Grand Rapids, MI, 2014 total temperature anomaly through November is now -33 degrees F

That's an average monthly temperature of 3 degrees below normal for 11 months straight.

The month of November, during which we had a record 31 inches of snow, added 5.8 degrees F below normal temperature despite the warming at the end of the month which melted all the snow.

November isn't over and already Grand Rapids, Michigan, has more snow than the old record in 1895

Temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, through October 2014 rises to -27.2 degrees F

The cumulative 2014 temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, through October comes to -27.2 degrees F. That's the sum total of degrees below normal temperature for the year 2014 so far. Divided by ten that comes to an average anomaly of 2.72 degrees F monthly, falling from an average anomaly of 3.00 degrees F monthly through September.

In October temperatures were nearly normal, off just 0.2 degrees F, after a below normal September off 0.7 degrees F.

3Q2014 GDP Advance Estimate comes in at 3.5%: Deliberately underreporting imports right before the election?

The share contributed to GDP in today's report breaks down as follows:

Personal consumption of goods and services: 34%

Private domestic investment: 4%

Net from export trade: 37%

Government consumption: 23%

I don't believe the import number in the report, which was -1.7%!

What, did the weather close all the ports of entry during July, August and September and we didn't know about it?

Imports, of course, subtract from GDP, so this negative import number boosts the contribution made by exports to GDP.

The last time the import number was negative was in the advance estimate of 1Q GDP, at -1.4%.

You remember 1Q, right, the terrible winter months of January, February and March? But as we all know, that negative number became +0.7% in the second estimate, and +1.8% in the third and final report.

Also note that a surge in defense spending in the third quarter for the war against ISIS all by itself accounts for almost 19% of GDP in this report and 80% of the reported share of government consumption contributing to GDP.

Backing out that government spending on the war means the GDP number is more like 2.8%.

And economists had expected GDP to come in at 3%. 

Infected Texas Ebola nurse shouldn't have been allowed on a domestic flight, but it's OK for Liberians to travel to the USA

Thomas Frieden, MD, director of the CDC and red diaper doper baby graduate of Oberlin College and Columbia University, quoted here today:

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that a second Dallas nurse who has been infected with Ebola shouldn’t have traveled halfway across the country on a commercial flight the day before she reported her possible illness. New measures are being put into place to ensure that other health-care workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas who had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first victim of Ebola in the U.S., are restricted from travel as long as they are being monitored for symptoms of the disease, said CDC Director Tom Frieden. “She [Amber Joy Vinson] should not have been on that plane,” Dr. Frieden said to reporters of the health-care worker, who he said had a temperature of 99.5 the day she flew.

But here he was on October 3 arguing for an open border with West Africa:

“Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work,” the top health official added. “People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.”

Oh, but closing borders within the US will work? And people here don't have a right to return home, which is what Ms. Vinson was doing?

If Duncan had never come here, we wouldn't have all these problems in Texas and now Ohio today, and two Americans with infections with a disease which is a death sentence wouldn't have them.

Frieden and Obama should be in jail, where we can limit the infection they spread.

Temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, through September 2014 rises to -27.0 degrees F

The September temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, came to -0.7 degrees F. Added to the cumulative anomaly of -26.3 through August, the annual anomaly through September now totals -27.0 degrees F. That's an average to date of -3.0 degrees F per month.

Temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, MI in 2014 falls to -26.3 degrees F through August

This updates the previous post here.

The August 2014 temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids comes in at +0.2 degrees F, which lifts the total temperature anomaly for the eight months January through August from -26.5 to -26.3.

Eleven days with high temps of 80 or above in the second half of August helped turn the anomaly positive from -1.4.

The average anomaly per month has been -3.2875 degrees F. 

German Bunds make history, yields fall below 1%, poor GDP blamed on MILD winter!

Germany now joins Japan and Switzerland in the below 1% yield club. The rush into the safety of government bonds driving down yields is a sign everywhere of lousy productivity.

Meanwhile yields below 2% exist in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sweden, The Netherlands, Ireland, France, Finland, Denmark, The Czech Republic, Belgium, and Austria. Finland is the lowest of these presently at 1.14%.

CNBC reports here:

"Following disappointing growth data for the euro zone, 10-year yields finally broke through the 1 percent handle on Thursday—a first—dipping to an intraday low of 0.998 percent.  Yields then fell below 1 percent again on Friday, on reports that Ukrainian troops had attacked armed Russian military, which had crossed into the country near the border of Izvaryne. U.S. yields also declined, hitting a low of 2.333 percent, while the euro and European stocks turned negative."

