OK, go ahead and get the "Where's my global warming?" jokes out
of your system. With the U.S. Midwest trudging through its
second blizzard in a week, it's understandable. But while it may
seem contradictory at first, scientists say bigger blizzards fit
the pattern they expect to see from a changing climate. The
immediate meteorological cause of the back-to-back snowstorms is
a colder-than-normal mass of air that's been hovering over the
central United States, combined with an amped-up jet stream
that's been dipping south from Canada. That makes conditions
ripe for major snowstorms after a warmer-than-normal January for
most of the Lower 48. "Once you get into a pattern that sets up
these storms, they can repeat themselves," National Weather
Service Director Louis Uccellini told CNN. The 21 inches that
fell on Wichita, Kansas, in February just broke a monthly
snowfall record set in 1913. Amarillo, Texas, saw 19 inches of
snow on Monday alone, a total greater than its annual average
and breaking a daily record