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American Morning

Wacky, Wild Weather; Record Jackpot

Aired February 17, 2006 - 09:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Wacky, wild weather. It's cold, it's hot, it's hot, it's cold. What in the world is going on? Is it global warming? Is it something scientific, or is it something that the "Old Farmer's Almanac" predicted long ago? We just have to delve in.
Joining us from Manchester is John Pierce with the Old Farmers Almanac. John, good to see you again. How are things going?

JOHN PIERCE, OLD FARMER'S ALMANAC: They're going pretty well, Miles. How about you?

O'BRIEN: Very well.

I assume you predicted all of this, right?

PIERCE: We did actually say that February would be extremely warm, particularly in the northeastern third of the United States. We're saying seven degrees above average.

O'BRIEN: Remind us again. It's kind of a -- one of those secret recipe kind of things on how you come up with the predictions. But there's a lot of factors that go into your predictions.

PIERCE: Yes, we start with solar activity, Miles. We believe what happens on the sun, sunspots, affect weather long term here on Earth. And then, of course, we factor in major things like El Nino and La Nina, that sort of thing.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about La Nina. We've been talking about that recently, and that does have quite an impact on the weather patterns here. But what's interesting is the La Nina effect should be a little different than what we're experiencing, right?

PIERCE: That's right. And the reason is, Miles, we had two big shifts over the last two years in ocean currents, one in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic, and they're sort of counteracting each other right now, producing this really weird weather.

O'BRIEN: I should say weird. When you start hearing about tornadoes in Indiana in February, that's -- that gets into the biblical realm of something, right?

PIERCE: Oh, absolutely. It does, of course, raise the issue of global warming. I mean, clearly things are getting warmer, and faster than most anticipated. O'BRIEN: I'm curious, how much you factor that in, because this morning we're talking about a new study just released in "Science" magazine that shows the Arctic icecap in Greenland is melting faster than previously anticipated, sea levels rise faster. That could affect the ocean currents, which affects the weather. Is all that factored into some of your predictions, as well?

PIERCE: We have been over the past three years, Miles, raising our average temperatures just slightly every year above what our traditional model would project, because we do feel there is evidence of human effect on the climate.

O'BRIEN: Yes, and I think the scientific evidence is very much in on that. And the question is, how this either strengthen storms or changes our weather patterns. What is your best take on it?

PIERCE: Well, it's the ocean currents that really change the weather patterns most dramatically. And the north Atlantic has shifted into what's called a positive phase, and that means that there's a body of warm water, like a giant El Nino, but in the Atlantic Ocean, and that's what is producing the weird storm tracks and also helping to fuel those horrific hurricanes.

Let's talk about the hurricane season. We made a lot of predictions and none of them really have been good, the ones I've seen. What are your thoughts on the next hurricane season?

PIERCE: We expect the season coming up to be very active again, not as active as this year was. But we see the storm track shifting, Miles. We expect two hurricanes to hit the atlantic corridor, we call it. That's from Virginia on up to Boston, one in September and one in October of next year -- of this year, excuse me.

O'BRIEN: And you can pinpoint it that easily, that precisely down to the month?

PIERCE: Well, it's based on how the storm track is developing, but it's still, it's a guess. It's a forecast. Yes, but you do have -- your success rate over the years is pretty good, isn't it?

O'BRIEN: On a seasonal basis, we'll be right at least eight times in 10. If we say it is going to be a warm, wet winter, we'll be right 80 percent of the time.

PIERCE: John Pierce at "The Old Farmer's Almanac." Sometimes the old predictions are the best way to do it, the old standby.

Thanks for being with us.

PIERCE: It was my pleasure.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VERJEE: Geena Davis is the leader of the free world on the hit series "Commander in Chief." But which woman is ready to be president in real life? Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice? "Parade" magazine is announcing its top eight candidates for 2008. And tomorrow, CNN SATURDAY MORNING breaks down the contender. So make sure you watch it. That's at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Andy will be up. He's "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I will. I wonder if Geena Davis is running. Real thing, you know, would probably get a bunch of votes.

O'BRIEN: You'd never get an actor in the White House. That would never happen.

SERWER: No, never.

