January hurricanes are extremely rare events. But this year, two have already formed – Alex in the northeastern Atlantic last week, and Pali in the central Pacific, south of Hawaii, a few days earlier. The last hurricane to form in January in the Atlantic did so in 1938. A January hurricane is almost as unusual in the Pacific.

Many accounts have attributed these strange storms to El Niño, climate change, or both. Can atmospheric scientists like me pinpoint the cause of these January hurricanes?

The answer is that El Niño can take some of the blame for Pali. For Alex, maybe a little. Regardless of its effect on these two storms, El Niño is the big climate signal out there at the moment, and what it does next will be important when the proper hurricane season of 2016 arrives in a few months.

I don’t think this is a climate change story, on the other hand. There is a good scientific basis for the expectations that hurricanes should increase in intensity as the climate warms, and change in some other ways. But there’s no indication from existing climate science that they should start forming more often during winter (or even more often altogether). While I wouldn’t rule out anything categorically – all weather systems now are occurring in a climate altered by human influence, after all – there’s a better case that these January storms are attributable to what climate scientists call “natural variability.”

Warm water, cold air

To put these events in context, it’s helpful to understand why hurricanes normally change with the seasonal cycles as they do. Hurricanes typically form over warm water, so they are most prevalent in the places, and at the times of year, where the oceans reach their highest surface temperatures. In the current climate, a rule of thumb is that the sea surface temperature has to be above 26.5 or 27 degrees Celsius, or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, for a hurricane to form.

It isn’t quite that simple, though. Hurricanes are machines whose job is to move heat from the warm ocean to the cold atmosphere above. What really affects whether they can develop – and how strong they can get if they do – is the difference between the temperature of the sea’s surface and the temperature high up in the atmosphere. Either the ocean surface needs to be particularly warm, or the atmosphere needs to be particularly cold, or both.

If something makes the atmosphere unusually cold, then a hurricane has a fighting chance even if it’s over unusually cold water. In fact, there are storms called “polar lows” that work a lot like hurricanes. As the name suggests, they can form over the Arctic ocean in winter – where the ocean is really cold, but the atmosphere above it is really, really cold.

Normal tropical hurricanes, though, usually go away in winter. The ocean surface gets too cold for them, even with the colder atmosphere above. Also, the winter jet stream – the strong belt of west-to-east winds in the upper atmosphere of the middle latitudes, between the tropics and polar regions – causes large vertical wind shear, or wind blowing at different speeds or in different directions at different altitudes. This disrupts hurricanes' circulation and squelches them. Instead, it favors the development of winter storms.

What generated Pali and Alex

Pali and Alex both seem to be results of unusual temperatures for this time of year. One was due to a warm ocean, the other to a cold atmosphere.

The warm ocean is mostly due to El Niño. Sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific near where Pali formed are running as high as 3.5 C (7 F) above normal. That is a huge anomaly, whose shape and location exhibit the classic signature of a very strong El Niño. Events like this typically lead to active hurricane seasons in the eastern and central Pacific.

This El Niño event has been in place for most of the last year, and the whole central Pacific hurricane season of 2015 was wildly active relative to normal, and maybe even more unusual than the Atlantic season of 2005. That year, after Katrina, Rita, Wilma and several other destructive hurricanes hit the United States, the storms kept coming, to the point that the alphabetical naming sequence ran out of letters. The last few were named with Greek letters.

The last one, Zeta, formed in December and survived into January as a tropical storm – the last Atlantic tropical storm to exist in January until now. (Zeta didn’t reach hurricane strength, and didn’t form in January, so Alex beats it for freakishness on at least two counts.) Pali is reminiscent of Zeta, a late aftershock at the tail of an explosive hurricane season in the Pacific.

Alex, on the other hand, doesn’t owe its existence to an unusually warm ocean. On the contrary, it became a hurricane over sea surface temperatures that were well below the typical threshold. Instead, it reached hurricane status because the atmosphere above it was unusually cold. That upper-level cold isn’t obviously attributable to El Niño or any other larger-scale climatic factor, but just to the particular distortion of the jet stream that happened to be in place at that moment.

We may be able to associate Alex with El Niño in another way, though, at least a little. El Niño events tend to drag the jet stream toward the equator, and the southern United States tends to become stormier in winter. Alex evolved from a winter storm that tracked to the northeast from offshore of Florida, in what has been a record rainy December and January down there.

More to come?

Does any of this mean anything about the coming hurricane season this summer and fall? Neither Alex nor Pali specifically does, because individual storms at the end of one season have no particular implication for the following season. But we can make a prediction based on the typical trajectories of strong El Niño events like the current one.

The 2015 hurricane season was typical of El Niño: very active in the eastern and central Pacific, but on the quiet side in the Atlantic. El Niño events typically peak in the winter, though. When spring comes, they often end. The tropical Pacific returns to its normal state, or even reverses entirely into a La Niña event, the mirror image of El Niño.

The current forecasts indicate that one of these two outcomes is likely and that by the opening of this year’s hurricane season, it’s likely that the current El Niño will be over. A neutral state in the tropical Pacific would give us no reason to expect either an unusually active or inactive hurricane season, while a La Niña is typically associated with an active Atlantic and quiet eastern Pacific.

All that said, the state of the tropical Pacific is only one of the factors that influence hurricanes, and seasonal hurricane forecasts are not particularly accurate this far ahead of time. But the way things look now, we can say that it’s not very likely that we’ll have as extreme a season in the central Pacific as we did in 2015, and the Atlantic stands at least some chance to become more active.

And come January 2017, it’s very unlikely that we’ll have two hurricanes, as we did last week.

Adam H. Sobel, Professor , Columbia University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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NOW WATCH: The weather forecast for 2016 is terrifying

Mayor Bill de Blasio is warning New Yorkers to avoid traveling this weekend because of the severe snowstorm expected to arrive Saturday.

