Pam Knox
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Rain this weekend will cause problems for those going to football games and other outdoor activities this weekend, but dry conditions should return to most of the region by Monday. Alabama and the mountains may see some additional rain later in the week as the next weather system approaches the area. The driest areas will…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Studies) at the University of Colorado-Boulder posted an interesting story earlier this week about how changes in climate, specifically a megadrought, may have contributed to the collapse of the Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC. Assyria was one of the most powerful empires on earth and was…
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NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued their latest monthly and seasonal outlooks for December 2019 and beyond earlier this week. They show a continuation of the trend towards warmer than normal temperatures both for December and for the December through February period. That does not mean that we won’t see cold outbreaks during the winter, just…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
The latest ENSO update from NOAA shows that there is no El Niño or La Niña occurring in the Eastern Pacific Ocean at present. Temperatures there are fairly close to the 1981-2010 average. Neutral conditions are likely to continue for the next few months, so short-term climate variations will come from other variations like the…
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This week’s Drought Monitor showed continued improvements in drought conditions across most of the Southeast this week, not a surprise considering the rainy conditions we have seen on and off this past week. Every state saw some improvement, and only a few small areas of worsening conditions were seen, mostly in north central Alabama and…
Posted in: Drought -
It’s ten days until the end of the Atlantic hurricane season, and as I write this, named storm #19, Sebastien, is moving through the Central Atlantic (no threat to the Southeast, happily). It’s predicted to become a hurricane on Thursday. It’s been a busy year, which was predicted by NOAA and other groups, but what…
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With nearly the entire globe warming (although some parts are warming faster than others), it will take concerted effort by everyone to help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and reduce the trend towards warmer conditions. Farmers are an integral part of this, and many of the actions they can take are…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news