History
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Two paleoclimatologists at the University of North Carolina have found a way to track a storm—or, at least, track the average of all storms across the season—325 years in the past, according to an article in the latest The Atlantic magazine. The scientists used tree ring data from ponderosa pines in the Pacific Northwest to…
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Those of you who are older (myself included) may remember Hurricane Agnes, who blew through central Georgia in June 1972, causing immense flooding and leading to the death of 122 people, including nine in Florida from severe thunderstorms associated with the storm. Agnes was one of the most prolific rain-producing storms on record in the…
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KQED Science had an interesting article this week about how historical paintings from the past can shed light on the amount of pollutants (both natural pollutants like volcanic particulates and human-injected pollutants from industry and transportation) in the atmosphere and how they change the way the sky looks. I’ve talked about this in the past,…
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According to the History Channel, “on this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and collects a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite is struck by lightning, enabling him to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was…
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Today is the anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces in Europe landed at Normandy Beach and began the long trek to take back Europe in World War 2. The weather forecasts for that landing were critical to the success of the mission. You can read more about this at the following web sites. WRAL: Science…
Posted in: History -
As a meteorologist, I hear frequent jokes about having a job where you can be wrong most of the time and still get paid. It might surprise you to know that weather forecasts have improved dramatically in recent years due to a combination of more observations (mostly from satellites), larger and improved computer models, and…
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Have you ever heard that tornadoes don’t hit cities, or rivers, or hills? While local geographic features can have a small impact on tornadoes, this week’s anniversary of the Miami tornado of May 12, 1997 is a good example of how wrong that “old wives’ tale” is. Of course, here in the Southeast we have…