The mayor issued a hazardous-travel advisory from Saturday through Sunday, citing heavy snow and strong winds.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard watch for the city's five boroughs, parts of northeast New Jersey, and Long Island from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon.

The region could get up to 12 inches of snow and winds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts of up to 50 mph.

The National Weather Service released this map of the potential snowfall in New York:

The storm could also bring potentially severe flooding.

The mayor's office issued the following warnings for travelers:

Drivers:

• If you have to drive, monitor the latest weather reports. Take public transit if possible.
• Drive slowly. Cars take longer to stop in snowy and icy conditions.
• Follow major streets and highways.
• Keep the phone number of a towing service. If your vehicle gets stuck, stay with it and contact a towing company.

Pedestrians:

• Be careful of slippery surfaces.
• Wear proper cold-weather clothing.
• Cover your fingers, ears and nose.
• Be careful of cars and other traffic.

"From keeping our streets clear to keeping our residents safe and secure, this city is taking every step necessary to prepare for winter weather," de Blasio said in a statement. "In the case of severe snow this week, we will quickly mobilize a major operation to ensure every New Yorker in every neighborhood is prepared and protected."

NEXT UP: Snow may not be the only thing we have to worry about this weekend

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NOW WATCH: A historic blizzard may slam the Northeast this weekend

UNTAVI, Bolivia — Overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the shores of what was Bolivia's second-largest lake. Beetles dine on bird carcasses and gulls fight for scraps under a glaring sun in what marshes remain.

Lake Poopo was officially declared evaporated last month. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have lost their livelihoods and gone.

High on Bolivia's semi-arid Andean plains at 3,700 meters (more than 12,000 feet) and long subject to climatic whims, the shallow saline lake has essentially dried up before only to rebound to twice the area of Los Angeles.

But recovery may no longer be possible, scientists say.

"This is a picture of the future of climate change," says Dirk Hoffman, a German glaciologist who studies how rising temperatures from the burning of fossil fuels has accelerated glacial melting in Bolivia.

As Andean glaciers disappear so do the sources of Poopo's water. But other factors are in play in the demise of Bolivia's second-largest body of water behind Lake Titicaca.

Drought caused by the recurrent El Nino meteorological phenomenon is considered the main driver. Authorities say another factor is the diversion of water from Poopo's tributaries, mostly for mining but also for agriculture.

More than 100 families have sold their sheep, llamas and alpaca, set aside their fishing nets and quit the former lakeside village of Untavi over the past three years, draining it of well over half its population. Only the elderly remain.

"There's no future here," said 29-year-old Juvenal Gutierrez, who moved to a nearby town where he ekes by as a motorcycle taxi driver.

Record-keeping on the lake's history only goes back a century, and there is no good tally of the people displaced by its disappearance. At least 3,250 people have received humanitarian aid, the governor's office says.

Poopo is now down to 2 percent of its former water level, regional Gov. Victor Hugo Vasquez calculates. Its maximum depth once reached 16 feet (5 meters). Field biologists say 75 species of birds are gone from the lake.

While Poopo has suffered El Nino-fueled droughts for millennia, its fragile ecosystem has experienced unprecedented stress in the past three decades. Temperatures have risen by about 1 degree Celsius while mining activity has pinched the flow of tributaries, increasing sediment.

Florida Institute of Technology biologist Mark B. Bush says the long-term trend of warming and drying threatens the entire Andean highlands.

A 2010 study he co-authored for the journal Global Change Biology says Bolivia's capital, La Paz, could face catastrophic drought this century. It predicted "inhospitable arid climates" would lessen available food and water this century for the more than 3 million inhabitants of Bolivia's highlands.

A study by the German consortium Gitec-Cobodes determined that Poopo received 161 billion fewer liters of water in 2013 than required to maintain equilibrium.

"Irreversible changes in ecosystems could occur, causing massive emigration and greater conflicts," said the study commissioned by Bolivia's government.

The head of a local citizens' group that tried to save Poopo, Angel Flores, says authorities ignored warnings.

"Something could have been done to prevent the disaster. Mining companies have been diverting water since 1982," he said.

President Evo Morales has sought to deflect criticism he bears some responsibility, suggesting that Poopo could come back.

"My father told me about crossing the lake on a bicycle once when it dried up," he said last month after returning from the U.N.-sponsored climate conference in Paris.

Environmentalists and local activists say the government mismanaged fragile water resources and ignored rampant pollution from mining, Bolivia's second export earner after natural gas. More than 100 mines are upstream and Huanuni, Bolivia's biggest state-owned tin mine, was among those dumping untreated tailings into Poopo's tributaries.

After thousands of fish died in late 2014, the Universidad Tecnica in the nearby state capital of Oruro found Poopo had unsafe levels of heavy metals, including cadmium and lead.

The president of Bolivia's National Chamber of Mining, Saturnino Ramos, said any blame by the industry is "insignificant compared to climate change." He said most of the sediment shallowing Poopo's tributaries was natural, not from mining.

In hopes of bringing it back, Morales' government has asked the European Union for $140 million for water treatment plants for the Poopo watershed and to dredge tributaries led by the Desaguadero, which flows from Lake Titicaca.

Critics say it may be too late.

"I don't think we'll be seeing the azure mirror of Poopo again," said Milton Perez, a Universidad Tecnica researcher. "I think we've lost it."

___

Associated Press writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report from Lima, Peru.

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NOW WATCH: The weather forecast for 2016 is terrifying

By now, you've probably heard that 2015 was declared the hottest year on record. 

On Thursday afternoon, two climate experts from NASA, Gavin Schmidt and Reto Ruedy, fielded questions in a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything thread on climate science. 

While this weekend's predicted monster snowstorm will no doubt have those of us who live in the Northeast wishing for some heat, you should consider it a good sign that the snow is still falling. 

Here are some of the best questions and answers from the thread (some have been lightly edited and condensed):

What can I do, as an individual or family, that can have the biggest impact on helping to prevent some of the negative effects of climate change?

