Record heat in the Dakotas poses fire danger

Dirk Lammers / AP

Anglers gather on the Missouri River below the Fort Randall Dam for some winter fishing Wednesday in Fort Randall, S.D., where temperatures hit the high 50s.

By msnbc.com staff and NBC News

Record high January temperatures may be nice for the average resident of the Dakotas, but they're worrying for farmers and firefighters alike.

Temperatures in the mid-50s were recorded across North and South Dakota. The record high of 55 Wednesday in Bismarck, N.D., was 32 degrees above normal.?In fact, in some parts of the Dakotas, it's warmer this January than it is in many parts of Florida.

Florida oranges survive cold snap

Record warmth was forecast again in many areas. In Minot, N.D., the forecast low temperature Thursday is in the mid-30s. That's 15 degrees warmer than the average daytime high for early January, said Justin McHeffey, weather director at NBC station KMOT.

---

With highs forecast in the 60s later this week in some areas, following a period of below-average precipitation, authorities warned that the risk for a wildland fire ? in winter ? is higher than usual.

"The conditions are ripe," said Dennis Gorton, administrator of the Pennington County, S.D., Fire Department.

"If we had 6 inches of snow cover ... it wouldn't be any kind of concern," Gorton told NBC station KNBN of Rapid City. "But we just don't have the snow cover this year."

The lack of snow is also a problem for farmers. While it may seem paradoxical, hardy Northern crops need at least 3 inches of snow cover to keep them warm during the winter months ? the snow, which is at or just below freezing, is actually much warmer than air temperatures that routinely drop into double digits below zero. So if a cold snap were to hit now, crops would be at risk.

More weather news on msnbc.com

Agriculture officials in both states rated snow cover protection for alfalfa and winter wheat as poor. That's because the average snow depth this week is about only two-tenths of an inch; it's usually more than a foot and a half in January.

Lower but still higher-than usual temperatures are forecast across most of the region by the weekend.

NBC stations KFYR of Bismarck, N.D.; KMOT of Minot, N.D.; and KNBN of Rapid City, S.D., contributed to this report by Alex Johnson of msnbc.com.?

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

?

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/04/9957591-record-heat-in-the-dakotas-poses-fire-danger-threatens-crops

velasquez vs dos santos velasquez vs dos santos manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez manny pacquiao vs. juan manuel marquez cain velasquez vs dos santos cain velasquez vs dos santos oregon stanford

LG details 55-inch OLED TV, will show off its true colors at CES 2012

While building the world's first 55-inch OLED TV panel is nice, it's not worth much unless you put an actual TV around it and LG Electronics will have the total package on display next week at CES. Today's press release reveals more about LG's "4-Color Pixel" and Color Refiner technology it's implementing to bring consistent, accurate colors that it claims will be other OLED TV's abnormal color gamut. LG's press release doesn't mention production plans or pricing, but all of this is squeezed into a frame that's just 4mm thick with a narrow bezel and weight of 7.5kg -- we'll let our eyes decide on the quality of its colors once we meet in person.

Continue reading LG details 55-inch OLED TV, will show off its true colors at CES 2012

LG details 55-inch OLED TV, will show off its true colors at CES 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/01/lg-details-55-inch-oled-tv-will-show-off-its-true-colors-at-ces/

millionaire matchmaker shawshank redemption 3 10 to yuma west virginia football west virginia football black friday violence black friday violence

new post for float on Auroville, the 'universal city in South India' http://butd...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=220926384652752&set=a.107537222658336.16260.106204572791601&type=1

take care drake cain accuser aesop rock take care track list michael jackson trial carlos the jackal namibia

China dissident-lawyer Gao jailed in far west: brother (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? Chinese authorities have jailed the prominent dissident-lawyer Gao Zhisheng in the remote far west, his brother said Monday, the first confirmation of Gao's whereabouts in nearly two years in a case that has fanned criticism about secretive detentions.

Gao has been imprisoned in the Shaya County Prison in Xinjiang region on charges of "inciting subversion of state power," his brother, Gao Zhiyi, told Reuters by telephone from his home in Shaanxi province, citing a court notice.

"Now we finally know where he is, I hope we can visit him in a few days, but it's a long way to travel," said Gao Zhiyi.

The court notice amounted to the clearest information of Gao Zhisheng's location since April 2010, when he briefly made contact with friends and foreign reporters after being held in secretive detention for more than a year.

China's state news agency Xinhua reported last month that Gao Zhisheng had been sent back to jail, ending his probation for an earlier conviction. But Xinhua did not say where Gao was, and his family and supporters believe he has been held secretively by authorities for much of the past two years.

A combative Beijing-based rights advocate who tackled many causes anathema to the ruling Communist Party, Gao was sentenced to three years in jail in 2006 for "inciting subversion of state power," a charge often used to punish critics of one-party rule.

Gao was given five years of probation, formally sparing him from the prison sentence. But his family was under constant surveillance and Gao was detained on and off over that time.

His probation was soon to expire when the court announced that he would instead be sent to jail to serve his sentence.

Gao was taken from a relative's home in Shaanxi province in north China in February 2009 -- his family says by security officers -- and had been missing since he resurfaced briefly in April 2010.

Gao's wife, Geng He, and children have sought refuge in the United States where members of Congress have pressed his case.

