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The annual summary of the climate of the United States was published earlier this week by NOAA. It shows that 2025 was the fourth warmest year since US records began in 1890. Almost none of the lower 48 states was cooler than normal. You can read the summary at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-202513. In addition to temperature and…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
In previous years, I have discussed the use of phenology to study changes in climate that go back before instrumental records were available (because the instruments had not been invented yet). Phenology is the study of when plants exhibit biological markers associated with the change of the seasons, such as the first leaf appearance on…
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Earlier this week, NOAA released their annual summary of global climate conditions for 2025. The observations showed that 2025 was the third warmest year on record, right behind last year (the warmest on record) and 2023, the second warmest on record. Temperatures this year were slightly cooler than in the previous two years because of…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
The latest 7-day QPF map shows little precipitation is likely to fall over the next week across most of the Southeast. This is in spite of the fact that social media-rologists have been cranking out maps showing a potential snow storm for parts of the region around January 18. Most of the trusted meteorologists I…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
You’ve probably all seen detailed image of individual snowflakes on dark backgrounds taken by cameras attached to microscopes. The first person who made these thrilling pictures was Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley, nicknamed “Snowflake Bentley” for the thousands of photographic plates he made of individual snowflakes up in Jericho, VT. In his lifetime, he photographed over…
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In my neighborhood, I have noticed some early daffodils blooming far earlier than we usually expect due to some unusually warm conditions in the last few weeks. Even though colder weather has returned to the region, we can expect more ups and downs in the temperature as the weak La Nina vanishes and is replaced…
Posted in: Climate science -
Today is the anniversary of the Great Savannah Fire of January 11, 1820, which destroyed over 500 building and costing roughly $4 million (equivalent to $90 million in 2024) in damages. The fire was caused by months of very dry conditions followed by a day with strong winds from the northwest. The high winds fanned…