Electing and working for a government that takes science seriously is probably your most potent weapon. (Ruedy)

What would you say to the current presidential candidates about their stances on climate change? How would you attempt to change their minds? What is our best option to get society more invested in climate change and science in general?

Speaking personally, I'd like all policy-makers to take this seriously and craft their policies on the environment and energy with as much input from the science community as possible. The resources available to help decision makers estimate the climate and air quality impacts of their choices are vast, and should be better utilized than they have been. (Schmidt)

Is there a irreversible point in the climate change, and if so, then where do we stand now?

What we are doing is fiddling with a thermostat — the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere — turning it up. There is an irreversible point, but we are not anywhere close to it in my opinion. (Ruedy)

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NOW WATCH: A photographer reveals how climate change ruins people's lives

A potentially historic snowstorm, dubbed Winter Storm Jonas, is expected to clobber the US's East Coast from Friday afternoon through Sunday, affecting millions of Americans and bringing heavy snow, strong winds, and a risk of coastal flooding.

"It is a potentially paralyzing storm," Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters.

Here's a NASA satellite image of the storm moving up the coast, shown in yellowish-orange:

Blizzard warnings are in effect for the Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York areas, and the storm is expected to bring travel delays, school and airport closings, and hazardous conditions.

And it has already begun — more than 5,000 US flights have been canceled, according to the website Flight Aware, many of them because of the weather.

Here's the forecast for Winter Storm Jonas, as of Friday:

Washington, DC

Here's the latest National Weather Service map of predicted snowfall totals — in inches — for the DC area from Friday through Sunday, from least (blue) to most (purple):

DC, Philadelphia, and part of Maryland and Virginia have a blizzard warning lasting from 3 p.m. ET Friday through 6 a.m. ET Sunday. Here's what residents in these areas can expect over the next three days:

• The National Weather Service predicts around two feet of snow in DC, 18 to 24 inches east of Interstate 95, and 24 to 30 inches west of I-95.
• Winds are expected to reach 25-35 mph, with gusts of up to 60 mph, and temperatures will be in the mid-20s F.

Cities are already getting prepared:

• The DC metro is shutting down service at 11 p.m. ET Friday and will remain closed Saturday and Sunday.
• Airports in the Washington, DC, and Baltimore area have canceled all flights Saturday, the AP reports, according to The Weather Channel. Flights are expected to resume at noon Sunday.

The storm "has life and death implications, and [people] should treat it that way," DC Mayor Muriel Bowser warned Washington residents, according to CNN. "People should hunker down, shelter in place and stay off the roads."

New York

Here's the latest NWS map of the snowfall forecast for the New York area — in inches — from least (gray) to most (blue):

The blizzard watch in New York has been upgraded to a blizzard warning, affecting all five boroughs, coastal parts of northeast New Jersey, and Long Island, from 4 a.m. ET Saturday through noon ET Sunday.

• The latest forecast for New York suggests about 10 to 18 inches of snow.
• High winds are expected, with sustained speeds of 30-40 mph, with gusts as high as 55 mph, and temperatures in the 20s F.
• Minor to moderate flooding is also expected during high tide Saturday morning and evening, and major flooding is also possible Saturday night.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York has issued a hazardous-travel warning, telling New Yorkers to travel carefully and take public transit if possible.

• All American flights from New York's three airlines have canceled flights Saturday afternoon, the AP reports, according to The Weather Channel. Flights are set to resume Sunday.

The same storm system is bringing severe weather to the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida. NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement satellite captured this view of severe rainfall on Thursday:

Here's an image of what the blizzard looks like from space, captured by NOAA satellites:

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NOW WATCH: Here are the states that are expected to get the most snow from Winter Storm Jonas

With a massive snowstorm about to hit the Northeast, going outside isn't just uncomfortable — it can be downright dangerous.

The storm, known as Winter Storm Jonas, is expected to bring heavy snow, high winds, and potential flooding along the coast from Virginia up through New York. And authorities are warning residents in affected cities to be prepared for the frigid weather.

Temperatures are expected to plunge into the mid-20s F in Washington, DC, and hover in the upper 20s to low 30s in New York.

But straight temperatures aren't all that matter. Brave adventurers (or those forced to leave their homes) should really consider windchill — the temperature it "feels like" outside based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin, according to the National Weather Service.

In colder temperatures, you shiver to produce heat in your muscles. You'll also need to pee more. Exposure to cold reduces blood flow to the skin's surface, which also decreases the overall volume of fluid your body can hold. Your body responds by ditching liquid, according to an infographic from the Toronto Sun.

Fingers, toes, ear lobes, or the tip of the nose are the areas most susceptible to frostbite. Your body works hard to keep you internal organs and head warm, and sometimes extremities get left behind.

Usually, when parts of your body get too cold, they turn red and hurt. Symptoms of frostbite, however, include a loss of feeling and lack of color. Anyone showing signs of hypothermia or frost bite should seek medical attention immediately.

The chart below shows how long you can be exposed to certain temperatures before it will result in frostbite.

For example, a temperature of 0°F and a wind speed of 15 mph creates a wind chill temperature of -19°F. Under these conditions frost bite can occur in just 30 minutes.

You can, however, survive a winter scenario like this. Check out these tips— like wearing mittens instead of gloves.

Extremely cold temperature can also cause hypothermia, when the body's temperature dips below 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Warning signs include uncontrollable shivering, memory loss, disorientation, incoherence, slurred speech, drowsiness, and obvious exhaustion, according to the NWS.

Surprisingly, hypothermia can occur at any temperature lower than normal body temperature. Factors like body fat, age, alcohol consumption, and especially wetness can affect how long hypothermia takes to strike.

If you fall into water, the situation becomes drastically more dangerous.

