Thousands of West Virginians were buried by the powerful weekend snowstorm. Many still remain stuck, waiting for snowplows to reach their homes. Thank heaven for plow crews working round-the-clock to save society from paralysis.
Up to 200 tractor-trailers were stalled on I-77 near Charleston, despite warnings to stay off the road. Only a few hundred families lost electricity, because the snow mostly was too light to break trees and power lines.
Across the Eastern United States, with more than 80 million people in the storm's path, a dozen states and the District of Columbia declared emergencies. More than a dozen deaths occurred, largely from traffic crashes. Hundreds of people were trapped in stalled cars and buses, enduring many hours without food, water or enough warmth.
When nature delivers a blockbuster like this, people naturally wonder if global warming is a factor. Hotter air holds more moisture, causing worse hurricanes, twisters, floods - and conversely, also worse droughts and wildfires. Extreme weather is a byproduct of climate change.
"Blizzard 2016: Blame it on El Nino," blared a report in Newsweek and The Daily Beast. It said "a low-pressure system that spurred 60-foot waves for surfers in Hawaii last week has transformed into a winter storm" that buried the East Coast.
El Nino is a heatup of the Pacific Ocean surface, which alters weather patterns for thousands of miles. The jet stream dipped deeper south over America, carrying tons of evaporation from the Gulf of Mexico on a northeast track.
"The combination of more storms and more constant winds leads to more frequent flooding events during El Nino," the article explained. It quoted a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist as saying the current El Nino "has probably added another four to six inches of temporary sea level rise on the mid-Atlantic coast this season" - which may explain why coastal New Jersey flooded during the weekend.
International scientists just reported that 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded, by a considerable margin. Is the current blizzard mess just typical January weather - or does it reflect a deeper change? We hope climatologists soon supply clear evidence and answers.