Climate and Ag in the news
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Weather and climate are frequently in the news. I tend not to talk much about current weather because it changes faster than this blog, although I occasionally mention upcoming frost or tropical storm events. On the longer term, there are some interesting stories around that are informative or entertaining to read. Here are a few…
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Even though spring is already almost three weeks old for climatologists, today is the official start of astronomical spring. EarthSky has a good story about the March equinox (which means “equal night”). You can read it here. They have a second story about whether days and nights are equal at the equinox here. (Spoiler alert–they…
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If you live in an area that is prone to flooding rains (which pretty much includes all of the Southeast), you may have looked at FEMA flood maps to see if your property falls within a flood plain. This is something many people do in hindsight, such as after a big flood event like the…
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According to an analysis of tornadoes by ENSO phase, a year with a La Niña present is more likely to have tornadoes in northern and western parts of the Southeast, while a year with an El Niño is likely to have more tornadoes in southern Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Since we are currently in a…
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The New York Times posted an interesting article on the changing nature of droughts in Kenya and other parts of Africa. According to trends over the last thirty years, droughts are becoming more frequent and are getting worse. This is impacting livestock producers there, who are having a more difficult time feeding and maintaining their…
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The Douglasville (GA) Patch has an interesting article about using goats as landscape tenders this week. You might have heard of cities using goats to clean up unwanted weeds in difficult terrain. In this case, the US Army Corps of Engineers is using a herd of 16 goats, known as the “Chew Crew”, to maintain…
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Drought conditions in parts of the US are affecting the expansion of beef cattle herds due to lack of feed and adverse growing conditions, according to an article in AgWeb this week. Drought from last summer in the High Plains and continuing drought through fall and winter in the southwestern US, including Texas, have impacted…