Weather

On Wednesday we noted with some amusement that the “historic” winter blizzard that’s set to slam the east coast had been upgraded to a “potentially epic winter blockbuster.”

The best thing about “potentially epic winter blockbusters” is that they pave the way for “potentially epic” weather scapegoating from the BES, who last year learned that the American public (not to mention the market) is apparently fine accepting double-adjusted GDP data.

Yesterday some readers were offended when we dubbed the upcoming winter storm set to slam the Northeastern United States and impact up to 50 million people, in roughly 48 hours as "potentially historic" - a phrase created not by us, but by the WaPo's meteorologists.

With the exception of a handful of one-time events, it had been such a mild winter across most of the U.S. that numerous retailers have been complaining how negatively impacted their topline has been as a result of the warmer weather (clearly having forgotten how they complained about precisely the opposite in prior years).

Hurricane Alex is the first Atlantic hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938, and the first one to exist during January since hurricane Alice in 1955.  Alex formed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, making it one of the earliest tropical storms to form in the Atlantic since records began. Accuweather.com reports: “A subtropical storm has both tropical and non-tropical characteristics and has a large wind field,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski. A small eye formed in the system during early Thursday, local time.

A powerful solar storm is currently hitting the Earth which will make for a spectacular Northern Lights show just before New Year’s Eve.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said the strong storm may allow the Northern Lights to dip as far south as Oregon and Illinois. Yahoo News reports: NOAA classifies solar storms on a scale of one to five (one being the weakest; five being the most severe).