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NOAA released the latest monthly climate summary for October 2023 earlier this week. It shows that October was the warmest October on record since observations began in 1880. This is the 5th month in a row that set a new record for temperature. January through October was also the warmest such period on record, and…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows that drought expanded in every state in the Southeast due to the continued lack of rainfall along with warmer than normal temperatures. Extreme (D3) and exceptional (D4) drought now cover almost 15% of the total area and are particularly apparent in northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. Puerto…
Posted in: Drought -
The 5th National Climate Assessment was released on Tuesday morning, the culmination of almost five years of work since the 4th Assessment was released in 2018. This assessment, written by several hundred scientists and reviewed several times by numerous government, public, and private groups as well as interested citizens, contains the latest scientific knowledge of…
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I don’t think anyone would argue that access to water is one of the most important factors that determine what you can grow and whether you can make a living farming. Here in the Southeast, we get on average 50 inches of precipitation, mostly rain, each year, with moisture streaming in from the Gulf of…
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If you follow national climate news, you have probably seen a lot of splashy information on the 5th National Climate Assessment, which was released Tuesday morning to a lot of acclaim and a huge roll-out of information about the changing climate in the United States. I was one of the authors of the Southeast chapter,…
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The Atlantic tropical season officially ends on November 30. While it’s been pretty quiet lately, there is one area that the National Hurricane Center is flagging for likely development in the next week. Fortunately, it looks like it will not affect the Southeast except perhaps for Puerto Rico and possibly some rain in Florida (although…
Posted in: Tropical weather -
My friend Bob Kemerait wrote an article this week for Southeast Farm Press that describes how El Nino may affect your planting plans next growing season. He quoted me in it, so you might be interested in reading it. The important thing to keep in mind is that even though El Nino is currently occurring…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news