'Dynamic Cooling' Wreaks Havoc in New Jersey

I suppose blizzard conditions on October 29 leaving trees snapping all around is some antidote to so-called global warming. Having lost power today around 3:30 until recently, I'm just discovering the magnitude of the damage.

Not even nature was prepared for this.

A historic early season nor’easter clobbered New Jersey today, snapping forests worth of trees, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, causing dozens of traffic accidents and even breaking at least one snowfall record in the latest bout of the state’s recent run of wild weather.

But even with all the Garden State has been through in the past four months — record heat, a once-in-a-1,000-year rain event and an earthquake — not even the trees were primed for a major snowstorm in October.

“We went from a hurricane to earthquakes to a blizzard,” said Randy Blumenthal, 28, of Morristown. “It’s too early. I’m not ready for it yet.”

Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency this evening and used the social networking site Twitter to warn state residents to stay home and keep them updated about the storm throughout the evening.

“This is more snow than we were expecting,” Christie said in a televised update just before 8 p.m. “We are ready, we are moving, salting and sanding the roads. The problem is you cannot get the trees off the road fast enough. That’s the biggest problem. We have 25 state roads that are completely closed and more than 60 that are partially closed.”

“We are out there plowing, salting sanding and trying to get power crews out there to get power restored quickly,” Christie said on radio station New Jersey 101.5. “The bottom line message, it’s dangerous, we’re in a state of emergency, so stay off the roads unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

We've got around ten inches of snow and those trees that haven't snapped are hanging very low to the ground.

The intensity of the precipitation falling today actually allowed snow to fall, despite the fact that temperatures were above freezing in many places. In a phenomenon called “dynamic cooling,” heavy rain dragged down colder air from the upper atmosphere. That allowed precipitation to freeze and fall as snow.

Those ingredients, mixed well, allowed for one of the worst October snowstorms in New Jersey history.

The science is settled. Dynamic cooling is real.