Pam Knox

  • Mellish: Initial thoughts on winter

    I am starting to get asked whether I think that this warm summer says anything about what the coming winter will be like. Apparently, I am not the only one. Kirk Mellish of WSB in Atlanta writes in his latest blog post that it is apparently on a lot of people’s minds. His thoughts about…

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  • SCONC: Stories about Hurricane Floyd

    As the tropical season progresses, the State Climate Office of North Carolina continues its series of blog posts about historical storms that made big impacts in the past. Here are three new stories about Hurricane Floyd. Twenty years ago today, Hurricane Floyd made landfall in eastern North Carolina, ending several days of rain and beginning…

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  • We are halfway through September, and many parts of the Southeast have received very little rain this month. The only big exception is the area hit by Hurricane Dorian. This, coupled with temperatures that are well above normal, is adding water stress to plants that are trying to make it to harvest and reducing stream…

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  • Hurricanes and tropical storms can remake coastlines. This is one reason that we evacuate people from vulnerable coastal areas even when storms stay out to sea. Here is a set of before and after images of the North Carolina coast before and after Hurricane Dorian approached the area. In some places the effects are subtle,…

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  • Dry week ahead

    With the development and movement of TS Humberto to the northeast, nearly all of the Southeast will be free of rain this week. The only exceptions are the mountains and the areas immediately next to the coast or in southern Florida. The dry conditions are likely to increase drought conditions in the coming week. However,…

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  • The latest ENSO update from NOAA shows that neutral conditions are occurring in the eastern Pacific Ocean right now and are expected to continue for the next few months. When there is no El Niño or La Niña occurring, it is harder to make a useful prediction about what is likely to happen in the…

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  • Top ten in number of days at or above 90 F

    If you’ve been thinking that we have had a large number of days with maximum temperatures at or above 90 F, you are not mistaken. For many stations in the Southeast for the year to date, they have numbers which are ranked in the top five. We got an early start this year with quite…

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