The United Nations working group on arbitrary detention said in March 2010 that Gao was being detained in violation of international law.

Shaya, where the notice said Gao is jailed, is about 1,100 km (680 miles) southwest of Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120102/wl_nm/us_china_lawyer

world series of poker joe walsh zsa zsa gabor heavy d dead heavy d dead alaska weather alaska weather

Hugh Hefner's New Year's Resolution: Stay a Bachelor (omg!)

Hugh Hefner will remember 2011 as the year he almost got hitched, and going into the new year, he plans to remain unattached.

"This year has been a very interesting year for me, I almost got married," Hefner told People. "And as Holly [Madison] ? a dear friend and former girlfriend ? said, 'Well, you missed a bullet.' I think that's accurate. I am clearly not meant to be married. Married life isn't for me."

Runaway bride Crystal Harris says sex with Hef lasted "two seconds"

It appears that the Playboy founder associates his success with remaining a bachelor. Despite currently dating Shera Berchard and Anna Berglund, he says he'll be "on top of my game" as long as he avoids walking down the aisle.

Hefner, 85, has been married twice before, first to Mildred Williams from 1949 to 1959 and later to former Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad.

?

?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_hugh_hefners_years_resolution_stay_bachelor002000369/44045683/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/hugh-hefners-years-resolution-stay-bachelor-002000369.html

michael dyer suspended new years rockin eve new years ball drop new york times square jaws brock lesnar ball drop

US military report shares blame on NATO bombing of Pakistani soldiers (VIDEO)

Relations between US and Pakistan have soured so much that the report on the NATO bombing is likely to have little effect. Instead, Pakistanis fret about rumors of a possible military coup.

A US military investigation into the Nov. 26 NATO bombardment of two Pakistani checkpoints has cast blame on both the Americans and the Pakistanis. The report, released yesterday, said that the Americans failed to share crucial information about their future military movements because its commanders didn?t trust their Pakistani counterparts, but also said that Pakistani troops fired on a joint US-Afghan patrol, even after the joint patrol identified itself.

Skip to next paragraph

NATO bombs killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an event that worsened already bad relations between the two supposed allies. The report doesn?t appear to have improved matters. Pakistani military officials rejected the report, with Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas calling it ?short on facts.?

?Pakistan?s army does not agree with the findings of the US/Nato inquiry as being reported in the media,? Gen. Abbas told reporters in Islamabad. ?The inquiry report is short on facts.?

The Nov. 26 incident occurred when a joint US-Afghan commando raid on a supposed militant camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border apparently stumbled onto a Pakistani paramilitary force instead. US investigators say the Afghans and Americans came under fire, and called in for air support when the Pakistani patrol continued to fire.

The Afghan-Pakistani border is notoriously porous and poorly marked, so in a sense, it is surprising that more of these events don?t occur. It is likely that the US and Afghan patrol would have operated with GPS equipment, with villages, border lines, and specific coordinates for their target clearly marked at all times. But the winding trails that border residents take to reach pastureland or marketplaces don?t respect boundaries, and it?s plausible that either the joint Afghan-US patrol and the Pakistani soldiers may have gone astray.

The Nov. 26 NATO bombing attack couldn?t have come at a worse time in US-Pakistani relations. Many Pakistanis were already angered by a series of US military drone attacks within Pakistani airspace, the arrest of a CIA contractor Raymond Davis in a double-murder case, and finally, the US military raid, on Pakistani soil, that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad on May 1.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/QbtCZ0KT3dg/US-military-report-shares-blame-on-NATO-bombing-of-Pakistani-soldiers-VIDEO

icam patrice o neal. joran van der sloot osteopathy osteopathy diphtheria diphtheria

Great Weather for Fiesta Bowl Parade

Keep your comments civil - MyFOXPhoenix.com reserves the right to remove comments that are obscene, profane, abusive, hateful, racist, spam, "trolling," or otherwise inappropriate. Repeat offenders will be banned. If you see such comments, report them to us by flagging them. (Click on 'Flag' beneath a post.) If you don't agree with a comment, debate it - don't flag it. Refer to our Terms of Service.?

?

Stay on topic: Don't discuss an entirely different subject or spam the section asking about another story. Send us an e-mail instead. Continue to spam comment sections and your account will be banned. Keep your posts brief and to the point. Remember this is a comment section, not your personal blog.

?

When posting a comment on myfoxphoenix.com, a valid e-mail address, Facebook, Yahoo!, OpenID or Twitter account is necessary. The e-mail is not available for viewers to see. You will be required to verify the e-mail address before posting a comment. Users with third party logins (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are already considered verified accounts.

?

Choose a user name you'll remember - don't use your real name unless you want it to be known.

?

Accounts that use obscenities in their user names and/or avatar pictures are not allowed.

?

To avoid your posts being labeled as spam, simply provide a link to an article instead of copying and pasting the entire text.?

?

Posts with obscenities will be removed by moderators.

?

Click here if you need help signing up for an account or using your profile.

Comments Powered By

?

Source: http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/entertainment/fiesta-bowl-parade-crowds-get-great-weather-12312011

lsu game lsu game animal house big ten championship game big ten championship game ultimate fighter 14 ultimate fighter 14