Pam Knox
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The latest 7-day QPF map shows little precipitation is likely to fall over the next week across most of the Southeast. This is in spite of the fact that social media-rologists have been cranking out maps showing a potential snow storm for parts of the region around January 18. Most of the trusted meteorologists I…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
You’ve probably all seen detailed image of individual snowflakes on dark backgrounds taken by cameras attached to microscopes. The first person who made these thrilling pictures was Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley, nicknamed “Snowflake Bentley” for the thousands of photographic plates he made of individual snowflakes up in Jericho, VT. In his lifetime, he photographed over…
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In my neighborhood, I have noticed some early daffodils blooming far earlier than we usually expect due to some unusually warm conditions in the last few weeks. Even though colder weather has returned to the region, we can expect more ups and downs in the temperature as the weak La Nina vanishes and is replaced…
Posted in: Climate science -
Today is the anniversary of the Great Savannah Fire of January 11, 1820, which destroyed over 500 building and costing roughly $4 million (equivalent to $90 million in 2024) in damages. The fire was caused by months of very dry conditions followed by a day with strong winds from the northwest. The high winds fanned…
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The latest Drought Monitor, released today, shows that nearly the entire region of the Southeast is now covered by drought, with only 0.36 percent of the area (in upstate Virginia) not experiencing any dry conditions at all. The area of severe drought (D2) almost doubled from 16 to 31 percent of the region. Puerto Rico…
Posted in: Drought -
The annual overview of the worst disasters in the US was formerly collected by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. While some people question its relevance, it does provide a decent overview of how much weather and climate impacted our country this past year. But with the downsizing of NOAA this past year, the billion-dollar-disaster…
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While drought has completely disappeared from California for the first time in years due to heavy rainfall from atmospheric rivers this fall, it is still very much present in the Colorado River basin. The result is drastically lower Colorado River levels, leading to reductions or even cut-offs in irrigation water in areas that depend on…