Map showing the thickness and character of Quaternary sediments in the glaciated United States east of the Rocky Mountains; northern Great Lakes states and central Mississippi Valley states, the Great Lakes, and southern Ontario (80 degrees 31' to 93 degrees west longitude)

Abstract Are we going to have a white Christmas? That is a question that scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) receive each autumn from members of the media and general public. NOAA personnel typically respond by way of a press release and map depicting the climatological probability of observing snow on the ground on 25 December at stations across the contiguous United States. This map has become one of the most popular applications of NOAA’s 1981–2010 U.S. Climate Normals. The purpose of this paper is to expand upon the annual press release in two ways. First, the methodology for empirically calculating the probabilities of snow on the ground is documented. Second, additional maps describing the median snow depth on 25 December as well as the probability and amount of snowfall are presented. The results are consistent with a climatologist’s intuitive expectations. In the Sierras, Cascades, the leeward side of the Great Lakes, and northern New England, snow cover is a near certainty. In these regions, most precipitation falls as snow, and the probability of snowfall can exceed 25%. At higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains and at many locations between the northern Rockies and New England, snowfall is considerably less frequent on Christmas Day, yet the probability of snow on the ground exceeds 50%. For those who would like to escape the snow, the best places to be in late December are in Southern California, the lower elevations of the Southwest, and Florida.

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AREA FIGURES FOR UNITED STATES AND GREAT LAKES STATES

Science ◽

10.1126/science.97.2528.533 ◽

1943 ◽

Vol 97 (2528) ◽

pp. 533-534 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

C. S. OSBORN ◽

S. OSBORN

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Great Lakes ◽

Great Lakes States

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Map showing the thickness and character of quaternary sediments in the glaciated United States East of the Rocky Mountains

10.3133/i1970e ◽

2001 ◽

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Rocky Mountains ◽

Quaternary Sediments

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Returning Home: The Interstate Transportation of Human Remains

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying ◽

10.2190/v0j9-kl93-ge05-0422 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 103-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Graham D. Rowles ◽

Malcolm L. Comeaux

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Great Lakes ◽

Human Remains ◽

The United States ◽

The State ◽

Death Certificates ◽

Geographical Pattern ◽

Next Of Kin ◽

Upper Midwest ◽

Great Lakes States

Many people who die in the United States are transported across state boundaries for burial at a place viewed as “home” by the decedent or the next of kin. This article employs an analysis of data from death certificates to explore the transportation of human remains from Arizona where, in 1983, 17.1 percent of those who died were shipped beyond the state. A sample of 783 removals reveals a predominant geographical pattern of flows to the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes states. This pattern is the reverse of recent patterns of both seasonal (“snowbird”) and permanent in-migration of the living to Arizona. A propensity for individuals to be transported back to their state of birth or to their most recent previous residence is also revealed.

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Weed, Tuber, and Maize Farming in the Americas

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory ◽

10.1093/oso/9780199281091.003.0012 ◽

2006 ◽

Author(s):

Graeme Barker

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

South America ◽

Great Lakes ◽

Central America ◽

Coniferous Forests ◽

Mississippi Valley ◽

The South ◽

Tropical Environments ◽

The Pacific ◽

Central United States

The American continent extends over 12,000 kilometres from Alaska to Cape Horn, and encompasses an enormous variety of environments from arctic to tropical. For the purposes of this discussion, such a huge variety has to be simplified into a few major geographical units within the three regions of North, Central, and South America (Fig. 7.1). Large tracts of Alaska and modern Canada north of the 58th parallel consist of tundra, which extends further south down the eastern coast of Labrador. To the south, boreal coniferous forests stretch eastwards from Lake Winnipeg and the Red River past the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, and westwards from the slopes of the Rockies to the Pacific. The vast prairies in between extend southwards through the central United States between the Mississippi valley and the Rockies, becoming less forested and more open as aridity increases further south. South of the Great Lakes the Appalachian mountains dominate the eastern United States, making a temperate landscape of parallel ranges and fertile valleys, with sub-tropical environments developing in the south-east. The two together are commonly referred to as the ‘eastern Woodlands’ in the archaeological literature. On the Pacific side are more mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada, separated from the Rockies by arid basins including the infamous Death Valley. These drylands extend southwards into the northern part of Central America, to what is now northern Mexico, a region of pronounced winter and summer seasonality in temperature, with dryland geology and geomorphology and xerophytic vegetation. The highlands of Central America, from Mexico to Nicaragua, are cool tropical environments with mixed deciduous and coniferous forests. The latter develop into oak-laurel-myrtle rainforest further south in Costa Rica and Panama. The lowlands on either side sustain a variety of tropical vegetation adapted to high temperatures and frost-free climates, including rainforest, deciduous woodland, savannah, and scrub. South America can be divided into a number of major environmental zones (Pearsall, 1992). The first is the Pacific littoral, which changes dramatically from tropical forest in Colombia and Ecuador to desert from northern Peru to central Chile. This coastal plain is transected by rivers flowing from the Andes, and in places patches of seasonal vegetation (lomas) are able to survive in rainless desert sustained by sea fog.

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