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EarthSky reported recently that 2015 was the worst year on record for wildfires in the United States, based on area covered. Estimates by the National Interagency Fire Center were that more than 10 million acres burned. Many of those were in the western US, which has been plagued by severe drought and high temperatures this…
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Subtropical Storm Alex transitioned and strengthened today and was declared the first Atlantic hurricane for 2016, a full six months earlier than the average date of the first named storm. This means that Alex has set a number of records. Some of these are detailed in this post at : Alex is only the 2nd-known…
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The Washington Post recently published a fascinating obituary on one of the United States’ oldest NWS cooperative weather observers. Mr. Hendrickson was a farmer who made daily weather observations on his Long Island farm for more than 80 years, one of the longest spans in NWS history. His dedication and joy in watching the weather is…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
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,…