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Even though this time of year has the longest day, for most parts of the country it is not the hottest day. Why not? The short answer is thermal lag, which means that it takes a while for things to heat up (especially water), so temperatures will continue to rise for several weeks. Although with…
Posted in: Climate science -

It’s not the heat, it’s the (lack of) humidity. Dr. Jeff Masters posted an interesting article in Weather Underground today discussing a potential new record low humidity record for the world, set in Iran. However, there is another contender for the record from Needles CA in May 2014, with a temperature of 102 F and…
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With the increase in rain over the last few weeks, we have seen an erosion of drought conditions in the Southeast. In this week’s Drought Monitor, all drought has been removed from Alabama and Florida, leaving just a few patches of abnormally dry conditions. In Georgia, the severe drought has been erased, leaving only a…
Posted in: Drought -

The Southeast Regional Climate Center posted their spring climate summary for the Southeast, written by Jordan McLeod, on their web site this week. You can view the PDF at https://www.sercc.com/Southeast_Region_Quarterly_Report_Spring_2017.pdf.
Posted in: Climate summaries -

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information put out a very interesting article and accompanying video on how their climate and weather data are used in management decisions by businesses and manufacturing plants to minimize economic losses. Of course farmers already do this to help plan farm activities and determine crop varieties to plant, but you…
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NASA’s ClimateBits has an excellent short video on what an urban heat island is. You can watch it below from YouTube. The urban heat island can be seen in cities as small as Athens GA (population about 115,000) and I think you could even see effects in smaller cities with distinct urban centers. In Athens…
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As we watch the development and northward motion of Tropical Storm Cindy, you might be wondering what impacts the Southeast will see from the storm. Currently the storm is forecast to move to the west of us, probably making landfall in eastern Texas. But the Southeast will be in the right front quadrant of the…