For an explanation of this project, read here.

“Punditry is fundamentally useless,” Nate Silver said repeatedly, in one form or another, after the election. Thursday morning, Politico announced that it was joining with Facebook to “measure GOP candidate buzz” and give its readers an “exclusive look at the conversation taking place on the social networking site” ahead of the January 21 South Carolina primary. One to two inches of snow fell Tuesday night over Shippingport, Pa., as a result of an unusual cause: steam from a nearby nuclear power plant. Sometimes, you don’t need a lake to get lake-effect snow. Just when I think I’ve seen everything. Need proof that human activities can influence the environment? A blast of snow came down last night on Interstate 79 on Tuesday evening. You’ve probably heard of lake-effect snow and ocean-effect snow, but now you should add “nuclear snow” to the list of strange winter weather phenomena. You could even say it glows? First things first: It wasn’t nuclear snow. Pittsburgh was coated in a layer of snow last night – but not from Mother Nature.