We have some business news coming up, folks. More on Radio Shack. You remember the CEO had some resume issues there.

Also Apple Computer has a poem in it's computer code. We'll explain, coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SINGING)

VERJEE: But not a real fur coat, that's cruel.

O'BRIEN: Just imagine what you could do with 365 million big ones. Family vacation to the international space station, perhaps.

VERJEE: Surprise!

O'BRIEN: Sandy would just love that, not!

Telestrator for my home.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: If only I could win the Powerball lottery. It would be great to telestrate everything. Kids, you go to dinner over there. Over there, eat that. Sort of need the telestrator for that.

But anyway, Kimberly Osias live in Washington.

Kimberly, are you in, first of all?

KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, you've got to be in it to win, right, Miles? Of course I bought my ticket -- tickets, plural, you know, and for my friends and family, as well.

We're actually in the District of Columbia now. The lines are expected to come actually out here. It hasn't happened yet, but come on in. They are certainly ready for that.

Now, the line is just starting to kind of snake around a little bit. As I mentioned, I'm actually in the District of Columbia now. Powerball is actually sold in 28 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But interestingly, not by neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland. So a lot of people actually jump state lines, certainly not a huge deal. But drive like 30 or 45 minutes. So I talked to some folks that had come in from Baltimore, and they're not just spending a dollar. They're actually throwing in about 20 bucks in my sort of informal polling.

Now they have one dedicated cash register right here, a very intrepid employee. She's a little bit nervous today. She, of course, has gotten in the game, as well, as have all these folks.

Now you know, it's interesting, they all have certain strategies for how they pick the number. They bring their talismans, their rabbit's foot, you name it, whatever. They're looking at their dog's birthday, their wife's anniversary, date of significant things, their anniversary.

But whatever your strategy is, the odds are one in about 150 million to win this whole big thing. But you guys know that certainly hasn't stopped a litany of fobs from coming at me with their numbers and their dollars today. And I don't know, I guess, I think, Miles, Zain, Andy, are you guys in?

SERWER: Not yet.

O'BRIEN: Actually not. Can you get them here? Where do you get them?

SERWER: The crew can get them.

O'BRIEN: The crew has ways, yes.

OSIAS: I have ways, too.

O'BRIEN: Meet me at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop. I'll take care of you. I'll get you some tickets, you know what I mean?

All right, well, we wish you well. And if we don't see you Monday, we know what happened.

OSIAS: That's right.

VERJEE: You know, we're all going to be here on Monday.

O'BRIEN: Be nice to have bars and tone (ph), wouldn't it? Oh, well. Daniel Romano, dailycandy.com, was here with us a little while ago, and we were dreaming with her, and she was with those ugly Rolls- Royces. And you know, maybe you like them. It's just not my thing.

But in any case, we gave you some Web sites, and you're going to going to put them back on the screen for me, because I don't have them in front of me. There we go. You want to buy a private island? There it is.

SERWER: private-islands.com. O'BRIEN: You know register that one. Go right now and register that one, if they don't have it.

And then the meriwether.com was the bling-bling.

Then there's the seizesurvivingt.com.

SERWER: What you win and you have a seizure?

O'BRIEN: What was that one? Help me out people? Oh, that was the suit, the custom suit one.

SERWER: And what's the Lebron one?

O'BRIEN: That was the sheets with high thread count.

SERWER: That's not Lebron.

O'BRIEN: No, no, not that.

And then of course the Mandarinoriental is like this deep Oriental massage thingy.

VERJEE: Deep tissue massage.

O'BRIEN: Deep tissue. It gets the malicious wonton out of you.

VERJEE: But that's not the (INAUDIBLE), Andy.

SERWER: All right. Yes, speaking of the world's largest casino, as some people call the New York Stock Exchange...

O'BRIEN: Were we speaking of that, were we?

SERWER: We were. We were talking of Powerball. We were talking about winning big. So let's go down to Wall Street and see where the big bets are placed and check out the trading action this morning. Down 18 points those Dow Jones Industrials are. Bunch of stocks are active this morning. Dell Computer trading off because it issued a disappointing sales outlook, even though it's numbers were good for the previous quarter.

