Heavy snow storms in northern China kill 38

This just in.....

BEIJING – Unusually early snow storms in northern China have claimed 38 lives in weather-related incidents and caused more than half a billion dollars in damage, the Civil Affairs Ministry said Friday.

Nineteen of the deaths resulted from traffic accidents related to the storms that began on Nov. 9, the ministry said in a news release posted on its Web site.

The snowfall is the heaviest in the area since records began being taken following the establishment of the communist state in 1949, the ministry said. It estimated economic losses from the storm at 3.5 billion yuan (US$513 million).

More than 4.7 million people have been affected by the storms, which have caused the collapse of more than 7,000 buildings, damaged 297,000 acres (120,000 hectares) of crops, and forced the evacuation of 158,000 people, the ministry said.

Looks like Kyoto is working. Phew, that was close.

More people die in winter than in the summer months.

But, of course, early COLD weather is due to man-made global warming.

There has been no warming since 2002. Global mean temperatures have actually decreased. Yet CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased.

The only thing that makes sense is that change is what the climate does.