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Winter Storm May Pound U.S. Northeast Later This Week, Add to Snow Totals

by on February 23, 2010

By Brian K. Sullivan Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — As a winter storm threatens to leave more than 12 inches of snow across upstate New York and parts of New England, forecasters are warning of an even more powerful system arriving Feb. 25. “You may hear it called a ‘snow hurricane’ because blizzard may not even do it justice,” said Alex Sosnowski , an expert senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. “It is like we’re getting a decade’s worth of storms all in one season.” Winter storm warnings and advisories for the current storm stretch from Pennsylvania through Vermont and Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service. While rain is falling in coastal areas such as New York, heavy snow is falling in Albany, where forecasts call for as much as 7 inches tonight and 10 inches tomorrow, the weather service said. The next storm will develop off the U.S. East Coast out of a system coming up from the Gulf of Mexico, Sosnowski said. AccuWeather’s Web site describes the storm as “nothing short of a monster” and predicts high winds and heavy rain across Long Island, Connecticut and New York. “Midday models show a region from Cape Cod to northern Maine receiving hurricane-force winds at the storm’s peak, Thursday afternoon and overnight,” private forecaster MDA Federal Inc. said in a statement. The lowest hurricane-force wind is 74 miles per hour (119 kph). NYC Snow New York City will probably receive snow from the storm, which is forecast to enter the metropolitan area early in the morning on Feb. 25, said Joe Pollina, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Upton, New York. “We anticipate some snow for much of the area,” Pollina said by telephone. He said it is too early to estimate snowfall amounts for New York because the storm’s path may still change. The weather service will begin releasing those forecasts sometime tomorrow, he said. In coastal areas, the storm is likely to draw in warm air that will mean rain, while areas from upstate New York to Ottawa may receive 12 inches or more of snow, Sosnowski said. “This thing is a little different animal,” Sosnowski said by telephone. “Instead of passing on by, it looks like it is going to hook back.” The current storm has tied up air traffic along the East Coast, according to the Federal Aviation Administration Web site. Weather-related delays of more than an hour were reported in Boston, Philadelphia and Newark and at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in New York. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net .

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Winter Storm May Pound U.S. Northeast Later This Week, Add to Snow Totals

New York May Get Snow as U.S. Northeast Faces Round Two of Severe Weather

by on February 8, 2010

By Brian K. Sullivan Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — A new storm system barreling across the country may bring as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow to New York, Washington and Baltimore starting tomorrow night, forecasters said. With the Washington-Baltimore area still digging out from a weekend storm that left record snowfalls in some areas, the latest blast of winter “is going to be accompanied by heavy winds, which will make it feel worse, and across the Northeast that wind is going to last through the weekend,” said Tom Kines , a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. The forecast pushed natural gas futures up today as demand for heating fuel rises. Crude oil rose for the first time in four days, rebounding from a seven-week low. Kines said 6 to 12 inches of snow may fall along a corridor from Washington to Boston, and some areas may receive as much as 18 inches. The snow will be followed by cold air that will drop temperatures 10 to 15 degrees below normal and be accompanied by heavy winds, he said. Winter storm watches, warnings and advisories stretch across the U.S. from Utah east to New Jersey and from North Dakota south to Alabama, according to the National Weather Service . Temperatures from Southern California to Maine are expected to be below normal Feb. 13 to 17, according to the latest forecast by the U.S. Climate Prediction Center . Natural gas for March delivery rose 8.7 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $5.602 per million British thermal units at 9:56 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude oil for March delivery rose 39 cents on the Nymex, or 0.6 percent, to $71.58 a barrel at 9:42 a.m. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net .

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New York May Get Snow as U.S. Northeast Faces Round Two of Severe Weather

