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30 August 2023

The Smoky Summer of 23 Will Linger In our Noses and Memories

While all eyes have been on the two hurricanes, the wildfire smoke is still impacting many areas. It is quite visible today on the GOES images. The fires in the NW Territories of Canada this summer have released around 277 times the amount of carbon that area of Canada emitted in 2021! I’ve been a synoptic meteorologist for 43 years, and I’ve never seen a summer like this one. This …

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17 March 2023

Note to AP and Fox News: A Storm Hit California, Not an Atmospheric River

An atmospheric river is a plume of moisture that often shows up well on Satellite images over large oceans. If I see one associated with a storm, I know that it will likely be a very wet one with increased rainfall. There are a few famous ones as well, like the Pineapple Connection which will sometimes bring tropical air from the Equatorial Pacific into a storm approaching the U.S west …

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16 February 2023

The Secret Behind Severe Thunderstorm Watch #33

NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch Wednesday afternoon, but this one was special. Severe Thunderstorm Watch #33 for parts of Oklahoma and North Texas was issued by NOAA’s Elizabeth Leitman. It was the FIRST NOAA watch issued by a woman at the SPC. Elizabeth Leitman has wanted to have this job since she was in middle school. Atmospheric physics is hard, but she did it and I …

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14 February 2023

Going Viral Is A Pain

Last week I saw the news about this balloon from China passing over Montana, and when the Defense Department said it was from China, I thought, let’s see if it was! Turns out NOAA has a numerical weather model called the NOAA-HYSPLIT which will backward forecast (based on what the winds aloft were) to show you where the air over you now was a few days ago. I tend to …

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1 July 2022

In Case You Were Wondering About This…

In case you were wondering… IF Bonnie has a recognizable circulation (Tropical Depression), into the Pacific, and then regenerates, the name Bonnie will continue to be used by the National Hurricane Center. If it falls apart to a disturbance, and then regenerates, then a Pacific cyclone name will be assigned. I must say, this makes scientific sense and it is something that comes up, although rarely. Since the mid-1800’s, only …

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1 November 2021

The Climate Model Myth Needs to Die

Good piece here at NASA. It’s a widespread myth that climate models are not very good. In fact, they do an amazing job, and it is fairly straightforward to test them. The bad news is what they predict if our CO2 levels go to 800 ppm: Whole different planet. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

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3 September 2021

Two Connected Images

The New Jersey State Climatologist posted a map of the rainfall from Ida Wednesday night. Look at these rainfall totals! Now, Look at this graph from Dr. Brian Brettschneider. He posted this on Twitter today. It might surprise you to know that August was the 543rd month with global ocean temps. above the average for the 20th century.  The planet is about one degree C. warmer than it was one …

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22 June 2021

How NOT to do Science Journalism

Take a look at this: https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2021/06/15/100-year-old-photo-of-carbis-bay-shows-site-of-g7-climate-summit-looks-the-same-as-it-did-then/ It’s been a while since I read a news article so full of falsehoods, (and just plain ignorance of science) but this one takes the cake. This is not journalism. It’s written for people who cannot think for themselves. Just some points. Were the two photos taken at the same tide cycle? High tide, low tide? Hint, no one knows! The image, therefore, is …

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25 May 2021

Aliens In The Sky? Show Me Some Real Evidence!

Houston, we have a problem. News outlets have found that when they publish any story that has the letters UFO in it, they get a lot of hits. This leads to two things: More UFO stories and poor journalism. Here is an example I saw this last weekend. It was on the NBC website and showed the image below: Any meteorologist can tell you what you are looking at, and …

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9 April 2021

Weather Satellites Do Far More Than Monitor Weather. They Watch Volcanoes Too

The La Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent has rumbled to life and the loop below shows the second of two eruptions today. This is a dangerous volcano. It killed over 1000 in 1902 and it is a stratovolcano. Those are the ones that go BANG, unlike the shield volcanoes in Hawaii that spread runny lava everywhere. The last eruption was in April of 1979, and let’s hope this one is …

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