Worst Freeze in Mexico in 60 years

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Sometimes when I see articles in the New York Times talking about how big snow storms are being caused by global warming, I feel like I am in the book "1984".   They really need to define some Newspeak words like "coldwarming" to explain why the snowline (i.e. the freezing temperature line) has been transitioning southward throughout the northern hemisphere during the last few years.  An increase in global temperature could indeed cause increased evaporation leading to more precipitation -- if there actually were a warming going on.  But warming certainly does not cause cooling.  So the increased precipitation would fall as rain, not snow.

The freeze line dropped far down into Mexico last weekend.

According to The Packer,which bills itself as "the fresh fruit and vegetable industry's leading source for news, information and analysis", Mexican growers in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora are reporting massive crop losses due to the freeze of the night of February 3rd, 2011.

"Freezing temperatures across a wide swath of Mexico the night of Feb. 3-4 could have a huge effect on supplies of tomatoes, peppers and other winter vegetables. The freeze reached fields as far south as southern Sinaloa. Crops in the border state of Sonora could be devastated.

“The last time there was a freeze of this severity was 1957,” said Jerry Wagner, director of sales and marketing for Nogales, Ariz.-based Farmer’s Best. “It’s still too early to tell, but there’s a lot of damage.” All of the growing regions Farmer’s Best ships from suffered freezing temperatures, Wagner said. The company’s full line of vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash, was likely affected.

"One industry veteran told Jesse Driskill, operations manager of the Nogales office of Meyer LLC, that Mexico had not had a freeze like this in 60 years.

Initial estimates of crop losses have been updated to be more severe than originally thought. Tomato losses were first estimated to be in the 20% range, they could wind up being closer to 50%. In Sonora, some growers are now expecting total losses of squash and melon crops.

And in the Mexican town of Adalma, about an hour north of Chihuahua City, the temperature got down to 5 degrees F, causing the deaths of 65 zoo animals.  In living memory, it has never been that cold there.

I also note that Colorado saw temperatures of -60 F recently.  Perhaps it will help kill off the pine beetles.  Their spread through the forests of the Rocky Mountains over the last 50 years has been blamed on global warming -- although I think the policy of fighting forest fires (and the resulting high density of trees)  is the actual cause of the problem.

Stay warm out there mis amigos y amigas.

Al Gore helping out

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