Washington, Baltimore Face Record Snow as New York Escapes Worst of Storm

February 6, 2010

By Dan Hart Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) — The snowstorm that has blanketed Baltimore and Washington delivered as much as 25 inches of snow to parts of the region, with more forecast through the morning. The National Weather Service in Sterling, Virginia issued a winter storm warning through 10 p.m. tonight, calling for accumulations of as much as 24 inches (60 centimeters) of snow that may occasionally be accompanied by thunder and winds of as much as 20 miles per hour (32 kph) later today. The agency also issued a blizzard warning covering the northern portion of the District of Columbia, stretching up along the Chesapeake Bay in coastal Maryland and into Delaware and New Jersey through 10 p.m. tonight. The warning means heavy snow combined with winds of as much 25 miles per hour could cut visibility to less than a quarter of a mile. “If this storm isn’t one for the record books, it is going to come awfully close,” said Tom Kines , a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. “This is already worse than the one that hit in December.” Washington’s all-time snowfall record is 28 inches that fell during the “Knickerbocker Storm” in January 1922, the National Weather Service said. Baltimore’s record of 26.8 inches came during the “Presidents’ Day Storm” in 2003, the agency said. Almost all flights out of Baltimore-Washington Airport have been canceled today, according to the airport’s Web site . The Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority is warning that all flights have been canceled for today out of Washington Reagan International Airport and most flights for Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia. Philadelphia, New Jersey All three airports are open, the Web sites said. The National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey has forecast that as much as 24 inches of snow may fall in Philadelphia and issued a winter storm warning until 7 p.m. local time tonight. A winter weather advisory was issued by the agency for New York City, calling for between 1 inches and 4 inches of snow for the area through 6 p.m. this evening. To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net .

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U.S. Temperatures Plunge to Record as Cold-Snap Freezes North, East States

January 4, 2010

By Dan Hart Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — Cold, windy weather enveloping the U.S. from the northern Plains to the East Coast may continue to break temperature records today. In south Florida, orange growers may escape most crop damage. The National Weather Service issued hard-freeze warnings for last night and this morning for southern Alabama and Georgia and the northern part of Florida, including the panhandle. Such warnings alert growers of temperatures that may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours. A low of 20 degrees was forecast for Jacksonville, Florida, overnight, which would break the existing record of 22 degrees, said Dave Samuhel , a meteorologist for AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. Typical temperatures for Jacksonville this time of year are 42 degrees, he said. In Florida, citrus-growers will likely avoid major crop damage since below-freezing temperatures wouldn’t last long enough, Samuhel said. “I don’t expect widespread damage,” he said. The next few weeks will be key to the outlook for agriculture, said Bobby Barden, president of the Sebring, Florida-based Highlands County Citrus Growers Association, in a telephone interview. Next Weekend A cold blast expected next weekend “is supposed to be stronger” than the current weather pattern, Jack Scoville , a Price Group Inc. vice president in Chicago, said in an e-mail yesterday. Orange-juice futures on Dec. 31 fell the most in four months on speculation that the freezing weather forecast for this week for many parts of the U.S. won’t damage Florida’s citrus crop. Orange juice rose 90 percent last year on bets the harvest would decline in the state, the world’s second-largest orange grower. The futures for March delivery tumbled 7.85 cents, or 5.7 percent, to $1.2905 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, the biggest drop for a most-active contract since Aug. 14. The price gained 51 percent since the end of 1999. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month estimated that Florida’s orange crop will be 0.7 percent smaller than earlier forecast because adverse weather reduced fruit size. Brazil is the world’s biggest orange producer. To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net

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Plunging Dollar Gives S&P 500 Exporters 2009′s Biggest Gains: Chart of Day

November 10, 2009

By Lynn Thomasson Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Shares of U.S. companies with the most overseas sales are doing best this year on speculation the dollar’s decline to an almost 15-month low is boosting earnings. The CHART OF THE DAY shows that shares of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies generating more than half of their revenue abroad have beaten those doing business only in the U.S. by 27 percentage points, according to data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group LLC, a Harrison, New York-based research firm. The falling dollar makes American goods more competitive overseas and boosts revenue when foreign currencies are brought back to the U.S. “Lately, I’ve been really focusing on the multinationals,” said Stefanie Yeager , a fund manager at State College, Pennsylvania-based Vantage Investment Advisors LLC, which oversees $450 million. “The U.S. is just slowly coming out of the recession, so companies that are purely domestic still have their problems. The multinationals are really benefiting from the exchange rate.” S&P 500 companies getting more than 50 percent of revenue from outside the U.S. have rallied 48 percent this year, according to Bespoke. At the same time, those with only U.S.- based sales rose 21 percent. The Dollar Index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback’s strength, is down 7.7 percent in 2009. American equities and the U.S. currency are moving in the opposite direction more than ever before. The so-called correlation coefficient using 120 days of data between the Dollar Index and the S&P 500 is minus 0.44, near the level of minus 0.45 reached on July 7. The reading four months ago was the lowest in the currency gauge’s 42-year history. To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Thomasson in New York at lthomasson@bloomberg.net .

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