For example, in water 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit or colder, you might not survive more than 15 to 45 minutes. You'll undergo shock within the first two minutes and some functional disability before 30 minutes, according to the United States Coast Guard.

Check out this chart from the Personal Floatation Device Manufacturers Association:

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Winter Storm Jonas could end up being one of the heftier snowstorms to hit the Northeast in recent memory.

Forecasters predicted heavy snow and high winds throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and the National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for Washington, DC and Baltimore and a blizzard watch for New York.

DC may be the hardest hit, where meteorologists were expecting at least 2 feet of snow to blanket the city. That would make it the biggest snowstorm since 1922, Mashable reports. New York was also expected to receive 8 to 12 inches of snow, and parts of the New Jersey coast are at risk of severe flooding.

But how does this blizzard stack up against previous winter storms?

Here's how Jonas compares with other major storms that have hit the northeast, from the Knickerbocker Storm of 1922 to the more recent Snowmageddon of 2010:

Snowmageddon

This massive Nor'easter that struck the Mid-Atlantic on Feb. 5-6, 2010 brought a record snowfall of 20 to 30 inches, with more than 3 feet in some regions. The storm shut down the Federal government for almost a week, forced airports to close, made roads impassable, and cut off power to more than 200,000 people.

President's Day storm of 2003

A major snowstorm hit eastern New York and western New England on Feb. 14-19, 2003. The heaviest snowfalls were southeast of the Capital District near Albany, with up to 2 feet in the Berkshires. It was the snowiest winter on record for Albany, with more than 105 inches recorded.

Blizzard of 1996

Another giant Nor'easter shut down the East Coast from Boston to DC for nearly a week from January 6-8, 1996. DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston saw snowfalls of 19 to 31 inches, with 5- to 8-foot snow drifts. The storm was responsible for more than $500 million in damage, helped cause 60 deaths, and brought travel and commerce to a crawl for five days afterward.

Knickerbocker Storm of 1922

The biggest snowstorm on record in DC occurred during Jan. 27-28, 1922, when 28 inches of snow were recorded. The storm was named after the Knickerbocker Theatre, which collapsed during Jan. 28, killing 98 people and injuring 133.

Of course, the storm forecast this weekend is still just a prediction. It could end up like the "historic blizzard" that was supposed to hit New York City in January 2015, which was much less severe than predicted.

Whatever happens this weekend, it's important to be safe. But that doesn't mean we can't all enjoy a little winter weather!

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NOW WATCH: A historic blizzard may slam the Northeast this weekend

The Appalachian Trail, or AT, stretches more than 2,000 miles along the US East Coast.

The longest marked trail in the country runs from Georgia to Maine. It connects 14 states and passes through ridges and valleys of the Appalachian mountain range.

Parts of the AT are within a couple hours of driving for millions of Americans, but few have walked its full length.

Each year, thousands of people attempt to hike the entire AT. Only one in four succeeds. 

National Geographic explored the wooded footpath, traveling south to north, in a 50-minute documentary. You can take the adventure in our slideshow or watch the movie on Netflix.

The Appalachian Trail, better known as the AT, stretches about 2,175 miles along the eastern US.

It runs from Georgia to Maine, making it the longest marked trail in the country, and one of the longest in the world.

The trail cuts through 14 states along the way, including New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

A winter storm on Saturday whipped up record-setting tides higher than during Superstorm Sandy, causing major flooding in New Jersey and Delaware after dumping nearly two feet (60 cm) of snow on the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The heaviest snow engulfed New York on Saturday and was not expected to stop until Sunday, when up to 30 inches may have piled up in the nation's largest city, said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a travel ban Saturday afternoon for roads in New York City and Long Island from 2:30 pm EST, where the latest forecasts suggested snow totals of 20 to 25 inches.

At a press conference after the ban was announced, Mayor de Blasio said the ban would remain in effect "until further notice," and warned that drivers caught violating the ban could be arrested. The mayor also urged the closing of Broadway restaurants and theaters for the day.

More than 85 million people in at least 20 states were covered by a winter-weather warning, watch, or advisory, the Weather Channel said, and many stores were left with bare shelves as residents stocked up on food, water, and wine, preparing to spend the weekend indoors.

As of early Saturday morning, Boswell, Pennsylvania, had gotten the most snow with 23.5 inches, according to the Weather Channel. There was more than a foot of snow in Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia, and eastern Tennessee.

Nearly 160,000 customers in 13 states had no power because of the storm as of late Saturday morning, according to CNN.

The situation was particularly bad in Washington, D.C., which got reports of thundersnow and accumulations of more than a foot, according to Capital Weather Gang. 

As of Friday night, nine deaths had been tied to bad roads and ice, according to The New York Times. States of emergency were declared in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Tennessee, New York, and Kentucky. Washington has declared a snow emergency. 

Tides higher than those caused by Superstorm Sandy caused major flooding along the Jersey Shore and Delaware coast and set records in Cape May, New Jersey, and Lewes, Delaware, said NWS meteorologist Patrick O’Hara.

A high tide of 8.98 feet was recorded at 7:51 a.m. Saturday at Cape May – slightly higher than the record of 8.9 feet previously set by Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012. A high tide of 9.27 feet was recorded at Lewes, higher than the 9.2 high tide recorded in March 1962.

"All the factors that affect the tides, it’s all happening at once," O’Hara said.

Nearly 5,000 flights were canceled Saturday, and another 1,000 flights due to go out on Sunday were also canceled, according to flightaware.com. The D.C. metro shut down service at 11 p.m. EST Friday, and planned to remain closed through Sunday.

The same storm system has also brought severe weather to the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida.

So what caused this weekend's monster snowstorm?

Snowstorms in January certainly aren't rare. But what's unusual about this one is how far in advance it was predicted. Unlike with most major storms, almost all the major weather models were in agreement that this storm was coming almost a week before it hit.

The only differences were in how much snow it would bring.

