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Today is Groundhog Day, and the major news outlets all have stories about the cute little marmot who is supposed to predict the climate for the next six weeks. It’s always a day that drives meteorologists crazy (although I do like the movie). A study of how often they are right range from 50 percent…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
In another Vegetable and Specialty Crop News story, watermelon producers in South Florida are watching to see how recent cool and windy conditions will affect their newly planted seedlings. Rapid temperature changes and windy conditions can lead to more diseases which can affect the strength of the stems, leading to yield losses. Farmers in South…
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The colder temperatures this winter have made fruit producers happy as the accumulated chill hours have been very good for peach and blueberry production. Continued cold conditions for the next couple of weeks should help make most varieties meet their needed chill hours this year without too much trouble. The biggest concern at this point…
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Did January 2021 feel cold to you? It did to me. I must be getting old! In spite of my perceptions, though, it was actually warmer than normal in most of the region, especially in the nighttime temperatures. Rainfall across the region varied, with some areas receiving rain from storms that passed through the area…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
The latest monthly climate outlook for February 2021 was released this week. It shows that the monthly pattern is expected to look mainly like a La Nina pattern with the warmest and driest area confined to Florida. But the Climate Prediction Center’s outlook for the beginning of the month looks like it will be quite…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
If you’ve ever wondered what the winter was like the year you were born, Stacker has put together a slide show that lists the winter conditions for each year from 1921 on (sorry if you are older than that). I did notice that they are defining winter pretty loosely, since I think of winter as…
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New research published in the journal Science shows that in recent years, hurricanes are strengthening closer to land now than in the 1980s when their data set began. They are also forming farther north and west than they used to, possibly due to the expansion of the tropics under a warmer climate, although it could…