World Tourism Blog

A major winter storm lumbering across America’s midsection promised a white Christmas for some but brought headaches for travelers caught on slick, icy roads or dealing with canceled and delayed flights.

The worst of the storm was heading northeast across the region Thursday, carrying heavy snow, sleet and rain to a large swath of the Plains and the Midwest.

Up to two feet (two-thirds of a meter) of snow was possible in some areas by Christmas Day.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings early Thursday for Kansas and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Texas Panhandle.

It cautioned that travel would be extremely dangerous in those areas through the weekend and that anyone taking to the road should pack a winter survival kit including flashlight and water in case of emergency.

Scott Blair, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Topeka, Kansas, said the wind was becoming a serious issue in central Kansas, with gusts reaching 40 mph (64 kph).

“We’re going to see blowing snow,” Blair said. “The big concern comes later when we see snowfall with the wind, causing reduced visibility.”

Slippery roads were blamed for at least 14 deaths. Icy roads were blamed for accidents that killed at least seven people in Nebraska, four in Kansas, one each in Minnesota and Oklahoma, and one near Albuquerque, N.M.

More than 100 scheduled flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport were canceled Thursday and dozens more were delayed, according to the airport’s Web site. The Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City shut down one of its three runways and canceled nearly 30 flights.

The Chicago Department of Aviation said there were no major delays early Thursday at O’Hare International Airport or Midway International Airport. On Wednesday, it reported more than 200 cancellations at O’Hare and about 60 at Midway.

Strong winds and ice caused power outages in Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa.
Hard money training.

Truck drivers wait to get into a truck stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday. More than a foot of snow was expected in parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa.

As millions across the northern half of the U.S. struggled with flight delays, road closures and canceled classes on Wednesday, many were also asked, albeit briefly, to turn off their holiday lights by a major power company feeling the strain.

PacifiCorp at first asked customers to skimp on electricity as it tried to cope with higher demand prompted by frigid weather.

The utility, however, backed off after taking criticism for spreading bad cheer.

“We want to be in tune with the festive nature of the season,” said David Eskelsen, a spokesman for Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp, which serves parts of six Western states.

Now the company is asking people to delay turning on holiday lights until after 7 p.m. at night rather than keep the lights off.

Demand for electricity could peak again on PacifiCorp’s system early Thursday when temperatures are expected to dip to the single digits, Eskelsen said.

There have been no reports of widespread outages, but cold temperatures are expected to persist until the weekend, straining a Western power grid that stretches from northern Mexico to a piece of British Columbia, he said.

Most people heat with natural gas or another fuel, but Eskelsen said heating systems commonly use a blower, which contributes significantly to power demands.

Electric clothes dryers also are big electric users, and PacifiCorp was asking customers to wait until late at night to use those them.

Customers also were asked to minimize the use of lights, computers, televisions and other appliances. The utility even asked people to cook with microwaves instead of regular electric ovens.

The snowstorm and bitter cold started in the West on Monday, hit the Upper Midwest on Tuesday and Wednesday and then spread into New England. It has been blamed for at least 12 deaths, most in traffic accidents. Hard money training.

Jenn Boneza remembers when the white sandy beach near the boat ramp in her hometown was wide enough for people to build sand castles.

“It really used to be a beautiful beach,” said the 35-year-old mother of two. “And now when you look at it, it’s gone.”

What’s happening to portions of the beach in Kailua — a sunny coastal suburb of Honolulu where President Barack Obama spent his last two family vacations in the islands — is being repeated around the Hawaiian Islands.

Geologists say more than 70 percent of Kauai’s beaches are eroding while Oahu has lost a quarter of its sandy shoreline. They warn the problem is only likely to get significantly worse in coming decades as global warming causes sea levels to rise more rapidly.

“It will probably have occurred to a scale that we will have only been able to save a few places and maintain beaches, and the rest are kind of a write-off,” said Dolan Eversole, a coastal geologist with the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant program.

The loss of so many beaches is an alarming prospect for Hawaii on many levels. Many tourists come to Hawaii precisely because they want to lounge on and walk along its soft sandy shoreline. These visitors spend some $11.4 billion each year, making tourism the state’s largest employer.

Disappearing sands would also wreak havoc on the environment as many animals and plants would lose important habitats. The Hawaiian monk seal, an endangered species, gives birth and nurses pups on beaches. The green sea turtle, a threatened species, lays eggs in the sand.

Chip Fletcher, a University of Hawaii geology professor, says scientists in Hawaii haven’t yet observed an accelerated rate of sea level rise due to global warming.