Moreover, this storm is just one of many similar storms we've seen in the past. We call them nor'easters because the wind is blowing from the northeast when it hits. Nor'easters are a nasty breed of storm that hits during winter.

Here are some of the forces that brewed the first nor'easter of 2016:

An energetic upper atmosphere 

The storm began on Thursday night over the Gulf of Mexico.

Cold air from the Arctic had descended upon the mid-Atlantic Ocean and combined with moist air from an unseasonably warm Gulf Stream (roughly 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this time of year).

As the cold Arctic air sank and the warm Gulf Stream air rose, it generated a churning action — producing energy in the atmosphere. 

At the same time this was happening, winds from a nearby jet stream blew the storm-brewing mix toward the Gulf of Mexico where it caused severe thunderstorms in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other states Thursday night.

But that was just the beginning. 

As the nasty mix made its way up the coast, it smacked into a layer of air over D.C. — that came down from Canada — at subfreezing temperatures. This subfreezing air basically acts like a snowmaker.

As the storm generates precipitation, rain falls through this freezing-cold-air layer, which transforms the rain to snow. But the worst part of it all, which makes this storm so epic, is that it's drawing from "nearly infinite reservoir of high humidity air,"The Washington Post reported.

Moving from the south is a pocket of humid air that will help fuel the storm. That means lots and lots of snow for us.

It takes a lot of ingredients to make a nor'easter, and not all of them are straightforward.

Other factors at play

This winter saw an unusually strong El Niño— a natural weather pattern caused by surface heating in the Pacific Ocean, which is tied to unusual weather around the globe. This creates an abnormally strong jet stream, which provides energy for East Coast snowstorms, as Slate reported.

And finally, while it's hard to draw a direct link between weather and climate change, the warming trend may be partly to blame for the increase in severe storms like this one. As the planet warms, it's causing a rise in sea levels, especially in the Northeast. The warmer water adds more energy and moisture to the air, which help drive severe storms like this one.

While storm forecasting has come a long way, it's still not perfect. Take the "historic blizzard" that was forecast to hit New York City in January 2015, which was predicted to dump as much as 2 feet of snow on the city but only brought about 5.5 inches!

Reuters reporting by Barbara Goldberg.

NEXT UP: How this weekend's blizzard compares to previous winter storms

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NOW WATCH: Here are the states that are expected to get the most snow from Winter Storm Jonas

Winter Storm Jonas could end up being one of the heftier snowstorms to hit the Northeast in recent memory.

Forecasters predicted heavy snow and high winds throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and the National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for Washington, DC and Baltimore and a blizzard watch for New York.

DC may be the hardest hit, where meteorologists were expecting at least 2 feet of snow to blanket the city. That would make it the biggest snowstorm since 1922, Mashable reports. New York was also expected to receive 8 to 12 inches of snow, and parts of the New Jersey coast are at risk of severe flooding.

But how does this blizzard stack up against previous winter storms? Here's how Jonas compares with other major storms that have hit the northeast.

Snowmageddon of 2010

This massive Nor'easter that struck the Mid-Atlantic on Feb. 5-6, 2010 brought a record snowfall of 20 to 30 inches, with more than 3 feet in some regions. The storm shut down the Federal government for almost a week, forced airports to close, made roads impassable, and cut off power to more than 200,000 people.

President's Day storm of 2003

A major snowstorm hit eastern New York and western New England on Feb. 14-19, 2003. The heaviest snowfalls were southeast of the Capital District near Albany, with up to 2 feet in the Berkshires. It was the snowiest winter on record for Albany, with more than 105 inches recorded.

Blizzard of 1996

Another giant Nor'easter shut down the East Coast from Boston to DC for nearly a week from January 6-8, 1996. DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston saw snowfalls of 19 to 31 inches, with 5- to 8-foot snow drifts. The storm was responsible for more than $500 million in damage, helped cause 60 deaths, and brought travel and commerce to a crawl for five days afterward.

Winter Storm Jonas was the second biggest snowstorm in New York City history.

The storm dropped a whopping 26.8 inches of powder in Central Park, according to the National Weather Service— just short of the 26.9-inch record set in 2006, Reuters reports.

Heavy snow and high winds battered the city Friday night through Saturday night, bringing the city to a standstill.

Thousands of flights were canceled, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a travel ban on city roads Saturday afternoon.

The Southern Jersey shore also suffered severe flooding, The New York Times reports. In Cape May, New Jersey, water levels reached 8.98 feet — breaking the record of 8.9 feet set by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, according to The Washington Post.

"This is worse than Sandy — I have more water now than then," Cape May restaurant owner Keith Laudeman told the Jersey Tribune.

Washington, DC, also got hammered with as much as 26 inches of snow in parts of the city. The last time the city saw that much snow was in 1922, when a record 28 inches fell. Meanwhile, some parts of Maryland and Virginia got more than three feet of snow.

Here's how Jonas stacks up with other major northeast snowstorms, from the Knickerbocker Storm of 1922 to the more recent Snowmageddon of 2010:

Snowmageddon

This massive Nor'easter that struck the Mid-Atlantic on Feb. 5-6, 2010 brought a record snowfall of 17.8 inches in DC. The storm shut down the Federal government for almost a week, forced airports to close, made roads impassable, and cut off power to more than 200,000 people.

President's Day storm of 2003

A major snowstorm hit eastern New York and western New England on Feb. 14-19, 2003. The heaviest snowfalls were southeast of the Capital District near Albany, with up to 2 feet in the Berkshires. It was the snowiest winter on record for Albany, with a total of more than 105 inches recorded.

Blizzard of 1996

Another giant Nor'easter shut down the East Coast from Boston to DC for nearly a week from January 6-8, 1996. DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston saw snowfalls of 19 to 31 inches, with 5- to 8-foot snow drifts. The storm was responsible for more than $500 million in damage, contributed to 60 deaths, and brought travel and commerce to a crawl for five days afterward.