German GDP fell in the second quarter from the first, at -0.6% annualized, which was, believe it or not, blamed on a mild winter there after poor GDP Stateside was blamed on an unusually harsh one.

The Wall Street Journal reported with a straight face here:

"Germany's economy, long Europe's growth engine, shrank for the first time in more than a year, a development economists largely attributed to a mild winter that boosted activity in the first quarter at the expense of the second. The bigger concerns, they say, are France and Italy, where respectable rates of growth aren't even in sight."

Oh well, at least they wrote "shrank".

Global Warming In Grand Rapids, Michigan: Cumulative Temperature Deficit of 26.5 Degrees Fahrenheit January-July 2014

Grand Rapids, Michigan has been building an impressive record of below average temperatures in 2014:

January -6.3 F below average

Feb.      -9.1

March  -9.0

April    -0.4

May    +0.6

June    +1.8

July     -4.1

That's 26.5 degrees F below normal for seven months, or 3.79 degrees F below normal on average for every month this year through July.

And August to date is already -1.4 degrees F.

2Q2014 GDP comes in at 4% in first estimate, 1Q adjusted again in the comprehensive annual revision to -2.1%

Reuters points out here that growth in the first half now comes to . . . 0.9%:

"The economy grew 0.9 percent in the first half of this year and growth for 2014 as a whole could average above 2 percent. The first quarter contraction, which was mostly weather-related, was the largest in five years."

Note that expectations at fxstreet had bumped up from 2.9% earlier to just 3.0% before this morning's BEA release, which will probably end up being closer to the truth two months from now in the final estimate than today's 4% print.

Recall the saga of the first quarter:

Advance estimate +0.1%

2nd estimate -1.0%

Final estimate -2.9%

Comprehensive revision released today -2.1%.

So now the terrible winter quarter to kick off the year was actually only 28% less bad than we thought a month ago, 110% worse than we thought two months ago, and 2200% worse than we thought three months ago.

That's progress!

Steven Goddard wants it both ways: the US temperature record is the best long term record but has been massively altered, nevermind CET is 355 years old and getting older

Attention Drudge readers: Anthony Watts booted "Steven Goddard" from WattsUpWithThat some years ago

Seen here.

Drudge recently linked to a "Goddard" (a nom de plume) story about the summer of 2014 being the "coolest summer on record" in the country, through like July 23rd, which it certainly is from the point of view of extreme summer temperatures, i.e. the annual frequency of 90 degree F or above on a percentage basis. For his story showing the chart of the NOAA data, see here. Extreme summer temperatures have been in decline for most of the last century, contrary to the alarmism of the global warming crowd, a point "Goddard" doesn't seem to have emphasized.

There is no reason to doubt his presentation of the facts that I can detect, except that it could be argued from a chart of the other extreme, the annual frequency of below zero temperatures, that for the same period, about eighty years, there has been a slight decline in the frequency of that metric, too. So there may be a decline in extremes also on the cold side if confirmed. So far "Goddard" has not supplied the trend line for that chart in the comments section. But if confirmed, that would suggest a general thesis that climate extremes have been declining within a minor warming trend which may or may not be reversing now. That's big news since climate alarmists keep telling us the warming trend will produce "extreme weather". It isn't. It's producing ameliorating conditions.

  

Lowest high temperature ever for July 16th yesterday in Grand Rapids

71 degrees F.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard oddly unaware high CO2 coincides with 17yr+ pause in global warming

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here:

[Shale] has whittled down the US current account deficit, now just 2pc of GDP [approximately $340 billion?]. Cheap gas costs - a third of EU prices and a quarter of Asian prices - has brought US industry back from near death, perhaps for long enough to give America another two decades of superpower ascendancy. But making money out of shale is another matter.

Even if the fossil companies navigate the next global downturn more or less intact, they are in the untenable position of booking vast assets that can never be burned without violating global accords on climate change.

The IEA says that two-thirds of their reserves become fictional if there is a binding deal limit to CO2 levels to 450 particles per million (ppm), the maximum deemed necessary to stop the planet rising more than two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. It crossed 400 ppm threshold this spring, the highest in more than 800,000 years.

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Ambrose's problem is that he has insufficient skepticism: There is no binding deal, and we couldn't stop developing nations from spewing even if we wanted to. Ambrose has become a co-dependent in the climate scare and is trafficking in last year's news:

If CO2 was at the same level as of 800,000 years ago, why are we cooler by 5-10 degrees and sea levels lower by 75-120 feet? This would indicate there’s no CO2/temp/sea level relationship.

