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Late this evening we will officially be at the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. You can read more about this year’s event at the links below. For astronomy types, it marks the beginning of winter. EarthSky: The December solstice is coming Vox: Ten things to know about the…
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A strong Gulf low pressure center will bring copious rain to parts of the Southeast over the next few days. Virginia should be largely missed by the rain event. Several inches could fall in some areas, and windy conditions and strong waves are also likely. After that storm leaves, the rest of the week should…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
Scientific American recently posted an article describing a new study that shows an increase in highly amplified jet stream patterns which can lock into place for long periods. This can lead to simultaneous droughts and associated food shortages in different parts of the world, especially important grain-producing areas. If this continues to occur, that would…
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The latest outlook for January 2020 and beyond came out earlier this week from the Climate Prediction Center. It shows that January is leaning towards wetter than normal conditions but that there is no signal in temperature. For the January through March period, the long-term trend towards warmer than normal conditions is likely to occur…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
The North Carolina Climate Office has been posting recaps of the years in the 2010’s on Twitter and their blog in the last two weeks. Today’s version includes the full decade including a first look at 2019. You can read it at https://climate.ncsu.edu/climateblog?id=307&h=5666e5c1.
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The Earth Institute at Columbia University posted a story this week which discussed a new study about how climate change is affecting the Corn Belt in the United States. There are two main effects: the first is that warming temperatures are increasing the rates of evaporation of soil moisture, leading to more droughts. This is…
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As a scientist I am fascinated by stories about how our current earth developed over time. Here is a great story I saw today on Facebook from The Guardian describing a new fossil find of a forest that is dated as about 386 million years old. This was before modern animals and plants and the…