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According to NOAA’s new Polar Vortex blog, after a brief respite, the stratospheric polar vortex is expected to weaken again with potentially another major sudden stratospheric warming forecast to occur in the next week. But didn’t we just have a sudden stratospheric warming event?? Their blog post discusses how this new weakening of the polar vortex…
Posted in: Climate science -
The latest monthly summary for January 2024 was released by NOAA on February 8. It shows that the country as a whole was the 10th wettest on record, with extraordinary rain and flooding in parts of the South, especially Texas and Louisiana. Because of the rain, drought conditions improved across a lot of the US…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
Weather can change rapidly from one set of conditions to another after the passage of a strong front or other event. We can also see relatively rapid changes of weather patterns at times leading to very quick changes in the local temperature, wind, and humidity. On longer time scales, a drought can end quickly if…
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If you live in or near Florida or are just interested in what is happening in that part of the Southeast, you may want to listen to or read this story from WUSF featuring David Zierden, the Florida State Climatologist. In this piece, he describes the record-setting temperatures in Florida in 2023 and the outlook…
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If you follow weather news, you probably saw a story this week about a new scientific article that discussed the need for a category 6 hurricane with winds much stronger than the typical category 5 storm at 192 mph or greater. According to the authors, “Since 2013, five storms — all in the Pacific —…
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This past week we celebrated Groundhog Day on February 2, when a chubby rodent is pulled out of his winter hibernation to “predict” whether there will be an early end to winter or six more weeks of cold. By most statistics, the groundhog does not do very well, with incorrect predictions 60-70 percent of the…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
In the Southeast, we know that El Nino and La Nina greatly affect our climate conditions, especially in the winter months when farmers are preparing for the next growing season. One of the important questions about the changing climate is whether or not the frequency and intensity of El Nino and La Nina (collectively called…