Tropical weather
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Here is a very cool video showing the atmospheric loading by dust, smoke, sea salt, and other aerosol tracers over the 2017 hurricane season. It’s amazing to watch the dance of different aerosol types and see the hurricanes develop and move over the Atlantic Ocean as the season progresses. The smoke coming off the western…
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Pecans are one of the most valuable crops grown in the Southeast, and the impacts of Hurricane Irma hit pecan growers pretty hard this year, with about 30% of the nuts blown off the trees in the storm. Trees were also blown over or dropped limbs and may need to be replaced. Vegetable and Specialty…
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A recent article from Florida State University looks back at the 2017 hurricane season and discusses what, if anything, it can tell us about how a warmer climate in the future might affect the hurricanes that hit the Southeast. The short answer is that the number of hurricanes does not seem to be affected but…
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The latest estimates from the USDA regarding the orange harvest this year have dropped the expected yield by 7.4 percent, to 50 million boxes, from last month’s estimate. Producers generally considered last month’s estimates too high because all of the accumulated losses from Hurricane Irma have not yet been seen, much less quantified. Some delayed…
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Reports on damage caused by the wind and rain of Hurricane Irma are still coming in, and they look bad. Vegetable and Specialty Crop News posted a story this week about one strawberry farmer’s impacts on his fields from the ravaging wind, which tore out most of his plastic sheeting, and heavy rains, which eroded…
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While the 2017 tropical season in the Atlantic is not yet over, it is ramping down and (we hope) will not bring much more action to the Southeast. But it is interesting to look at how the developing La Niña conditions might affect next year’s season. Usually La Niña lasts for a few months and…
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Adam Rabinowitz of UGA posted a story in Southeast Farm Press this week which discussed the large yield of peanuts that were harvested this year. While Hurricane Irma negatively impacted the cotton crop, it did not affect the peanut yields in any meaningful way and both irrigated and dryland crops were expected to do well…