• As the climate gets warmer, other impacts that can affect agriculture are also being observed. Warmer winters mean more overwintering of pests and diseases. A longer growing season can make your fields and orchards more susceptible to pests that were previously not an issue. Warmer conditions may also shorten the time between generations of insects,…

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  • The latest Drought Monitor shows significant increases in drought in Virginia and North Carolina with slightly smaller increases in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida this week. Almost no rain fell in the region in the past week, contributing to the expansion of drought. The completely dry conditions are expected to last for another week…

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  • The North Carolina State Climate Office has published their October 2023 climate summary. It was their 10th driest October on record. You can view it at their climate blog at https://climate.ncsu.edu/blog/2023/11/drought-digs-in-during-a-bone-dry-october/.

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  • I’ve been getting phone calls and emails asking when we can expect the El Nino rains to start to reduce the drought that has been growing across a lot of the Southeast in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, the Climate Prediction Center and the long-range models do not give much hope of needed relief in…

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  • As temperatures rise across most of the earth, farm workers and others who work outside like roofers, construction laborers, and lawn care employees are being increasingly affected by the high heat stress that occurs when high daytime temperatures and humidity take their toll on those workers, especially if they are doing hard manual labor. One…

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  • We are closing out the month of October today. If we look at the preliminary climate statistics for the month, we see that the majority of the Southeast was cooler than normal, with the exception of Virginia and Alabama and areas farther inland and higher in elevation. Precipitation was scattered, with most areas receiving less…

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  • While we are almost to November, the tropics still have a couple of areas of potential development over the next seven days. An area east of the Bahamas shows a 40% chance of development in the next two days, but it has gotten less likely over the past day and only has a short window…

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