History
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As a meteorologist, I occasionally get asked if I study meteors. And while rain and snow qualify as meteors under Aristotle’s original definition in Meteorologica back a long time ago, they aren’t meteors as astronomers define them now. Today marks the anniversary of one of the most spectacular meteors that exploded near the surface of…
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MountainXpress has an interesting story this week about the tremendous flood that affected western North Carolina, and Asheville in particular, in mid-July 1916. According to their story, “the tail end of a hurricane, coming close on the heels of another one, had dumped 22 inches of rain on Western North Carolina in 24 hours, inundating…
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Thirty years ago, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Republican John Chafee convened a two-day hearing on climate change. Chris Mooney writes in the Washington Post that the top level message of scientists at the time was “eerily” familiar to today. Much of what the climate scientists were saying in 1986…
Posted in: History -
The Capital Weather Gang has posted a great story about the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1816, 200 years ago this summer. The sulfuric acid emissions from this eruption helped contribute to some of the coldest temperatures we have seen in the Northern Hemisphere in modern times, due to the reflection of sunlight…
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The History Channel has an excellent retrospective on the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, which occurred on June 6, 1944. The weather forecast for that event was crucial in making it a success. You might enjoy reading about it and watching some video at https://www.history.com/news/the-weather-forecast-that-saved-d-day. USA Today also had a feature about this in 2014 which…
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Back in June 2001, Tropical Storm Allison dropped immense amounts of rain across Texas before the remains of the storm moved slowly across the Southeast, causing flooding and damage from tornadoes across a wide swath of the eastern US. As with many tropical storms, winds were not the main impact of the storm–instead the heavy…
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Today marks the 5 year anniversary of the incredibly deadly Joplin MO tornado. Over 150 people died in that storm alone, and in the outbreak that included it, an unprecedented 1,691 tornadoes claimed 553 lives in all. NOAA has published two documents describing the storm outbreaks. NOAA has put together a photo book of the outbreaks…