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Yale Climate Connections posted a story this week about the tough decisions that Southern California farmers are having to make after another winter with low rainfalls. One farmer says that she had to cut 100 acres of vegetables last year (out of 350 total) and another 100 this year due to lack of water. She…
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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…