Drought
-
Wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest has entered its high season, and is expected to be worse than usual due to the continuing drought conditions in the region. Here are a few stories about the current season and the terrifying season that Alaska is experiencing this year. Cliff Mass of the University of Washington posted…
-
Each week on Thursday morning the National Drought Monitor is updated to reflect the latest drought conditions across the US. You can find a comparison from one week to the next at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/WeeklyComparison.aspx. But do you know what the different drought categories mean? The CoCoRaHS group has put together a neat animated YouTube video which explains…
-
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) recently posted an article about the future of California’s drought. They point out that even after multiple dry years, the rains will come back, and if El Nino is as strong as forecast this coming winter, they will return with a vengeance. The writer describes the situation this way:…
-
The Beyond the Data blog from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI, formerly NCDC) has another excellent entry this week. Jake Crouch describes the evolution of the four-year Texas drought from start to finish. You can read the story at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/reflections-really-big-drought. The article concludes by stressing the importance of collecting quality data for monitoring climate.
-
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will become home to the new Drought Risk Management Research Center, as part of the National Drought Mitigation Center. The NDMC currently produces the National Drought Monitor and other products that help identify developing and strengthening droughts in the US and the world. The upgrade will help the facility to better…
-
The latest outlook for July 2015 was released last week by NOAA and shows that the recent pattern of wet north, dry south in the Southeast is expected to continue for the rest of July. The outlook shows that if this pattern persists, drought development is likely in the coastal plains of Georgia and the…
-
Although a lot of the pollution that plagues the Southeast comes from local sources, we also get imports from other locations. This week smoke from forest fires as far away as Alaska are blowing into the Lower 48 states. The recent record-setting warm conditions have increased the length of the fire season there by up…