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Farmers are getting anxious to get into the fields after a week with rain across the area. In southwest Alabama the rain has exceeded ten inches in some places. Here in Athens I received over 4.5 inches in the last week. Unfortunately, it looks like rain will continue through the weekend and into the early…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
A couple of news stories this week highlighted the impacts of recent warming trends on the Arctic and Amazon regions. Each of these stories points out that the impacts of the warming extend far beyond their local areas. Wired magazine has an article about how scientists are studying the Amazon rain forest to see how…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Has all the rain this week caused problems with flooding? The National Flood Insurance Program has an online calculator that can show you the cost of a flood to your home at https://www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart/pages/flooding_flood_risks/the_cost_of_flooding.jsp. The tool allows you to enter the size of your house and how deep a flood to consider and gives you an estimate…
Posted in: Tools for climate and agriculture -
WRAL chief meteorologist Greg Fishel and renowned hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel hosted a presentation on the future of hurricanes in North Carolina last night. The town hall presentation has been recorded and is available at https://www.wral.com/news/video/14586628/#47gpHetXx8OqUdW8.99. Note that the full presentation is almost two hours long.
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With all the rain we’ve had this week, the smell of rain has been on my mind. EarthSky had a blog entry on petrichor, the official term for the smell of rain (here). I was surprised to learn that the word was created by the Australian National Science agency, CSIRO, based on Latin roots. I…
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NOAA released their global climate summary for March 2015 today. It shows that March was the warmest on record for the Earth as a whole since historical records began in 1880. The first quarter, January through March, was also the warmest on record. The eastern US was one of the few places that was near…
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Sam Ingram of the Effingham County Extension News reports that last week’s dry weather was good enough for farmers in his county to plant corn. Because of the warm conditions and adequate moisture, the corn is really popping up. You can see some pictures and read his blog at https://site.extension.uga.edu/effingham/2015/04/corn-is-popping-up/ A bit farther afield, AgWeb reports…