Climate science
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October 1st marks the beginning of the water year. What is the water year? Here’s an answer from the CoCoRaHS web site at https://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=mod&mod=1: “The water year is the best consecutive twelve months that span the “water storage/water usage” hydrologic cycle. The water year cycle is particularly obvious in the Rocky Mountains and western U.S.…
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Considering the potential for rain across the eastern part of the country this week, particularly the Northeast, you might be interested in this NOAA interactive map on floods across the country. It lists significant floods for each state as well as information on flood safety and the different types of floods that can occur. You…
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Because of the current El Niño, which is expected to last through the winter, heavy rain events of more than 2 inches in a day are twice as likely to occur than usual in the Southeast, according to Florida State Climatologist David Zierden. You can read an article and watch a video about his outlook at…
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If you live near a city, you may have noticed that cities are often warmer than the surrounding countryside, especially on calm, clear nights. Even in a city like Athens, with a little over 100,000 people, we can see as much as a ten degree difference between downtown and the fields outside the city. Smaller…
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As someone with an interest in astronomy, I was fascinated by this video showing a real-life model of the solar system built on a desert playa 7 miles long. You can read about it at Scientific American here and see the video at https://www.space.com/30590-solar-system-built-to-scale-in-nevada-desert-video.html. Our universe is amazing!
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Occasionally I’ve been asked what is the difference between astronomical seasons and meteorological seasons. Deke Arndt of the National Centers for Environmental Information has a nice simple write-up that explains the difference at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/meteorological-versus-astronomical-seasons. EarthSky also has a good description of what the autumnal equinox is at https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-september-equinox.
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September 23 marks the autumnal equinox, which means the official start of astronomical fall (remember, climatological fall started on September 1). The official time of the equinox is 4:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time. EarthSky had an article this week discussing why day and night are not equal on the day of the equinox which you might find interesting.