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I saw an article on Yahoo News about La Nina making tornado season more severe this year. And if you look at the overall tornado season for the country, that seems to be true. But previous research has shown that the area of the most tornadoes just shifts, so that areas west of us get…
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This week The Packer published a story about how weather was affecting strawberry production in Florida. Cooler weather has delayed the ripening of the berries, allowing them to grow bigger than usual. However, production issues in other areas reduced supplies for Valentine’s Day so the Florida strawberries were being eagerly awaited. You can read more…
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The National Phenology Network provides maps that trace the movement of the spring “green wave” north as the year progresses. Citizen scientists track events like the first green leaf, the first bloom on a plum tree, and other weather-related biological signs to see how they vary from one year to the next. This year’s map…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Now that fruit crops have received plenty of chill hours, farmers are starting to think about what they might have to do if an average or late frost brings killing temperatures back to the Southeast. Unfortunately, once the blooms arrive, options for protection are limited. You can read about some of the options in Vegetable…
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Do you use predictions of seasonal climate to plan your farm work? Or are you frustrated because they don’t seem to be very useful? I’ve been getting a lot of complaints this year about how bad the climate forecast for winter was because what we have seen so far has not matched the predictions in…
Posted in: Climate science -
Now that Texas is thawing out from its bitter cold blast, producers are starting to come to terms with what they have lost from the frost and snow as well as from loss of power and water. Here are several stories about agricultural losses in Texas and other parts of the central US from the…
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Every meteorologist I know has to put up with comments from people about getting paid to be wrong all the time. Another myth that we often hear is that severe weather comes “without warning” or “out of the blue.” This week meteorologists won a battle against this when Southern Living was forced to retract an…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news