Knickerbocker Storm of 1922

The biggest snowstorm on record in DC occurred during Jan. 27-28, 1922, when 28 inches of snow were recorded. The storm was named after the Knickerbocker Theatre, which collapsed during Jan. 28, killing 98 people and injuring 133.

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Last year was the hottest year on record by the widest margin ever since records began in 1880, according to NASA and NOAA.

The heat brought some extreme weather all over the world, including more drought and fires in California, an unseasonably warm winter in the Northeast US, heat waves in Pakistan and India, and beach weather in Germany.

Here's a look at how the heat was felt around the world:

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The global average temperature for 2015 was 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.90 Celsius) above the 20th Century average. That was 0.29 F (0.16 C) above the previous record set in 2014. Here's a graph showing that in detail:

The hot, dry weather — which was linked in part to human-made global warming — led to a spate of wildfires in California. Here, fire photographer Tod Sudmeier shields himself from embers during the Solimar brush fire in Ventura County on Dec. 26, 2015.

The fires also caused a lot of heartbreak. Robert Hooper gets emotional after seeing his property destroyed by the Valley Fire near Middleton, California, on Sept. 14, 2015.

Celebrity donations are pouring into Flint, Michigan, to help with the city's water crisis. 

California bottled-water company AQUAhydrate, owned in part by Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and Mark Wahlberg, has pledged to send one million bottles of water to the city's residents. Five thousand cases have been sent and are set to reach the city by mid-week. 

The company has also partnered with Eminem and Wiz Khalifa to send donations.

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The Blizzard of 2016 (aka Winter Storm Jonas) will definitely be one for the history books.

The massive storm paralyzed the Northeast for much of the weekend, smashing records as the second-biggest snowstorm in New York City, the biggest in Baltimore, and one of the top five snowiest in Washington, DC.

Thousands of flights were cancelled, states of emergency were declared, and at least 28 people died— mostly from traffic accidents and shoveling snow.

Parts of the New Jersey shore suffered severe flooding, breaking records set by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Paradoxically, winters have been getting warmer since the mid-1800s, and annual snowfall in the US has been decreasing.

And yet, massive storms like Jonas have only been getting more common.

The factors that helped brew this storm are complex, but despite the usual conspiracy theories, there's good evidence that global warming is partly to blame.

Here's how climate change breeds severe storms:

1. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture

As meteorologist Eric Holthaus reports for Slate, warmer air can hold more water. As air is warmed, the ratio of how much water it holds relative to the amount it can hold — known as the relative humidity— drops. In other words, warm air absorbs moisture, which is why hand dryers are (mostly) effective.

This winter, waters off the US East Coast have been as balmy as 76 degrees Fahrenheit— about 5 to 6 degrees warmer than average, Mashable reports. This, along with a warmer Gulf Stream, adds more moisture to the air. Combine all that extra moisture with cold air, and you get a recipe for lots of snow. This warming can be linked in part to climate change.

"There is peer-reviewed science that now suggests that climate change will lead to more of these intense, blizzard-producing Nor’easters, for precisely the reason we’re seeing this massive storm — unusually warm Atlantic ocean surface temperatures," Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann told Think Progress.

2. Sea level rise raises the risk of flooding

Of course, with global warming comes the melting of polar ice caps and sea level rise. And the Northeast has seen some of the biggest rises. As Slate reports, waters in Lewes, Delaware, have risen by more than a foot over the past century. And higher seas raise the risk of flooding during major storms like Hurricane Sandy or Jonas.

Climate change isn't the only factor that spawned this weekend's massive blizzard. But if current trends continue, it's safe to say we can probably expect more of these snowpocalypse storms down the road.

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Two days after a massive winter storm system dropped snow from Tennessee and Georgia to Massachusetts, millions of Americans are digging out. By some news accounts, more than 30 million people lived in areas that received at least 20 inches (50 centimeters) of snow, and 3 million more saw at least 30 inches (75 centimeters).

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this natural-color image of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. in the early afternoon on January 24, 2016. Most neighborhoods in the image received at least 18 to 24 inches (46 to 61 centimeters) of snowfall from the nor'easter that pounded the region from January 22 to 24.

The image below is a close-up of Washington drawn from the larger image. Note the long shadow cast by the Washington Monument.

The highest snow total was recorded in Glengarry, West Virginia: 42 inches (107 centimeters). Snow totals approached records at airports near Baltimore (29.2 inches), Philadelphia (22.4 inches), and Newark, New Jersey (28.1 inches). The National Zoo in Washington, D.C. counted 22.4 inches and Central Park in New York picked up 26.8 inches.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a broad view of the eastern United States (below) at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (18:30 Universal Time) on January 24, 2016.

At least 37 people have died as a result of car accidents, hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning, or over-exertion from shoveling snow, according to multiple news reports. At least a quarter-million people have lost electric power, and more than 13,000 airline flights have been canceled.

Beyond the snowfall, near-hurricane force winds combined with astronomically high tides to produce storm surges on the Delaware and New Jersey coasts. Sea water poured into coastal towns, while extensive beach erosion occurred as far north as Massachusetts.

Though scientific study of this blizzard has only just begun, it is possible that the strength of the storm was amplified by global warming and the record warm temperatures this year. Ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic are unusually high this winter, providing a deep well of moisture that was drawn into the storm system. Warmer air masses can carry more water to fall as snow or rain, making extreme snow events more likely even though overall annual snowfall has been dropping in recent decades.

SEE ALSO: Jaw-dropping photos of massive winter storm Jonas taken from space

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As if Flint wasn't enough, an Ohio village is now having a lead crisis of it's own. 

Seven of the 20 homes where Sebring's water supply is routinely tested showed elevated levels of lead and copper on Thursday, well beyond the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recommended limits, reports the Christian Science Monitor. 

Sebring's schools were shut down on Friday, and remained closed Tuesday morning, after a water fountain in one of the buildings tested positive for unsafe levels of lead, reports WYTV. 