Sirius Satellite Radio also down three percent. It's numbers not so good either, and this follows some disappointing news from XM the day before. So both your big satellite radio companies not doing too well.

And then there's Radio Shack, announcing this morning it was going to be closing up to 700 stores. They've got over 5,000 stores. This coming from CEO David Edmunson. You might remember David Edmunson yesterday, we told you about, we told you about he acknowledged fudging his resume. So when he says he's closing 700 stores...

O'BRIEN: Do we believe it?

SERWER: Do we believe him?

O'BRIEN: Give or take.

SERWER: Maybe it's 730, I mean.

Time Warner not moving too much even though Carl Icahn is apparently giving up his bid.

Now let's talk about Apple's computer.

VERJEE: I like poetry. So does Apple, it seems.

SERWER: It does, Zain. And they put a poem into their operating code for their new - let me read this poem very quickly. This is in the operating code, the operating system. OS stands for on operation system. "Their once was a system whined his exiting OS was so blind he'd do better to pirate an OS that ran great, but found his hardware declined. Please, don't steal Mac OS. It's uncool."

They're better at consumer products than poetry clearly, don't you think, Zain?

VERJEE: Yes, I just jotted down a little poem here. May I read it to you?

SERWER: Yes, you may.

VERJEE: You ready?

There was once a business anchor name Andy. Lord Andy was ever so dandy. He talks with class, but a little bit fast. He's very witty, he always minds our kitty. Please don't stay Andy, OS. Really, he's way cool.

SERWER: I like that. Leave the kitty along. Thank you very much, Contessa. Very nice.

VERJEE: I don't have too much to do up here.

SERWER: I thought that was great. I loved it. Much appreciated.

O'BRIEN: I'm getting kind of misty.

SERWER: I am, too. He's also feeling left out.

Did you do one for, Miles?

O'BRIEN: Maybe she'll do a poem for me later on.

SERWER: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Coming up in the program, one of America's newest Olympic heroes joins us live here in the studio. Snowboarder Hannah Teeter took home the gold in her Olympic debut. There she is, walking in. SERWER: There's our gal.

O'BRIEN: Give it up for Hannah. We'll talk to her in a minute.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: That's an excerpt for her new movie coming out. That's Hannah Teter. Is that Alaska?

HANNAH TETER, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Alaska, yes.

O'BRIEN: I can do that, no problem.

TETER: Yes, you can totally do it.

O'BRIEN: Yes. I can sit on my couch and watch it. It's a beautiful thing. That must have been pretty cool right there. Hannah Teter, gold medalist now.

TETER: Hi, how you doing?

O'BRIEN: Great to see you.

TETER: Good to see you, thanks.

O'BRIEN: Congratulations. Very exciting. Such a cool victory and you did it so commandingly. Did you think you'd do so well?

TETER: I had no idea what was going to happen when I was going over there. I was super excited and me on the girls on the U.S. team were hanging out and just like, you know, really pumping each other up. So we had it going.

O'BRIEN: You had it going. And silver medalist, your pal Gretchen Bleiler. Which made it fun, right?

TETER: Super fun. We took some powder turns beforehand, before finals, just to kind of like, relax, you know. It was overwhelming. And I think it worked out for both of us.

O'BRIEN: Tell us about the nerves. You're 19 years old, first Olympics. You know, there's pressure there. How do you deal with that?

TETER: I do a lot of yoga.

O'BRIEN: Really?

TETER: That kind of is relaxing for me. Because everything gets overwhelming sometimes. A lot of stuff going on. And it helps me to relax.

O'BRIEN: Yes, now, it was interesting. They were judging you on, among other things, height. You really had to get a lot of... TETER: Height.

O'BRIEN: I mean that -- you had to really push it.

TETER: You got to have the powerhouse legs.

O'BRIEN: Powerhouse legs, is that the key? What I'm driving at is what is the secret?

TETER: The secret for me was just -- I grew up with four older brothers. And they were just always, you know, pushing me and I always watched them and they were always going so big. So I was like, I want to go big, too. You know, so I just kind of, from the beginning, strived to get the amplitude and just go huge.

O'BRIEN: You want to go big. So, in a sense, having the older brothers might have been kind of your inspiration?

