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KOMO TV posted a fascinating video of a weather balloon making a 22-mile high flight through the atmosphere and falling back to earth. You can see it here. As a meteorologist, though, I am even more fascinated by the temperature profile that the balloon travels through. It shows not only the temperature decreasing with height…
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In the past, distributions of raindrop size were made mainly by flying airplanes with special equipment through rainstorms or catching drops on a surface that shows the drop size. Now NASA has come up with a method for measuring the 3-dimensional pattern of raindrop sizes in a storm that may help computer modelers improve forecasts…
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Nearly 2/3 of the land that NASA manages is within 16 feet of mean sea level, according to a news article published in the New York Times today. Because of this, and knowing the upward creeping sea levels around the world due to warmer waters and melting ice caps, they have been working for ten…
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Slate magazine published some historical frost maps from 1916 which show the spring and fall frost dates for the US based on the historical climate record from early in the century. You can see the article and copies of the maps at https://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2016/03/28/history_of_climate_change_as_seen_in_frost_maps_from_1916.html. I’ve put a zoomed in version of the spring frost map below. Next…
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Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak which brought 12 strong tornadoes to the Southeastern United States on April 5-6, 1936. Approximately 454 people were killed in the storms, most by two tornadoes, which makes this the second deadliest outbreak in US history. Wikipedia also notes that severe flash floods in the…
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El Niño has been the dominating atmospheric pattern driving the weather and climate in the Southeast for the past few months. Normally, El Niño brings wetter conditions to the region, with cooler conditions caused by the persistent cloudiness. This year has not been a perfect example, since although some areas of the Southeast saw well-above…
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After some rain thinned onion stands early in the growing season, nearly ideal weather conditions have prevailed across the Vidalia onion cropland this spring. According to The Packer, some experts are predicting a bumper crop. So far plants are large and healthy with low disease pressure. The final yield will depend on the weather conditions…