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The latest 7-day QPF forecast shows that most of the rain in the eastern US this week is linked to current TS Barry (which could briefly become a hurricane as it makes landfall later today). Subsiding air around Barry’s circulation should keep most of the Southeast dry as it passes to our west. The biggest…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
NOAA’s Climate blog posted a story earlier this week on the increase that has been seen in the US (and elsewhere) in heavy precipitation events. As warmer temperatures allow more moisture to evaporate into the air, it becomes “juicier” and more likely to produce heavy rain in downpours. This trend is likely to continue in…
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The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning shows that spotty rain showers have reduced drought coverage slightly in North and South Carolina and Georgia, but the lack of rain has increased drought in Alabama and the Florida panhandle. No big changes from last week, though. The next week is expected to see light to moderate…
Posted in: Drought -
The circulation that drifted south off the coast from Georgia is now slowly gaining structure and is expected to become Tropical Storm Barry within the next day. Very warm water in the eastern Gulf will help the circulation spin up to a TS and potentially even a hurricane if it moves westward over the warm…
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The NWS office in Birmingham AL has prepared a series of seven short videos highlighting hurricane awareness and preparedness that are now available on YouTube. These videos are good for everyone to review but are especially useful because they are closed captioned and also feature an American Sign Language interpreter. You can see the first…
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NOAA released their US climate summary for June 2019 today. It shows that June and the year to date average temperature were both near normal in temperature for the contiguous US. Precipitation in June was in the wettest third of all years but not record-setting. The January through June period was 3.74 inches above normal,…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
From 2012 to 2018 I worked as a grant-funded agricultural climatologist on USDA-funded projects looking at the impacts of the changing climate on agriculture in the Southeast. There are a lot of negative impacts that are expected in the future due to warmer temperatures (especially nighttime temperatures), higher humidity, and more frequent floods and droughts,…