibars of central pressure, the forecast intensity of the low is just 10 millibars shy of a Category 1 hurricane, according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

The combination of high tide and a full moon increase the likelihood of hurricane level storm surge this weekend along the East Coast. Near record snowfall totals may get most of the attention, but this storm could rival some of the biggest coastal floods on record.

Washington D.C. snow bull's-eye?

Philly and New York City could get up a foot of snow. But the epicenter of this potentially record producing snowfall "event" appears to be taking direct aim at Washington, D.C.

NOAA's GFS model continues to be the most aggressive, cranking out snowfall totals over 2 feet for the nation's capitol.

Some of the recent model runs are even higher, approaching 30" for the D.C. metro.

If the GFS projected snowfall range of 15" to 30" is realized, this will be a top 10 snowstorm for D.C. and could challenge for the No. 2 or even No. 1 spot all-time.

Bottom line: This still looks like a major, even crippling, East Coast blizzard Friday and Saturday. Air and ground travel will likely ground to a near standstill. Coastal flooding could approach top-five record levels along the Jersey coast and Long Island.

NOAA: 2015 blows away record for warmest year globally

It's official. The long expected data from NOAA (and NASA) confirms that 2015 blew out the record from 2014 as the warmest year globally. The magnitude of this record is simply astounding to climate watchers like myself.

Details from NOAA's State of the Climate report.

With the contribution of such record warmth at year's end and with 10 months of the year record warm for their respective months, including the last 8 (January was second warmest for January and April was third warmest), the average global temperature across land and ocean surface areas for 2015 was 0.90°C (1.62°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), beating the previous record warmth of 2014 by 0.16°C (0.29°F). This is not only the highest calendar year temperature, but also the highest temperature for any 12-month period on record. The global temperatures in 2015 were strongly influenced by strong El Niño conditions that developed during the year.

The 2015 temperature also marks the largest margin by which an annual temperature record has been broken. Prior to this year, the largest margin occurred in 1998, when the annual temperature surpassed the record set in 1997 by 0.12°C (0.22°F). Incidentally, 1997 and 1998 were the last years in which a similarly strong El Niño was occurring. The annual temperature anomalies for 1997 and 1998 were 0.51°C (0.92°F) and 0.63°C (1.13°F), respectively, above the 20th century average, both well below the 2015 temperature departure.

The incredible run of global warmth since 2000 is astounding.  The odds of having 15 of the 16 warmest years on record since 2000? Beyond astronomical. Simply put, earth's climate system is obviously broken.

NOAA elaborates:

This marks the fourth time in the 21st century a new record-high annual temperature has been set (along with 2005, 2010, and 2014) and also marks the 39th consecutive year (since 1977) that the annual temperature has been above the 20th century average. To date, including 2015, 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred during the 21st century. 1998 is currently tied with 2009 as the sixth warmest year on record.

The five warmest years on record have all come since 1998. The "pause" notion of no climate warming since 1998 was always shaky at best, and is now downright laughable among honest climate observers. Many climate scientists project that 2016 may again be one of the warmest years on record as the background hum of climate change and a lingering El Niño combine to produce another warm year globally.

Stay tuned.