Indeed, as the picture has unfolded in the last year, we are well past the 17 year milestone for no temperature anomaly. All that extra CO2 is doing nothing, except maybe producing too much vegetation.

So I bought a lawn tractor to mow it all down.

Presidents ranked by average jobs created Q1 to Q2 since the 1970s

From total nonfarm not seasonally adjusted, average percentage achieved:

1. Clinton +2.22%

2. Reagan +2.07%

3. Bush 1  +1.69% (four years, accepts Profiles in Courage Award for raising taxes)

4. Obama  +1.68% (six years, blames drought, winter weather, hurricanes, earthquakes)

5. Bush 2  +1.38%.

Consensus estimate for GDP has worsened to -1.7% from -1.6% at fxstreet

Bob Brinker mentioned the consensus estimate for GDP this last weekend on his radio program Money Talk at -1.8%. fxstreet.com had had the consensus estimate at -1.6% as recently as last week, but now shows it at -1.7%. Very curious.

How did the winter get so much worse in the last month for its impact on GDP? After all, everyone has blamed the -1.0% print in the second estimate on the bad winter. But somehow things are much worse than we thought because of the weather? 70% or 80% worse than we imagined?

It's not because of the winter, dear friends. It's because your master wants you to suffer, wants to cut you down to size, wants to destroy your aspirations.

He is succeeding.

How does it feel to be a slave?

Blaming negative GDP on the harsh winter is already forecast to get worse

The consensus estimate of the third and final report of 1Q2014 GDP, coming out on Wednesday next week, is already 60% worse than the actual second report at -1.6%. What, is the late winter suddenly become worse in the last month?

The first estimate, you will recall, came in at +0.1%, and was quickly downgraded in various places to something ranging between -0.2% and -0.4%. When the second estimate came in at a much worse -1.0%, just about everyone blamed the harsh winter for the pathetic print, including the White House, which incredibly credited GDP from spending on utilities at the same time it debited GDP because people weren't traveling (which isn't true--just examine the government's miles-traveled reports over the winter), weren't vacationing and weren't spending money on hotels and restaurants, and other such drivel.

Having it both ways, it seems, only applies south of the Canadian border, where real GDP was a negative almost $40 billion. North of it real GDP was actually positive, despite the winter, at about $4.7 billion US. A much smaller economy Canada's is, to be sure, but for that reason you'd think it more vulnerable to the harshest winter in decades whereas our much larger, more varied economy ought to be more resilient.

But up against an Obama, you would be wrong. He is secretly happy that things are going as poorly as they are, because it means that the middle class is steadily shrinking and soon will no longer be able to stand in his way, and the Democrat Party's way, of remaking America into a few haves and a lot of have-nots.

In this they are assisted by the libertarians who have successfully infiltrated the Republican Party as conservatives, who see this as their natural mission, too. Politically speaking, they are out to defeat Republicanism just as much as the Democrats are. The successful individual lone ranger is the sine qua non of their vision, after all, whose fabulous wealth is the only object of their affection. And the only thing standing in his way are people who believe in something bigger than themselves.

People who believe in something larger than themselves in America today occupy the extremes of the left and the right, and seem to be getting fewer in number as we speak, a fact noted in a recent article in The New Republic. Between them are a mass of social and economic libertines who are already the slaves of the elites, for whom neither the economic nor the moral restraint of the Protestant founders which built our country are a value. Unless we recover something of the latter the America of the past will cease to exist, if it hasn't already.

And persistently poor GDP proves it.

White House wants it both ways: blames bad GDP on harsh winter, credits good GDP on increased utilities consumption

Doesn't utilities consumption go up because of bad winter weather, in which case bad winter weather is good for GDP, not bad?

From WhiteHouse.gov here:

1. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 1.0 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter of 2014, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This drop follows an increase of 3.4 percent annual pace in the second half of 2013. Looking at the various components of GDP, consumer spending grew at a rapid pace, mainly reflecting sharp increases in health care and utilities consumption, while the other elements of consumer spending on net rose only slightly. Consumer spending on food services and accommodations fell for the first time in four years, one of several components that was likely affected by unusually severe winter weather. Exports and inventory investment, two particularly volatile components of GDP, also subtracted from growth. ...

