Climate and Ag in the news
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Wildfires propagate by sending sparks downwind, igniting the dry material and spreading the fire. A new study published in Nature Geoscience looks at the propagation of droughts and shows that droughts move by creating rainfall deficits that cause areas of dry soil downwind. That eventually expands the drought as rainfall is suppressed by the lack…
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Impacts from the spring frosts are continuing to show up in peach crops across the Southeast. This story from Specialty Crop Industry discusses the variety of sizes in early peaches in Alabama as likely caused by the frost damaging flowers in the early-blooming varieties. Less impact is showing up in the later-blooming varieties so far,…
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I’ve gotten some emails lately asking about how to report dry conditions and drought so that the Drought Monitor authors recognize that things are getting crunchy here in parts of the Southeast. Here is a refresher on what sites you can use to do it: There are a lot of different tools for monitoring drought…
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Forecasts of where hurricanes will go and how strong they will get have improved over time, but errors associated with the prediction cones can cost coastal communities a lot of money if they evacuate unnecessarily if a storm turns away or if they don’t prepare for a storm that is closer or stronger than expected.…
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In the past, television meteorologists were often hesitant to discuss the changing climate. In some cases, they were prohibited by the management of their stations, who did not want to lose any viewers. In other cases, the meteorologists were themselves skeptical of climate change projections. As the science has become more clear, more broadcast mets…
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Inside Climate News published a story about state weather mesonets in February, but I just ran across it this week. Mesonets like the one we have at the University of Georgia provide valuable climate information to farmers and extension agents documenting drought, water stress, freezes, and growing degree days, all of which help farmers monitor…
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Droughts come and go as a natural part of climate. Some species of plants and animals are adapted to drought and need it as part of their life cycle. However, prolonged drought can cause devastation to the areas that are affected by it, and the people that live there can suffer significant hardship due to…