Pam Knox

  • How often do we get X amount of rain?

    In the last week I’ve received 5.94 inches of rain in my gauge near Athens.  Many areas of the Southeast received more than ample rain in the last few days.  Fortunately, it looks like we may have a dry spell mid-week to cheer us up and help the farmers catch up on their field work.…

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  • How do we know temperatures are changing?  What data set do you use?  What time period do you analyze?  How do you make sense of trends with so much year to year variability? If you’ve asked yourself these questions, you will be interested in this story about one analysis of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay temperatures…

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  • In the past, the most extensive scientific research on tornadoes has been done in Oklahoma and the central Plains, with NOAA and a host of other groups hosting large projects which intercept tornadoes and take data near and around the storms to see how they develop and evolve over time.  Projects called VORTEX and VORTEX2…

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  • More rain for the Southeast this week

    Farmers are getting anxious to get into the fields after a week with rain across the area.  In southwest Alabama the rain has exceeded ten inches in some places.  Here in Athens I received over 4.5 inches in the last week.  Unfortunately, it looks like rain will continue through the weekend and into the early…

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  • A couple of news stories this week highlighted the impacts of recent warming trends on the Arctic and Amazon regions.  Each of these stories points out that the impacts of the warming extend far beyond their local areas. Wired magazine has an article about how scientists are studying the Amazon rain forest to see how…

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  • The cost of flooding

    Has all the rain this week caused problems with flooding?  The National Flood Insurance Program has an online calculator that can show you the cost of a flood to your home at https://www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart/pages/flooding_flood_risks/the_cost_of_flooding.jsp.  The tool allows you to enter the size of your house and how deep a flood to consider and gives you an estimate…

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  • WRAL chief meteorologist Greg Fishel and renowned hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel hosted a presentation on the future of hurricanes in North Carolina last night.  The town hall presentation has been recorded and is available at https://www.wral.com/news/video/14586628/#47gpHetXx8OqUdW8.99.  Note that the full presentation is almost two hours long.

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