Tests showed that Sebring's water had lead levels of 21 parts-per-billion, well over the EPA's limit of 15 parts-per-billion, reports CNN. 

While the Sebring water system is much smaller than Flint's — it only serves about 8,100 homes — the problem has similar culprits including aging infrastructure and official inaction. 

An Ohio EPA spokesman told CBS that the lead is not coming from the Mahoning River, Sebring's water source. Similar to Flint, the village's mildly acidic water is leaching lead from the village's old pipes and distribution lines.

On Tuesday morning, the Ohio EPA informed Sebring's Water Superintendent, James Bates, that they intend to revoke his operating license for "endangering the public," and for submitting "misleading, inaccurate, and false reports," per CBS. 

The Ohio EPA also released documents showing that it had asked Bates for months when he would take public action to solve the lead problem. CBS also reports that Bates has been placed on administrative leave.

The EPA's Ohio director, Craig Butler, has asked the federal EPA to open up a criminal investigation to figure out who exactly was responsible for letting the lead situation go unreported for so long, Fox8 reported recently.

The Ohio government is currently sending bottled water to those affected.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A massive weekend earthquake in Alaska cracked a road, broke natural gas lines and destroyed four homes. But the magnitude-7.1 quake wasn't the first or even the biggest temblor to rock the state.

Four of five US earthquakes occur in Alaska, a state more than twice the size of Texas. But they often are overlooked because most occur in remote regions.

Here's a look at why Alaska has so many earthquakes and what's in store for the state:

What makes Alaska prone to earthquakes? 

The Earth's outermost shell is made up of tectonic plates that move, and Alaska is near the intersection of two great plates: the Pacific Plate, beneath the Pacific Ocean, and the North American Plate, which covers most of North America.

The Pacific Plate is being subducted, or pushed below, the North American Plate at a rate of 2 inches per year. The subduction zone stretches from Prince William Sound to Japan along the Aleutian Trench.

According to prevailing models, friction locks up the two plates, building elastic energy until the strain is too great and there's an earthquake.

The largest releases come in the form of megathrust earthquakes such as the magnitude-9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. They tear hundreds of miles of earth near the surface and can create tsunamis that send killer waves as far as Hawaii and California. Sunday's quake was not that kind.

What caused Sunday's quake? 

Tectonic plates don't move neatly below each other. U.S. Geological Survey research geologist Peter Haeussler compares it to bending a Snickers bar and producing cracks on the top.

Tectonic plates stretch, strain and contort as they dive beneath another plate, Alaska state seismologist Michael West said.

Sunday's earthquake originated 75 miles below ground and 53 miles offshore in a part of the Pacific Plate long ago subducted beneath the North American Plate.

The twisted tectonic plate continues to adjust by earthquakes as it's pushed toward the Earth's mantle.

Why wasn't there more damage?

Sunday's quake was about one-fifteenth the size of the shallow, magnitude-7.9 Denali Fault quake in 2002 that ruptured the Earth's surface for 209 miles in interior Alaska.

This one tore tens of miles. It also was deep, and there was no rupture in the seafloor that could cause a tsunami.

The earthquake at 1:30 a.m. Sunday rattled beds in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, but it was far enough away not to crack most buildings.

Credit Alaska building codes for requiring commercial structures that roll with the punches caused by shifting tectonic plates. Most Alaskans live in wood-frame houses that flex with quakes but retain their integrity.

What does the future hold?

Alaska's earthquake susceptibility does not affect California, Utah or other earthquake-prone states, which have their own fault lines.

Alaska will see more large earthquakes, but the USGS says scientists have never predicted one. The agency instead calculates probabilities and focuses on long-term mitigation of earthquake hazards by helping improve structures' safety.

Alaska sees so many large quakes, West said, the state is often written off as a land of log cabins that can fend off major shakers. Besides the Denali Fault quake 90 miles south of Fairbanks, Alaska in June 2014 saw a magnitude-7.9 earthquake, but it was in the remote Aleutians 1,400 miles southwest of Anchorage.

West fears a magnitude-6 quake directly under a major Alaska city. "It's all a function of proximity," he said.

More than homes, an earthquake in the wrong place could damage Alaska infrastructure, such as ports or power transmission, rail or communication lines, which have far less redundancy than other states.

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Humans have made enough plastic since the second world war to coat the Earth entirely in clingfilm, an international study has revealed.

This ability to plaster the planet in plastic is alarming, say scientists – for it confirms that human activities are now having a pernicious impact on our world.

The research, published in the journal Anthropocene, shows that no part of the planet is free of the scourge of plastic waste.

Everywhere is polluted with the remains of water containers, supermarket bags, polystyrene lumps, compact discs, cigarette filter tips, nylons and other plastics. Some are in the form of microscopic grains, others in lumps. The impact is often highly damaging.

“The results came as a real surprise,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, of Leicester University. “We were aware that humans have been making increasing amounts of different kinds of plastic – from Bakelite to polyethylene bags to PVC – over the last 70 years, but we had no idea how far it had travelled round the planet. It turns out not just to have floated across the oceans, but has sunk to the deepest parts of the sea floor. This is not a sign that our planet is in a healthy condition either.”

The crucial point about the study’s findings is that the appearance of plastic should now be considered as a marker for a new epoch. Zalasiewicz is the chairman of a group of geologists assessing whether or not humanity’s activities have tipped the planet into a new geological epoch, called the Anthropocene, which ended the Holocene that began around 12,000 years ago.

Most members of Zalasiewicz’s committee believe the Anthropocene has begun and this month published a paper in Science in which they argued that several postwar human activities show our species is altering geology. In particular, radioactive isotopes released by atom bombs left a powerful signal in the ground that will tell future civilizations that something strange was going on.

