Climate and Ag in the news
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Scientists have noticed that some of the worst fires in the Southeast right now are occurring in areas that have also been affected by hurricanes in recent years. In particular, trees brought down by Hurricane Helene in 2024 were left in place after the storm because it was either too difficult to extract or not…
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The USDA has recently released a new publication on drought and forage production in the Southeast. It is authored by Dr. Lisa Baxter, UGA forage specialist, and contains information about how to prepare for droughts, handle them when they occur, and what you can do to prepare for the next drought. You can find the…
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When you think of purchasing insurance to reduce risks from weather, you are probably thinking of crop insurance or specialized hurricane insurance. But you can also purchase insurance to protect against losses from bad weather for any outdoor event you might have. To do that, you typically have to have an official observation at the…
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We are more than halfway through the month of April, which is the month in 2026 that the CoCoRaHS network works hard to recruit new observers to their network of volunteer weather observers. CoCoRaHS stands for Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow network, which started in Colorado in 1998 following a devastating flood in Fort…
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You might have noticed that the number of wildfires in the Southeast has been creeping up as drought conditions become worse and more widespread. We have seen this in previous droughts, so it is no surprise. This article by Seth Borenstein in The Independent talks about how warmer overnight temperatures and changes in humidity are…
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Hurricane seasonal forecasts usually provide an estimate of the number of storms that you can expect in a given season. This year, with an El Nino expected to develop rapidly over the next few months, could be a rare year when the El Nino warming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean is especially strong, leading to…
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The first official forecast of the 2026 Atlantic tropical season was released this week by Colorado State University scientists. It shows that they are expecting the number of named storms to be slightly below the long-term average and all of the other related hurricane variables like accumulated energy are also expected to be below average.…