Floodwaters can be swift, powerful and, at times, deadly. However, advanced planning can help protect lives and minimize property losses due to flooding. With the spring thaw approaching, NOAA's National Weather Service and FEMA are partnering to observe the fifth annual Flood Safety Awareness Week, March 16-20, 2009.

Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, appeared at The Heartland Institute’s 2009 International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) in New York on March 11 to elaborate on his theory that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. Gray also distributed a document containing a scathing critique of Dr. James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is widely known for his outspokenness on the issue of manmade global warming. “James Hansen has not been trained as a meteorologist. His formal education has been in astronomy. His long records of faulty global climate predictions and alarmist public pronouncements have become increasingly hollow and at odds with reality. Hansen has exploited the general public’s lack of knowledge of how the globe’s climate system functions for his own benefit. His global warming predictions, going back to 1988 are not being verified.”

You should never underestimate the intelligence of the American people. Sadly, that is exactly what the promoters of man-made climate fears have been consistently doing, and the American people have consistently rejected climate alarm. Despite world-wide media frenzy, Americans remain as skeptical of global warming fears as they were in 1989 according to last years Gallup poll. “The warmers are getting more and more like those traditional predictors of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen on the due date, announce an error in their calculations and a new date.”

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTHEAST ALABAMA... SOUTHWEST AND SOUTH CENTRAL GEORGIA...AND THE FLORIDA BIG BEND AND PANHANDLE...AND ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS.

The heaviest rain will gradually shift eastward and southward across the South Friday and Saturday, becoming more confined to the northern Gulf and Southeast Coasts by early week.

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTHEAST ALABAMA... SOUTHWEST AND SOUTH CENTRAL GEORGIA...AND THE FLORIDA BIG BEND AND PANHANDLE...AND ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS

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This hazardous weather outlook is for southeast Alabama, southwest and south central Georgia, the Florida big bend and panhandle, and adjacent coastal waters.

Crews from the National Weather Service are heading to southern Indiana to determine whether the area was hit by a tornado yesterday. One twister has already been confirmed in the northeastern part of the state.

After George F. Will wrote a column last month questioning the faulty premises and apocalyptic predictions of global-warming alarmists, he caught holy heck from America’s “eco-pessimists.” He and his editors at The Washington Post were blasted with thousands of angry e-mails, most of which challenged Will’s assertion that global sea ice levels have not been dramatically reduced by man-made global warming, as environmentalists claim, but are essentially the same as they were in 1979. Will, who had used data from the Arctic Climate Research Center as his source, also was accused of multiple inaccuracies by The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin. Will wrote a second column defending his data and returning fire at Revkin.

Science magazine claims in a recent article (attached) by Benjamin Somers and Becky Ham: “Drought in the American Southwest, already decades old, could soon be exacerbated as rainfall plummets.” Yet according to the people who really know and work with the data every day and not models, Roosevelt Lake in Arizona has reached highest level ever and the all time record level is even prompting SRP water releases.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography is awarding its first-ever Roger Revelle Prize to former Vice President Al Gore. (Icecap note: [Long time meteorologist] John Coleman’s station in San Diego KUSI covered the event live. But then the station ran John’s two and one-half minute report on the irony of the award since Revelle had changed his mind about CO2 before he died.)

I write to report on a debate that defeated the motion “This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis” during a meeting of the St Andrews University Debating Society. It is difficult to arrange a debate of anthropogenic (that is, man-made) global warming (AGW) because few proponents of AGW are willing to face such debate. They know from past experience that they always lose such debates because there is no evidence that AGW exists and much evidence that it does not.

The CO2 wars have begun. Presumably following White House directions, the EPA is ready to issue an “Endangerment Finding” on carbon dioxide, paving the way for regulations to control CO2 emissions. But with over one million “major stationary sources,” a full-blown application of the Clean Air Act would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the US economy - all without any scientific justification. Hence there is speculation that the White House strategy is to use the threat of EPA regulation to force Congress to take action. But why reduce CO2 emission at all? � CO2 is not a “pollutant.” � The climate has not been warming since 1998 - in spite of steadily rising CO2 levels. Ultimately, ideology may be what’s fueling the CO2 wars.

The United States has shivered through an unusually severe winter... Earlier this year, Europe was gripped by such a killing cold wave... Last week, satellite data showed three of the Great Lakes - Erie, Superior, and Huron - almost completely frozen over... In Washington, D.C., what was supposed to be a massive rally against global warming was upstaged by the heaviest snowfall of the season, which paralyzed the capital... None of this proves conclusively that a period of planetary cooling is irrevocably underway... Isn’t it possible that the most apocalyptic voices of global-warming alarmism might not be the only ones worth listening to?... There is no shame in conceding that science still has a long way to go before it fully understands the immense complexity of the Earth’s ever-changing climate(s)... But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change... When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot.

High wind warnings are still posted in portions of Indiana after a day of damaging thunderstorms.

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTHEAST ALABAMA... SOUTHWEST AND SOUTH CENTRAL GEORGIA...AND THE FLORIDA BIG BEND AND PANHANDLE...AND ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS.

As one storm departs by early Monday morning, another storm will begin to gather itself in the center of the country.

NASA launched a pioneering telescope on Friday to survey a corner of the galaxy in hopes of learning if other planets like Earth exist.

Dual catalysts may be the key to efficiently turning carbon dioxide and water vapor into methane and other hydrocarbons using titania nanotubes and solar power, according to Penn State researchers.

Short Term