Rare snow falls in south Louisiana, Miss., Alabama

Snow in Louisiana and Mississippi? Yep!

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A rare snowfall blanketed south Louisiana and parts of Mississippi on Thursday, closing schools, government offices and bridges, triggering crashes and leaving thousands without power.

Up to 8 inches of snow was reported in parts of Louisiana. Snow also covered a broad swath of Mississippi, including the Jackson area, and closed schools in more than a dozen districts.

A heavy band of snow coated windshields and grassy areas in New Orleans, where about an inch accumulated. A peak of 8 inches was reported in Amite, about 75 miles northwest of New Orleans, said meteorologist Danielle Manning of the National Weather Service in Slidell.

Full story here.

Asheville has coldest November in 11 years

You're right if you thought November had more than the usual nip in the air.

A sharp drop in temperatures after a mild start made November 2008 the coldest on average since 1997, according to the National Weather Service.

“It looks like it's the coldest November we've had for Asheville in the last 11 years,” said Harry Gerapetritis, meteorologist for the weather service office in Greer, S.C. The average temperature was 43 degrees at the Asheville Regional Airport.

“The next coldest we had was in 1997, when the temperature was 42.3 degrees,” Gerapetritis said.

Full story here.

Extreme Winter Pattern Setting Up

According to Accuweather meteorologist Brett Anderson Canada and the norther United States are in for some wild weather. He states,

The overall pattern setting up before our eyes throughout 2/3rds of Canada and the northern United States has mid-winter written all over it. Over the course of the next 7-10 days we are going to be dealing with several storms running up through the eastern U.S. and into Atlantic Canada, more widespread, heavy lake-effect snow, Alberta clippers, upslope snow in the eastern Canadian Rockies and to top it off.........some of the coldest air we have seen for December in many years, and not just one shot, but more likely two and three shots, with the core of the cold from the Canadian Prairies and down into the northern U.S. Plains, Midwest and Ontario, especially northwestern and central.

Full story here.

With arctic spigot open, it feels like February

Chicago residents are experiencing a very cold November. According to this story,

The chilly weather extends the colder-than-normal pattern that has dominated for nearly a month. Temperatures since Nov. 8 have averaged 4.5 degrees below the long-term average—the chilliest such period in eight years (since 2000). It ranks 21st coldest of the past 139 years placing it among the chilliest 15 percent on record.

WHITEOUT: ARCTIC CONDITIONS WILL GET WORSE

ARCTIC conditions caused havoc across Britain yesterday as experts predicted the country will be plunged into the coldest winter for 25 years.

Full story here.

November one of the coldest and wettest in Augusta history

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Heavy weekend rainfall across Georgia-Carolina has many thinking, 'what drought?'

This weekend's heavy rain combined with heavy rain about two weeks ago has made this November one of the wettest months of November ever recorded in Augusta.

But it wasn't just rain that made history this month. November 2008 will also go down in the record books as one of the coldest ever in Augusta.

See full story here.

October was colder than normal in U.S.

The nation was colder than normal in October, while much of the rest of the world was much warmer than normal, according to figures released by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

See full story here.

It turns out, however, that the rest of the world was not warmer than usual as claimed by the National Climate Data Center. The temperature guru's at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies accidentally replicated the September temperatures for October for most of the stations in Russia, causing an enormous, but false jump in October temperatures. See the story here.