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A study recently published in Nature magazine shows that in the time period from 1964 to 2007, global crop yields were reduced by up to 10 percent from drought and extreme heat. Floods and extreme cold did not appear to have a similar effect. A surprising result from the study was that crop yields in developed…
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Today the National Hurricane Center noted the development of the first named storm of the year, Subtropical Storm Alex, in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. This is the first time since 1978 that a named storm has formed in January, according to the Capital Weather Gang in a story here. A subtropical storm has some characteristics…
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From the Louisiana State Climate Office: This interesting graphic from the Storm Prediction Center shows how El Niño and La Niña may influence local severe weather. The top map shows the average number of January watch days during the 10 strongest Dec-Jan El Niños as rated by the MEI, or Multivariate ENSO Index. The middle…
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Merritt Melancon of UGA wrote a recent press release which was posted in Growing Georgia describing some of the adverse impacts the warm and wet December has had on fruit and nut crops in Georgia. You can read the article here. She points out that the record-setting warmth has also meant very low chill hours,…
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AgWeb posted an article this week describing some of the large impacts that the Midwestern floods have had on agriculture, including the transportation of wheat and oil. Many hog farmers have had to relocate their pigs to get them away from the flooded areas; thousands of others have been drowned. You can read the article…
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NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center has upgraded Tropical Storm Pali to a hurricane. It is the earliest recorded hurricane in a calendar year in the Central Pacific. The previous record was held by Hurricane Ekeka in January 1992. Hurricane Pali is centered about 650 miles (1045 km) south-southwest of Johnston Island and 1320 miles (2125…
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Reporters often ask me about how a month or a season ranked compared to other years of record. I like to use the Southeastern Regional Climate Center’s Perspectives tool to help determine that. You can use the link https://www.sercc.com/perspectives?user=true and set your own start and end point to pick the time period of interest. For most…