Sources of weather and climate data
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If you like to get regular briefings on current weather and climate conditions, you should consider subscribing to the National Weather Service Southeast River Forecast Center’s YouTube channel. On that site they give informative video updates on current water conditions around the Southeast, usually once every few weeks. It would be especially helpful to those…
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Weather observations are the backbone of understanding the climate system. The earliest modern weather observations in the United States were taken by surgeons in the forts scattered around the country. Later in the 1800’s, volunteer observers worked for the Smithsonian to collect weather measurements. Now, there are many different types of weather and climate observations…
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I subscribe to Walter Reed’s newsletter, The Georgia Gardener, and was interested to read his recent article on crabgrass prevention and how it is tied to climate data. For years he has recommended putting down pre-emergent herbicide for crabgrass in Atlanta on March 15 based on a combination of long-term climate statistics and gut feelings.…
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The single most important atmospheric oscillation that affects the climate in the Southeast is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. You can refresh your memory of what an El Nino is by clicking here. NOAA’s climate blog has a new entry that explains why the El Nino forecast this year appeared to fail (or “bust” as meteorologists…
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The Southeast continues to lie under a mass of frigid air that came over the pole from Siberia, as I discussed in my post yesterday. This morning many record low temperatures were set, including a new record low for Key West, FL of 50 degrees. Fortunately, the winds were a bit lighter today so it…
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Do you have a need for chill hour measurements? There are a couple of online sources that you can use to calculate chill hours for your location. AgroClimate has a great graphic package that allows you to pick between two chill hour models. You can find it at https://agroclimate.org/tools/Chill-Hours-Calculator/. If you are in Georgia, the…
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As expected, the frigid air has arrived in the Southeast, and near-record setting temperatures were experienced across a lot of the area this morning. The map from CRONOS from the North Carolina State Climatology Office at 8 am below shows the extent of the cold air. Today the maximum high temperature in many areas will…