History

  • In 1992 on August 24, Hurricane Andrew made landfall just south of downtown Miami as a major hurricane, causing incredible devastation across the south Florida peninsula before it emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on its way to a second landfall in Louisiana.  My husband and I visited Miami ten months after Andrew hit and…

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  • Forbes magazine had an interesting video this week highlighting the history of viewing Earth from space, starting with rocket-based photography in 1946 and continuing through satellites to human space flight to planetary explorers.  My major professor as a Master of Science student was Dr. Vernor Suomi, the “father” of satellite meteorology, who recognized the importance of…

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  • The Washington Post published an interesting article this week on new evidence found to support their legend on the founding of the first dynasty.  In a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science, Wu and his colleagues describe geological evidence for a catastrophic flood on the Yellow River in about 1900 B.C. — right around the…

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  • Today marks the 40th anniversary of the devastating flash flood that hit the Big Thompson canyon in Colorado, killing 144 people and causing tremendous damage to the area on that Saturday evening in 1976.  The flood was not well predicted due to the high elevation, which reduced radar visibility of the storm that funneled all…

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  • Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Flood that occurred in Asheville, NC, washing away hundreds of homes and businesses along the French Broad River.  It was a major catastrophe for the city, which did not feel the heaviest rainfall but felt the biggest impacts from the rainfall upstream.  You can read more about…

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  • 190 years ago today, at a little after Noon, Thomas Jefferson died at Monticello, as Americans celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Later that evening, during a Boston summer thunderstorm, John Adams said his last words and died. They were “Jefferson survives”. He was wrong, because he outlived him by ten hours.…

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  • I ran across an interesting article this week describing the history of broadcast weather forecasting and how it has changed over time.  While I don’t do television weather forecasting myself, I have many former students and friends who do.  You might enjoy this peek back at early weather forecasts and how the technology has improved.…

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