TETER: It was the secret sauce. The bros and then the maple syrup from Vermont and then my parents. Like, I had the whole combination of things going growing up.

O'BRIEN: Yes, but you know, to be an Olympic athlete -- there are a lot of great athletes out there -- but to be an Olympic athlete, you know, brothers, maple syrup, and parents is all good. But you got to have something inside. What is it? It's a burning desire.

TETER: Whoa, what's inside. I don't know, I just feel good. Like, I like being positive and having fun and that combination has just helped me to achieve things and really strive and have the passion, you know, and just put in a lot of work. And I get so much back. And it's awesome.

O'BRIEN: All right, so it's awesome. And you're 19 and you're a gold medalist.

TETER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And let me see the thing.

TETER: Oh, that's a...

O'BRIEN: No, no, that thing.

TETER: Not that thing.

O'BRIEN: This thing -- if we can get a shot of that, I don't know if you guys can get in on that. It kind of looks like a CD. It's so -- it's got a hole in the middle because it's so darn heavy.

TETER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And you're going to get, like, neck pain with that.

TETER: I know! O'BRIEN: You're 19. You have something like that around your neck. What do you next? Are you going back to the Olympics again, you think?

TETER: What is next? I have the U.S. Open coming up. It's the last contest of the season in Vermont, my hometown. And I don't know. "First Descent" out on February 21 on DVD. I'm looking forward to that. And then I want to get some beach time.

O'BRIEN: That's all right. That's a good combination. Now, "First Descent" was a little piece of the movie we just saw here. And it's all about you, right?

TETER: Well, me and a couple other riders, yes.

O'BRIEN: What that's...

TETER: That was not cool.

O'BRIEN: You went a little too big there.

TETER: Can we watch that in slow-mo?

O'BRIEN: When you see the stuff...

TETER: That was the biggest jump I've ever hit and that's the result.

O'BRIEN: You weren't hurt, though.

TETER: No, I was -- it was more my pride. It was taken away from me.

O'BRIEN: It's such a fun thing to watch. We were up early this morning watching the snowboard cross.

TETER: Oh yeah? That's pretty fun?

O'BRIEN: Are you into that? Do you like...

TETER: I like watching that. The snowboard cross is actually right underneath the lift, by the pipe. So I got to see the whole course. It looked pretty intense.

O'BRIEN: It did. It's kind of fun thing to watch.

TETER: I had a dream that I did it, but I wouldn't.

O'BRIEN: Stick to the half pipe for you? That's...

TETER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, it seems like this may be the Olympics where snowboard's really kind come of age. Do you think that's the case?

TETER: It's definitely blossomed after this event. And it was already, but now it's kind of more worldwide. And people are looking for it. And it's cool to be one of the leaders. And, yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. One of the leaders? You're it.

TETER: I'm the leader, kind of, a little bit.

O'BRIEN: Are you -- has it been a nonstop party since you won?

TETER: It's been a good time. Just lots of -- lots of media and a little bit of celebration action going on.

O'BRIEN: A little bit of celebration action. All right, Hannah Teter, enjoy the celebration action.

TETER: Hey, thanks!

O'BRIEN: All right. Glad to have you drop by. And we'll look forward to seeing that movie when it comes out, all right?

TETER: Check it out.

O'BRIEN: We'll check it out.

TETER: All right.

O'BRIEN: All right. Back with more in a moment. We're going big here on AMERICAN MORNING. Going big.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: "ANDERSON COOPER 360" coming up tonight. What's on the program tonight, Anderson?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Miles, tonight on "360," it's killing its way across the globe. What happens when the bird flu gets here? Are we prepared? One expert says we might only have a few months to get ready. From Asia to Europe to a poultry market here in New York, we're on the front lines in a fight that no one can afford to lose. Tonight, 10:00 p.m. Eastern -- Miles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Anderson. That's all the time we have for you here. Zain, thanks for dropping by the past couple of weeks.

VERJEE: Thank you. Thank you. I've had fun.

O'BRIEN: Nice visit.

VERJEE: Miles has looked out for me.

O'BRIEN: Soledad back Monday.

VERJEE: Daryn Kagan is at CNN Center to take you through the next few hours.

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