3. The first quarter of 2014 was marked by unusually severe winter weather, including record cold temperatures and snowstorms, which explains part of the difference in GDP growth relative to previous quarters. The left chart shows the quarterly deviation in heating degree days from its average for the same quarter over the previous five years. By this measure, the first quarter of 2014 was the third most unusually cold quarter over the last sixty years, behind only the first quarter of 1978 and the fourth quarter of 1976. In addition, there were four storms in the first quarter that rated on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS). The right chart shows that no quarter going back to 1956 had more than three such storms.

Obama's policies caused the GDP decline, not the winter

From The Wall Street Journal, here:

Gross domestic product decelerated to an annualized 1.2% in the January through March period--the slowest pace since the fourth quarter of 2012--from a downwardly revised 2.7% in the final three months of last year, Statistics Canada said Friday. On a monthly basis, GDP in March slowed to 0.1% as expected, from 0.2% in February.

The consensus call was for first-quarter growth to slow to an annualized 1.8% from the originally estimated 2.9% in the fourth quarter, according to a report from Royal Bank of Canada. ... The central bank had forecast growth of 1.5% in its April monetary policy report. ...

Despite the poor showing, Canada's GDP outpaced the U.S. where latest figures showed output shrank 1% at annual rates in the first quarter, as severe winter weather exacted a major toll on the economy.

Statistics Canada didn't specify the reasons for the slowdown in Canada, but bad weather could have been a factor.

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So, bad winter weather supposedly caused US GDP to go dramatically negative while in Canada the same bad weather didn't cause GDP to go dramatically negative. We supposedly froze to a standstill and died because of it, while Canadians went on their merry way as they usually do, just at a little slower pace.

Let's put it all in perspective.

The Canadian consensus estimate was off by only 33%, but in the US by some 400% (the consensus for the US revision was down to -0.2% from +0.1%). Apparently the cold affects our reasoning ability, too.

In nominal terms, US GDP on an annualized basis was up just $11.7 billion in 1Q2014 to $17.101 trillion compared with 4Q2013 in the second estimate. But in real terms this was deemed a decline of $39.4 billion, hence the negative print.

Canada's much smaller economy, which in current US dollars is about $1.58 trillion in size, produced an increase of 0.29% in the first quarter as announced on Friday, which annualized comes to 1.19%. In terms of constant prices this was an increase of 5.1 billion dollars Canadian in the first quarter, about $4.7 billion US.

So Canada's tiny little economy, nearly ten times smaller than ours, had the temerity to produce about 40% of our nominal GDP in the face of one of the most brutally cold and snowy winters in the last 100 years.

Put that in your winter-caused-the-GDP-to-decline pipe and smoke it, Mr. Obama. The Great White North may be smaller, but it works harder than you and your Dreamer pals ever dreamed.

UPDATE: The proper comparison, because the Canadian figures are in constant dollars, that is, already inflation-adjusted dollars, is between Canada's positive addition of $4.7 billion US to their GDP vs. America's subtraction of $39.4 billion in real terms from their GDP.

So Canada's 10x smaller economy managed to produce net positive GDP in the extreme weather conditions which Americans to a man blame for their net negative GDP.

Frankly, I'M DISGUSTED WITH MY COUNTRY! 

If "climate change" caused famine and brought down the Bronze Age, why did hungry conquerors DESTROY food?

It's a question which this classicist doesn't seem to have asked himself before writing here, in The New York Times:

The marauders are thought to have been the Sea Peoples, possibly from the western Mediterranean, who were probably fleeing their island homes because of the drought and famine and were moving across the Mediterranean as both refugees and conquerors.

One letter sent to Ugarit advised the king to “be on the lookout for the enemy and make yourself very strong!” The warning probably came too late, for another letter dating from the same time states: “When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. Our food in the threshing floors was burned and the vineyards were also destroyed. Our city is sacked. May you know it! May you know it!” ...

We still do not know the specific details of the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age or how the cascade of events came to change society so drastically. But it is clear that climate change was one of the primary drivers, or stressors, leading to the societal breakdown.

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There's famine, and then, well, there's famine.

Temperature was quite a bit warmer 3000 years ago than it is today, but without the present day scale of supposed human-caused climate change. Why aren't people asking why? And somehow mankind survived to produce what we know as human history despite all that. It is sad to see academics who specialize in the ancient world jumping on this bandwagon of climate hysteria when their own area of expertise ought to tell them that there is something terribly wrong with the contemporary theory. It is more plausible that the much warmer conditions of the past simply produced more human flourishing than the food supply at that time could sustain. And those much warmer conditions of past human history ought at least give them pause.