In addition, increasing carbon dioxide in the oceans, the massive manufacture of concrete and the widespread use of aluminum were also highlighted as factors that indicate the birth of the Anthropocene. Lesser environmental impacts, including the rising use of plastics, were also mentioned in passing.

But Zalasiewicz argues that the humble plastic bag and plastic drink container play a far greater role in changing the planet than has been realized. “Just consider the fish in the sea,” he said. “A vast proportion of them now have plastic in them. They think it is food and eat it, just as seabirds feed plastic to their chicks. Then some of it is released as excrement and ends up sinking on to the seabed. The planet is slowly being covered in plastic.” In total, more than 300 million tonnes of plastic is manufactured every year, states the paper, The Geological Cycle of Plastics and Their Use as a Stratigraphic Indicator of the Anthropocene.

“In 1950, we virtually made none at all. It is an incredible rise,” added Zalasiewicz. “That annual total of 300 million tonnes is close to the weight of the entire human population of the planet. And the figure for plastic manufacture is only going to grow. The total amount of plastic produced since the second world war is around 5 billion tonnes and is very likely to reach 30 billion by the end of the century. The impact will be colossal.”

As the paper makes clear, plastic is already on the ocean floor, remote islands, buried underground in landfill sites and in the food chain. Even the polar regions, generally considered still to be pristine zones, are becoming affected. In 2014, researchers found “significant” amounts of plastic granules frozen in the Arctic Sea, having been swept there from the Pacific Ocean.

In some cases, wildlife adapts to the spread of plastic. For example, on islands such as Diego Garcia, hermit crabs have taken to using plastic bottles as homes. However, most of the impact on wildlife is harmful. Creatures ranging from seabirds to turtles become entangled in plastic and drown or choke to death. “The trouble is that plastic is very slow to degrade, so we are going to be stuck with this problem for a long time,” said Zalasiewicz.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Several cities on the East Coast were rocked by a blizzard over the weekend, causing giant heaps of snow to be piled along the streets. New York City's Department of Sanitation brought out the big guns.

Story and editing by Andrew Fowler

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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faces intensifying criticism for its finding that hydraulic fracturing has no "widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water"— and the pushback comes not from activists, but from the agency's own science advisors. 

Last month, the panel of 31 independent scientists charged with reviewing the EPA's draft report stated that the agency's broad conclusion about the mining technique known as fracking is at odds with the evidence and "inconsistent with the observations, data, and levels of uncertainty presented." 

According to the scientists, in looking at the issue nationally, the EPA failed to give due consideration to several cases in which fracking may have contaminated water supplies locally.

"The agency should include and explain the … investigations conducted in Dimock, Pennsylvania; Pavillion, Wyoming; and Parker County, Texas where hydraulic fracturing activities are perceived by many members of the public to have caused significant local impacts to drinking water resources," states the advisory body's review.

The EPA fracking study was commissioned in 2010 by the US Congress and stands as the most comprehensive review of the controversial mining technique, which releases natural gas by injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into rock formations deep below ground. The fossil fuel Industry has heralded the EPA's June report as vindication for years of criticism. 

Fracking has helped to catapult the United States into the position of the world's largest producer of natural gas. But the advising scientists' critique stands to reignite the debate over how to regulate a practice that critics say could contaminate water supplies and exacerbate global warming. 

The charge leveled by the advising scientists is not that the EPA erred in the 20 peer-reviewed studies it conducted and 3,500 more studies and reports it reviewed. Rather, the advisory board, consisting of government and university scientists, finds fault with how the agency presented the information most likely to influence public opinion — particularly that the claim of no systematic impact on drinking water is insufficiently nuanced. 

We are "concerned that these major findings are presented ambiguously within the Executive Summary and are inconsistent with the observations, data, and levels of uncertainty presented and discussed in the body of the draft Assessment Report," states the review. While the EPA did not find any clear evidence that fracking, properly executed, caused chemicals to seep through rock fissures into the water supply, it did document well failures and above-ground spills affecting drinking water. 

One case occurred in Pavillion, Wyoming, where in 2010 the EPA issued a warning to residents not to drink or cook with water that was found to contain a chemical used in fracking, 2-butoxyethanol or 2-BE. In 2011 the EPA issued a draft report stating that fracking was responsible for the water pollution, but following harsh criticism of its methods the agency retreated from its finding and turned the study over to state regulators.

The state's Department of Environmental Quality eventually found little evidence that the presence of 2-BE, which is also found in household cleaners, was due to fracking. The study was funded by EnCana, the drilling company whose wells the EPA had initially blamed for the contamination.Though the role of fracking remains contested, the advising scientists recommend that the EPA should qualify its conclusions about the risks posed by acknowledging gaps in the existing data and concerning cases like Pavillion.

The EPA is not required to act on its advisors suggestions, and industry lobbyists are intent on seeing the final report retain its sweeping language.

"The [science advisory board] asks the EPA to change its top line conclusion that hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impact on drinking water sources based on what it, itself, calls outlier events," said Katie Brown, a spokesperson for the research branch of Independent Petroleum Association of America, during a public comment period on Monday. "But, by definition, if an event is an outlier it means that it is neither widespread nor systematic."

Other public commenters supported the advisory body's recommendations, and environmentalists and scientists have called on the agency to edit the report.

"The EPA's own science advisers are rightfully responding to the EPA's report with the fact that drilling and unconventional extraction are risks to the water cycle and that water contamination is a common and inherent problem," said Tony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University.

The EPA's study found that between 25,000 to 30,000 new wells were drilled each year between 2011 and 2014 and that 9.4 million Americans live within a mile of a fracking site. The report also states that there are 6,800 drinking water sources within a mile of a well. 

The promise of cheap energy supplies and jobs in the oil and gas sector have often overshadowed concerns over the environmental impact of fracking. In Iowa, for instance, the boom in natural gas has meant trouble for the local ethanol industry. But of the presidential candidates hoping for good news out of the corn state's caucuses today, the only out-and-out opponent of fracking is Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders.

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