Climate and Ag in the news
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Meteorologists have frequently experienced harassment about their forecasts, especially on days when the predictions are difficult and the broadcasters get it wrong, raining on parades or weddings or hayfields. Women meteorologists have especially been targeted for what they wear, how they style their hair, and how much they weigh, and friends in the broadcast field…
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Anyone who is worried about the potential for rapid development of tropical storms coming onshore in the Southeast should be very concerned about the current incredibly high sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The map below shows that parts of the Gulf have temperatures above 90 F (32 C in this…
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My friends in southern Florida have been tweeting about the long string of unusually hot days they have been experiencing this year compared to usual. The Weather Channel posted a story earlier this week discussing the heat and linking it to persistent winds blowing around the heat dome that has parked over Texas as well…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
This week Jim Downer, one of my colleagues at The Garden Professors blog, posted an article about how garden plants (and really most plants including crops) respond to very high temperatures. Fortunately, here in the Southeast we have not seem extremely high temperatures here very often this year, but the summer is not over so…
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The incredibly high temperatures found in Texas over the last couple of weeks were caused by a strong high pressure center that trapped heat near the surface, leading to extreme impacts on energy production and human and animal health. Many people were hospitalized by the torrid conditions, and at least 9 people died from the…
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You might expect that the Earth would be the coolest when it is farthest from the sun. But that date is today, and it is certainly not a cold day. This is known as the aphelion (I remember it as “A for away”) and it occurs because the earth’s orbit around the sun is not…
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You’ve probably heard the phrase “dog days of summer”. But what does it mean? And why is it commonly considered the period from July 3 to August 11? You can read more about it in this article from The Almanac at Dog Days: What Are the Dog Days of Summer? | July 3–August 11 |…