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The first official forecast of the 2026 Atlantic tropical season was released this week by Colorado State University scientists. It shows that they are expecting the number of named storms to be slightly below the long-term average and all of the other related hurricane variables like accumulated energy are also expected to be below average.…
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As temperature and humidity rises, conditions for living safely without heat-related illnesses become less frequent. Days with very high temperature and humidity lead to increases in heat stress and illness as well as deaths. A study published in Nature Communications concluded that “deadly conditions have already placed hundreds of millions of people at grave risk.” The…
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The latest Drought Monitor, released today, shows that drought continued to expand and worsen across the region in spite of some rain that fell on Easter, dampening sunrise services but failing to make much of a dent in the water deficits. The area of exceptional (D4) drought continues to expand in southern Georgia and the…
Posted in: Drought -
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced today that the latest La Nina is now officially over and has been replaced by neutral conditions, as has been long expected. The ocean conditions in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) are now expected to swing rapidly to the opposite phase, El Nino, with warmer than normal sea surface temperatures…
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The climate summary for March 2026 was released this week and shows that the contiguous US was the warmest on record. This is based primarily on record-setting warmth in the western United States coupled with significantly above normal temperatures in most of the eastern US as well. By contrast, Alaska had their third-coldest March on…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
The exceptionally warm and dry winter that affected the western US is likely to lead to summer conditions that could be disastrous in the extent of fire and drought that may be experienced. Grist magazine describes the devastating lack of snow cover this year, which usually provides 60-70 percent of the Northwest’s water supply and…
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The latest monthly global climate summary from NCEI shows that for the world as a whole, March 2026 was tied for the second-warmest since 1880 with 2024, and was surpassed only by March 2025 by only 0.02 degrees F. Nearly all of the globe except for Alaska was warmer than normal, but Alaska was very…
Posted in: Climate summaries