Instead, the erosion the islands are experiencing now is caused by several factors including a steady historical climb in sea levels that likely dates back to the 19th century.

Other causes include storms and human actions like the construction of seawalls, jetties, and the dredging of stream mouths. Each of these human actions disrupts the natural flow of sand.

But a more rapid rise in sea levels, caused by global warming, is expected to contribute to erosion in Hawaii within decades. In 100 years, sea levels are likely to be at least 1 meter, or 3.3 feet, higher than they are now, pushing the ocean inland along coastal areas.

Fletcher says between 60 to 80 percent of the nation’s shoreline is chronically eroding. But the problem is felt particularly acutely in Hawaii because the economy and lifestyle are so dependent on healthy beaches.

The state is doing everything it can to keep the sand in Waikiki, for example, joining with hotels in the state’s tourist hub on a plan to spend between $2 million and $3 million pumping in sand from offshore.

Sam Lemmo, administrator of the state’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, says the state would need a variety of adaptation strategies for different beaches.

It would likely have to abandon hope for beaches in posh Lanikai and suburban Ewa Beach on Oahu because they’re already lined with seawalls and are badly eroded.

The same probably goes for shoreline next to highways or other critical public infrastructure, where seawalls already exist or may have to be built.

Seawalls protect individual properties from encroaching waters but they exacerbate erosion nearby by preventing waves from reaching the sand needed to replenish the beach.

For undeveloped shoreline, the state wants to make sure these areas stay pristine. This happened recently when a Florida-based developer announced plans to build luxury homes on sand dunes in Kahuku on Oahu’s North Shore. Hard money training

The remnants of Tropical Storm Ida were expected to continue tracking through the Southeastern U.S. on Thursday.

The system was forecast to continue pulling abundant moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and allow for wet weather over the South. Rainfall in the Southeast could decrease to light and scattered showers with totals near a half of an inch. But strong winds were expected to increase over the region with wind gusts of up to 30 mph.

The slow-moving system was forecast to continue to flood the region from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi River, and up the East Coast in to the Mid-Atlantic states.

Scattered showers also were expected to increase up the coast as additional moisture comes in from the Atlantic.

Strong storms were forecast in the Carolinas and Virginias with rainfall totals of up to 2 inches with periods of strong thunderstorm development. Coastal flooding and erosion were expected over the Mid-Atlantic states.

Behind this system, a large high pressure system could move from the Plains and Mississippi River Valley and into the Great Lakes and Northeast. It was expected to continue bringing mild weather with mostly sunny skies and warm conditions.

Temperatures in the Northeast were expected to remain in the 50s while the Midwest could see a warm day in the 60s. A trough of low pressure was forecast to start pushing in from the Rocky Mountains and bring strong winds to the Southern Plains. Gusts could reach up to 20 mph in the Plains, with temperatures reaching into the 70s.

In the West, a trough of low pressure was expected to continue tracking eastward from the Pacific Northwest and over the Northern Plains. Most areas of Montana and Wyoming could see between 3 and 5 inches of snowfall with more at higher elevations.

Oregon and Washington were forecast to start to dry out and remain cool with highs in the 40s. A light mix of snow and rain was expected and could bring less than a half of an inch of accumulation. Light rain was forecast to spread into northern California as a cold front pushes southeastward through the region. Hard money training

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań (Poland 1-12 December 2008) ended successfully with a clear commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year in order to shape an ambitious and effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in Copenhagen , Denmark, at the end of 2009.

“Governments have sent a strong political signal that despite the financial and economic crisis, significant funds can be mobilized for both mitigation and adaptation in developing countries with the help of a clever financial architecture and the institutions to deliver the financial support,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“We now have a much clearer sense of where we need to go in designing an outcome which will spell out the commitments of developed countries, the financial support  required and the institutions that will deliver that support as part of the Copenhagen outcome,” he added.

Countries meeting in Poznań made progress on a number of issues that are important in the short run - up to 2012 - particularly for developing countries, including adaptation, finance, technology and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Progress was made in the area of technology with the endorsement of the Global Environment Facility’s “Poznań Strategic Programme on Technology Transfer”.  The aim of this programme is to scale up the level of investment by levering private investments that developing countries require both for mitigation and adaptation technologies

In addition, the conference discussed in detail the issue of disaster management, risk assessment and insurance, essential to help developing countries cope with the inevitable effects of climate change.

Governments meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agreed that commitments of industrialized countries post-2012 should principally take the form of quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, in line with the type of emission reduction targets they have assumed for the first commitment period of the protocol.