History
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As we approach the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, I am seeing many stories in my social media feeds about the anniversaries of past tropical systems that have affected the Southeast. Here is one remembrance of TS Bonnie from the State Climate Office of North Carolina discussing why Bonnie has been overlooked in the…
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Today’s weather oddity comes from Atlas Obscura, who noted in an article this week that the height of the Washington Monument was almost half an inch lower than originally built due to repeated lightning strikes on the top, melting the metal cap. You can read more about this fascinating story at https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/washington-monument-lightning-rod.
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A megadrought is a strong and persistent drought that can last for one, two or three decades. While the US has not seen a real megadrought since climate started being measured here in the 1800’s, tree rings and lake sediments can go back much farther in time and tell a different story. There have been…
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A friend of mine sent this video clip from an old television show called “Bell Telephone’s Science Hour” made in 1958. It was directed by Frank Capra, the famous movie director. This clip was from an episode called “The Unchained Goddess” which was about the weather. Amazingly, I remember this program being shown at a…
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Many years ago, when I was traveling in Athens, Greece, I visited this well-known archeological site known as the “Tower of the Winds”. When it was built, it had sundials, a water clock and a weather observing system, which makes it most likely the oldest weather station in the world. Today Atlas Obscura posted a…
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Almost 30 years ago, on June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen told Congress and the world that global warming wasn’t approaching — it had already arrived. The testimony of the top NASA scientist, said Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, was “the opening salvo of the age of climate change.” Before that, most scientists knew that…
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According to a recent story on USAgNet, “Dramatic human-caused changes in land cover between 1850 and the 1930s had a substantive effect on the 1930s Dust Bowl drought in the Great Plains, a new study by University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers finds.” Ocean temperatures are part of the story of what caused the Dust Bowl, but…