• NOAA’s latest climate blog features a post from Kathryn Hansen of NASA on recent trends in the onset of spring as measured by ecologists at national parks across the US. They tabulated the time of blooms and first leaf of key species like cherries and looked the trends in those times to determine the onset…

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  • The Köppen-Geiger climate classification scheme is used by geographers to categorize different climate zones by temperature and precipitation. By looking at how those are likely to change over time, scientists have created this animated map showing how those zones are likely to move as the climate gets warmer. In the Southeast we don’t see many…

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  • The latest official reports on the 2017 hurricanes has been released. Hurricane Maria was the most powerful storm to hit Puerto Rico in modern times. Since it hit 201 days ago, there are still 100,000 citizens without power and many without safe drinking water. And the next hurricane season starts in a few weeks. You…

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  • EarthSky has an interesting post this week on the physics of rainbows and why they appear to be curved. If you are in an aircraft, it is possible to see a rainbow as a full circle, but usually on the earth’s surface we only see part of the arc. You can read the details here.

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  • According to some newly published research in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate, the Sahara Desert has expanded by 10 percent since 1920. Many deserts form in the belt of sinking air located around 30 degrees N and S latitude. This sinking air is associated with the Hadley cell, a vertical circulation of air linked to…

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  • NOAA’s monthly summary for the US shows that “In the first three months of 2018, there have been three weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the U.S. These events included a severe storm event in the Southeast and two winter storm events in the central and eastern U.S. Overall, these events…

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  • This week should see relatively little rain for Alabama and northern Georgia as the front that is current moving through the area sags south and stalls out over northern Florida.  That will be welcome news for those in the driest areas of the Southeast, since the rain should provide some needed soil moisture and could…

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