Pam Knox

  • 2016 billion dollar disasters in the US

    The National Centers for Environmental Information produced a summary of all of the billion dollar weather disasters that have affected the US in 2016, including Hurricane Matthew and the forest fires in the Southeast this year.  You can read about all of the other disasters that happened this year at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/.

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  • USA Today reported earlier this week that a new study of 500-year-old clams published in Nature Communications shows that the oceans are experiencing changes in ocean chemistry that have not occurred in the last 1000 years.  The clam shells have growth rings similar to tree rings that can be related to climate conditions in specific…

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  • As I sit here in Athens today, we are experiencing another day well above 70 F.  Yesterday, we set a new record of 79 F, just one degree off the all-time airport record of 80 F for January.  For most of the Southeast, January so far has been well above normal in temperature and the…

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  • With less than a week to go until Inauguration Day on January 20, you might be interested in this look back at the weather on some previous Inauguration Days by Tom Moore of iWeatherNet.com.  You can read it at https://www.iweathernet.com/dallas-fort-worth/inauguration-day-weather-highlights-from-the-past.  This year’s event is likely to be one of the warmest on record if the current…

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  • Dry Florida, seasonal rain elsewhere

    The latest 7-day QPF map shows no rain in the Florida peninsula, which could lead to the expansion abnormally dry conditions there, but near normal amounts of rainfall in the rest of the Southeast this week.  These rains could further reduce the drought levels in some areas or the Drought Monitor folks could keep levels…

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  • Frost-free regions expanding in US

    NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has a couple of graphics showing changes in the frost-free regions of the US for March and April.  The graphics clearly show the expansion of frost-free areas in the Midwest and Great Lakes during those months, although they have more limited value for us in the Southeast.  It would have been…

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  • Updated sea ice chart: it just gets worse

    In previous blog posts I have noted the unprecedented decay of sea ice over the last few years and showed a graph which indicated a rapid decline of global (combined Arctic and Antarctic) sea ice this year.  Here’s an update of the chart (most recent year in red).  Note that the trend towards unbelievably low…

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