Tropical weather
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Today is the first day of the official tropical season in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. And right on time, we see a 10% chance of formation from a disorganized system of clouds. As we swing from El Niño to La Niña this summer, we are likely to see fewer than usual storms in the Eastern…
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Matt Daniel of WMAZ in Macon GA listed several interesting weather records that were set this week. You may not have heard any of them. 1) Seattle had its warmest April day ever recorded after hitting 89°F yesterday. (April 18, 2016) It shattered the record high of 70°F back in 2010. 2) Houston, TX (IAH) recorded…
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Early forecasts for the 2016 Atlantic tropical season are starting to come out, and so far all of them predict that the tropical season this year will be more active than usual. El Niño acted as a brake last year and the hurricane season was relatively quiet, but with El Niño going away and most…
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University of Arizona researchers have shown that the number of hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea was 75% lower during the Maunder Minimum, a time period from roughly 1645-1715 AD. This is called the Maunder Minimum because there were fewer sunspots in that time period, which is also linked to a time of low solar activity. The…
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Last weekend I pointed out that Fiji was about to take a direct hit from strong tropical cyclone Winston. NOAA’s Climate blog has a post-storm analysis of Winston at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/tropical-cyclone-winston-causes-devastation-fiji-tropical-paradise. According to Investment Fiji, “Agriculture (is) the mainstay of Fiji’s economy, and contributes around 28% to total employment in the formal sector, indirectly employing many more.…
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EarthSky reported today on Cyclone Winston, which hit the island of Fiji over the weekend with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and caused enormous devastation, although reports are just starting to come in. This is the strongest hurricane to ever hit Fiji and the strongest storm so far in 2016, although of course…
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A lot of good weather-related videos have shown up in my Facebook feed this week. You might enjoy them too. Marshall Shepherd of UGA pointed out a humorous short video called “Blame it on El Niño–Do you know what it really is?” here. The New York Times posted a descriptive video about how hurricanes form here.…