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Several of my meteorologists friends posted this image on Facebook yesterday from NWS Amarillo (picture by Joshua Thomas on 1-9-2015 in New Mexico): This is one of the best pictures of atmospheric optics I have seen, particularly for an area outside of Antarctica. Atmospheric optics is the study of how light moves through water…
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A new large-scale study by University of Washington scientists shows that agriculture as well as oil and gas production is contributing to the darkening of snow fields across the Northern Hemisphere, according to Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. This is of concern for long term climate balance since normally white snow reflects most sunlight back…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Today (Saturday) may be the driest day of the week for most of the Southeast. A coastal storm should bring rain to coastal areas of the Southeast this weekend while the next large-scale storm moves into the area from the west on Sunday evening into Monday. A second storm is expected to move through the…
Posted in: Uncategorized -
The NWS has just updated their El Nino blog to discuss the latest news on El Nino. You may recall that we have been flirting with an El Nino for several months but so far none has materialized, although many signs are there. The new blog posting discusses the latest with the Eastern Pacific Ocean…
Posted in: Uncategorized -
The State Climatology Office of North Carolina is publishing a series of regional breakdowns on the climate of 2014. You can see the first in the series focusing on coastal NC at https://nc-climate.ncsu.edu/climateblog?id=114&h=5666e5c1.
Posted in: Climate summaries -
Forecasting winter precipitation can be tricky in many places, but particularly on the east side of the Appalachian Mountains, where shallow pools of very cold air can be forced south, forming a shallow layer of cold air beneath warmer air. I’ve discussed this weather pattern, officially called “cold air damming” and unofficially “the wedge,” in…
Posted in: Climate science -
NOAA released their annual summary report for 2014 this morning. You can read the report at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/2014/12. The report shows that this is the 18th year in a row that the US average temperature has exceeded the 20th century average, and the 34th warmest year for the contiguous US. In general, most of the Southeast…