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You are browsing the archive for June 2011 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

29 June 2011

Defunding of NOAA Weather Satellites Means Goodbye To the 7-Day Forecast.

TV viewers in America are used to seeing the 7- day forecast on the nightly weather report and the accuracy is actually as good for 7 days as it was for three back in 1980. If the polar orbiting satellite program is defunded ( as now proposed by Congress) then forecast accuracy will likely go backwards. That means a five-day forecast instead of seven and even those five will not …

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27 June 2011

The New Normal- and yes it’s hotter.

  I have spent the week here in Oklahoma City (home actually) at the American Meteorological Society’s 35th Conf. on Broadcast Meteorology. My wife and I have a home just a few blocks north of the location, so it’s been nice to have the annual meeting in our back yard. There are really not that many people on air who have  a background in atmospheric physics, and the AMS denotes …

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18 June 2011

An MCC Is The Farmers Friend

We just ended a pretty serious drought here in the Tennessee Valley, with no rain from late May until Friday June 17. Normally, we would have had about 2.5 inches in this period, and this long without rain in the unusually high heat was especially hard on crops. Twenty days with no rain is not a big deal in winter (when it is cold and evaporation rates are very low), …

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17 June 2011

Alabama Tornado Upgraded to EF 5

The Tennessee Valley was hit by two EF 5 tornadoes on April 27th. Today, the NWS in Huntsville upgraded the EF 4 tornado in Dekalb County from an EF 4 to an EF 5, in part of the path near Rainsville, AL. This means winds in excess of 200 mph were indicated. The area where the path was upgraded was between Geraldine and Rainsville. The release from NOAA is below: …

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Have You Heard About Great Courses??

This post is a free advert for a company you probably have never heard of. It’s called the Great Courses and they do something very unique, they sell lectures! It’s one of those type ideas that people  wish they had thought of first; Take the greatest professors and record in a studio their lectures and then sell them to people who love learning. There is an added benefit too, you …

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16 June 2011

Good Science and Junk Science

The Good Science: NOAA released the May global temp. data today and the global land and ocean temps. were tied for 10th warmest on record. Land temps. were 7th warmest on record. The period of meteorological spring from March -May was also the 10th warmest on the instrument record. From NCDC: Global Highlights The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for May 2011 was 0.50°C (0.90°F) above the …

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15 June 2011

Measuring Sea Salt From Orbit and A Fun Quiz!

I still remember clearly my first trip to the ocean at age 7 in the mid 1960’s. It was beautiful Galveston, Texas and you could drive right out onto the beach in those days. Erosion and sea level rise, has taken much of that beach away now, but the greatest surprise to me was that the ocean was salty! As a little 7-year-old from land locked Oklahoma, I had no …

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13 June 2011

Two Amazing Images from Space

The Chaiten Puyehue volcano in Chile continues to spew and enormous amount of ash, and has me wondering if we are getting to the point that we could see a global climate impact from the eruption. Vulcanologist Charles Stern at Colorado Univ. said back in May that the eruption was high in silica and low in Sulfur, which would negate the effects of a major global temperature change. I ‘ve …

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Why the Media Screws Up Science- Courtesy potholer54

This is one excellent video essay by an experienced science journalist. Why the media screws up science. So true, and it should be required watching for reporters.

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9 June 2011

Rare Heat Burst in Wichita

A rare heat burst was recorded last night in Wichita, Kansas! The temperature at midnight was 84F but an hour later, as a thunderstorm nearby died out, the temperature hit 102F! The winds gusted to over 45 mph at the same time. Needless to say it was not a night to be a lineman for the county (If you don’t get that you should really buy a Glen Campbell record)! …

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