Women's Commission Coordinator Steps Down

4 Businesses 
Will Receive 
County Loans 
Commissioners Ok $705,600 In Low-interest Loans Through Business Development 
Loan Program

By ROBERT SITTEN; Times Leader Staff Writer
 Friday, January 21, 1994 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: TIME, SCENE WERE RIPE
FOR HIT FROM NORTH POLE 





Consider these days a greeting from the North Pole. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The brutally cold weather that has crippled the East Coast this week can be
blamed on several things that happened at just the right times, meteorologists
said Thursday. First, there was the large arctic air mass that sat over the
pole for almost two weeks. It waited until it was good and cold before rushing
south, said meteorologist Bob Hamilton of the National Weather Service in
Avoca. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "Usually, such an air mass will be pushed out toward the ocean once it hits
eastern Canada," Hamilton said Thursday. "But this time, the air currents just
kept sending it south." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Then there's the snow. Arctic air heading straight south usually will be
tempered by the terrain, but, with snow on the ground all the way into
Tennessee and Alabama, there hasn't been any resistance, Hamilton said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Joe Venuti, a meteorology professor in Penn State University's
weather-communications group, described a "cross-polar flow" in the jet
stream, blowing cold air from north-central Canada across the Great Lakes and
into the heart of the mid-Atlantic states. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "This time of year, it's normal for such cold air to build up in
north-central Canada. But there was nothing to temper it on its way south,"
Venuti said. "What's abnormal is this pattern was set up for such a long time.
The flow came in from over the Arctic Circle." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 According to The Associated Press, a ridge of high pressure has parked over
the western United States and Canada for the past week, which forces the jet
stream into Canada instead of eastward, across the U.S. As a result, the
stream is picking up arctic air masses instead of air that originates in the
west. That, coupled with the stream's sharp dip into the south and the Gulf of
Mexico, caused heavier-than-normal snowfall. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Venuti said the East Coast has been stuck in this weather pattern for so
long because there's been nothing to force the system out. "It got entrenched
in here, with nothing to warm it up," he said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A slow warming trend, however, is expected in the next few days, said Ron
Yankes of the NWS, with high temperatures reaching the 20s and 30s by Monday.
Lows will still be in the single digits and teens by Monday, with some
negative wind chills still possible at night. The snow, however, appears to be
over for the next five days, he said.

Time, Scene Were Ripe For Hit From North Pole Mother Nature Played The Right Tricks At The Right Times, And The Valley Felt The Result