snow in... NEW ORLEANS!

Houston got snow Wednesday. My nephew called about 16:30 and it was snowing in Spring. Buddy sent me a picture from the IAH parking lot around 22:00 and all the cars were covered in snow.

--
Joe Chisolm
Marble Falls, TX

Snow in New Orleans and Houston, but no snow in Helsinki Finland. Sounds like the Gulf stream has swithced to an overdrive.

Regards, Mikko

P.S. Actually there is a spell of snow on the ground right now, but the last winter was really odd.

It seems that we are at a solar minimum and this is the bottom of it. The sun is starting up again.

It seems that we are at a solar minimum and this is the bottom of it. The sun is starting up again.

I live in New Orleans. We had three days advance notice of the predicted snow fall. It came along with the dip in the jet stream and a moist flow from the southwest. It snowed for five hours. The next day it was 62 degrees. It snows here every few years. The last time was December 2004. Global Warming has nothing to do with it!

The article also says that 17 measurable (as opposed to trace) snowfalls occurred in New Orleans since 1850 according to the article.

The most special thing about this one is that it is the earliest one in the season among those 17.

Keep in mind that snowfall is very irregular in many areas that get snow, or that sometimes get snow. For one thing, snowfall in Philadelphia varies widely with little correlation with global temperature trends. Philadelphia's least snowy winter since 1874 was that of 1972-1973 (trace) and Philly's snowiest was that of 1995-1996 (about 66 inches). Last winter Philly had close to half its average annual snowfall, despite USA having winter a bit on the coold side, as part of the world having its coolest year since the 2000 dip. (La Ninas actually make winters in Philly and much of the northern tier of USA milder, despite making the world cooler.)

Also, ever since I started paying much attention to weather nationwide (in USA), I have noticed that maybe every other winter somebody breaks some snowfall record.

Last winter some chunk of China had it bad. Just a couple winters ago NYC had its biggest snowstorm on record. A year before that Boston had one breaking its record that was set in February 1978, which broke its record set in January 1978. In 1996, Philadelphia had one that broke its single-storm record that was set in 1983. The winter of 1993-1994 had a little strip of northeastern USA having snowiest winter on record. And plenty of places had snowfall records broken by the Blizzard of March

1993. Chicago had a recordbreaker storm in the early 1980's. In early 1980, parts of Virginia and North Carolina had snowfall records broken. In January 1978, a historic storm hit Ohio (same year as 2 others setting records in Boston). Buffalo and some other spots in western NY set snowfall records in 1976-1977.

And I forget the years, but a few years ago Buffalo was pushing its

1976-1977 record, some other year in the 1980's San Antonio got 10 inches or something like that IIRC. There are others - I can't remember them all. And maybe every 15 years it seems I hear about it when it snows in higher elevations of LA.

I would not consider specific snowstorms or a locality or little region having a bad winter being any indicator of global climate change. Winter weather is too irregular in too many places to make anything out of a single storm or a single winter.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I grew up in nola, on Broadway near the river. I only remember it snowing once maybe, at least enough to make snowballs. It turned out to not be the best place to do electronics, so I moved on. It is tough to get a good oyster po-boy around here, and crawfish etoufee is flat impossible.

What do you do?

John

I can't get the po-boy, but Roy's (multiple locations here, expensive) has a really decent crawfish etoufee ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

I moved from Southern CA years ago. There I did 20 years as a process control designer and had a 10 year small business doing custom designs. When we decided to move here it was so backwards most of them did not know what a computer was. I bought a business making shutters hoping my kids would run it and I could write a book. That did not happen! I still make shutters and still do custom designs mostly for my old CA customers. I am old enough to know how to use a transistor and smart enough to not use a microprocessor to turn on a light bulb so I get by. By necessity, I can layout and make my own PCBs. Do my own software and do some sheet metal work. Being in the industry since 1970 you tend to learn a few things. By the way, are you the John Larkin from Fullerton?

No, there are a lot of us John Larkins around. I'm in San Francisco.

Do you know of TANO Corp, in New Orleans East? They do marine automation systems. I started working for them when I was a freshman at Tulane, as employee # 5. 12 years later, they had 400 employees and I was chief EE, and I'd designed about $200M worth of stuff for them. Then they fired me for insurbordination. The fools didn't realize that being insubordinate is fundamental to electronics design. They're down to around 50 employees now, I think.

The TANO prez at the time was Jimmy Reiss, now a big political influnce, post-Katrina. He's sort of a classic Uptown patrician, and seems to not really want to repopulate the town, umm, the way it was.

These guys are TANO spinouts...

NOLA has great food and a unique culture, but I found it to be a rotten place to do business and especially to do electronics. Too much Uptown status and too little respect, and pay, for the people who do the technology. In California, a geek can still be a superstar.

I'm also hoping my kid can run my business some day, so I can write books.

John

Wow, "the first time in nearly four years" - amazing!! About the same time it should have taken Bush to completely rebuild the place...

Dave.

Actually I am in Mandeville; across the lake. It is a different life style over here. I did some work for the Causeway crooks a few years ago, I know what you mean.