Interesting weather images
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I’ve seen some interesting stories about atmospheric optical effects lately. Here are a couple you might be interested in reading. NOVA on Public Broadcasting had a good story about mirages and seeing the city of Chicago appear upside down over a cold Lake Michigan (link). EarthSky also had an interesting article about why the sky…
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While you can find thousands of pictures of lightning on the web, until now no one has ever been able to take a picture of thunder. This week, however, scientists at the Southwest Research Institute in Antonio, Texas released a news story describing their first successful attempts to make images of the thunder itself. By…
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Today is an unofficial holiday which celebrates people’s fascination with weather. According to online holiday calendars, it is always celebrated on May 4. I got my start in meteorology in the third grade when a tornado came just two blocks from my house in Grand Rapids MI, and I’ve been watching the weather ever since.…
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If you have looked at the Keeling curve for carbon dioxide concentration that I have shown in past blog postings, you may be wondering why there is a yearly cycle in the concentration of carbon dioxide. The graph below shows the last two years of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as measured on Mauna Loa…
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Today marks the fourth anniversary of one of the most deadly outbreaks of tornadoes ever to hit the Southeast. It was part of a superoutbreak of tornadoes and severe weather that lasted from April 25 to 28 across the Southeast in 2011. Wikipedia has an entry which describes the full extent of the event, including…
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If you watch television weather, you may have noticed a product that shows simulated radar maps for up to 15 hours ahead of time. These are based on forecast models and can help you plan outdoor activities that are sensitive to rainfall. You can get these animated maps for yourself at WeatherBELL at https://weather.graphics/hrrr/hrrr_gif.php. The map…
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A recent satellite-derived image from NASA published this week shows the deviation of vegetation from average “greenness”. This is a measure of how healthy and abundant the vegetation is at this point in time. You can see the big red area over the Southeast indicating that vegetation is behind normal conditions, or “less green” than…