Sources of weather and climate data
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“Wind chill” is a measure of how much colder you would “feel” if cold air is blowing on you with a particular wind speed. The higher the wind speed and the lower the temperature, the colder the wind chill temperature. The colder the wind chill, the faster you could experience hypothermia and suffer severe health…
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The USDA has announced the availability of a new GIS-based plant hardiness zone map, which is zoomable and is based on 1976-2005 data. You can read more about it at https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/AboutWhatsNew.aspx. You can access the map at the link above by clicking on Interactive Map on the top menu or go directly to it at https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/InteractiveMap.aspx.
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For the first time, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has maps of temperature and precipitation anomalies available by counties. In the past you could get it by state, region, and climate division, but nothing smaller. This might be useful for those who are interested in county statistics rather than using station data, since…
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Here’s an interesting statistic from Brad Panovich, meteorologist, on Twitter and Facebook: The last two weeks, from December 25 through January 7, have been the coldest on record for many locations in the Southeast. The ranking map from the Southeast Regional Climate Center shows how widespread the #1 rankings are across the region. You can…
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If you are interested in looking at long-term trends in climate across the US, this “Beyond the Data” article by Jake Crouch does a great job of explaining where to get trend data and how to interpret it. I use NCEI’s tooks like the “Climate at a Glance” tool all the time when I give…
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If you visit the web site for the State Climate Office of North Carolina, you will see they have a new look and feel. They have freshened things up in preparation for the New Year! Read more about it and check it out at https://climate.ncsu.edu/climateblog?id=244&h=5666e5c1.
Posted in: Sources of weather and climate data -
If you’ve been following the drought posts on this blog, you know that moderate drought is expanding across the Southeast. But sometimes the map doesn’t capture the full picture of what is going on in the ground because no one is there to report it. The Drought Monitor authors would love to have more information…