Pam Knox

  • Heavy rain in Florida this week

    A stalled front across the Florida peninsula will bring heavy rain to the Sunshine state this week.  As much as eight inches could fall, according to the latest QPF map.  Other areas will receive lesser amounts, mainly on Tuesday and later in the week. The presence of the front could help lead to the development…

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  • The National Weather Service’s Southeast River Forecast Center released their latest water resources outlook video this week.  You can find the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQYR7aE4TU&feature=youtu.be.  In it, the NWS river forecasters discuss the current state of water resources across the Southeast and the impacts that El Nino may have on the coming winter. With rainy conditions forecast…

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  • NC: The “dog days” of summer

    The State Climate Office of North Carolina has produced a short article describing the “dog days” of summer.  According to the blog, “it turns out the dog days are more than just a linguistic turn of phrase. They are a distinct time of year ranging from July 3rd to August 11th (40 days) and correspond…

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  • Each week on Thursday morning the National Drought Monitor is updated to reflect the latest drought conditions across the US.  You can find a comparison from one week to the next at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/WeeklyComparison.aspx.  But do you know what the different drought categories mean? The CoCoRaHS group has put together a neat animated YouTube video which explains…

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  • A recent study by Florida State University researcher Vasu Misra shows that contrary to popular belief, tropical storms do not typically end droughts in the Southeast.  By looking at changes in soil moisture over time in regions where tropical storms passed, they determined that tropical storms tended to come ashore in areas where the soils…

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  • Did you know that bananas are one of the biggest monocultures that exist in agriculture?  Almost every banana we see in the grocery store is a clone of the Cavendish banana, which has disease resistance and good traveling qualities that make it profitable for banana farmers.  But now a new disease called “Fusarium Oxysporum Tropical Race…

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  • The US Environmental Protection Agency released a new report recently which describes the impacts of global warming on agriculture, drought, ecosystems and water supplies, among other sectors.  The report describes the effects of “business as usual” climate scenarios compared to a mitigation-based approach where greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. There are a number of sections…

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