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1 July 2011
New Normals vs Old- State by State
NOAA released this data today, showing how the new climate normals (being released this month) compare with the old on a state by state basis. Here is part of the press release that accompanied it. Thanks for the heads up the the NWS HSV folks. NOAA PRESS RELEASE: According to the 1981-2010 normals to be released by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on July 1, temperatures across the United …
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 …
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 …
8 May 2011
Violent Twisters in A Warmer World
In eighty years, most of us will be long gone (except for a lucky few who will be soiling adult diapers in an assisted living facility). However, our great-grandchildren will be in their prime and looking forward to a new century where Microsoft Windows no longer produces the blue screen of death. After the Super Swarm of tornadoes on April 27th, it’s worth asking if our descendants will be dealing …
12 April 2011
Double Rainbow and Alexander’s Dark Band
We had some nice storms rumble through North Alabama this evening and, just at sunset, the storms passed Huntsville. I expected to receive some rainbow pics and I was not disappointed! A double rainbow is reversed, of course, from the primary but in between the sky will look a little darker. You can see it clearly in the picture on the right. This was first described by Alexander of Aphrodisias …
25 March 2011
The Very Real Consequences of Defunding NOAA Satellites
I rarely pay much attention to federal budget issues, but this issue is on my turf. Having worked around TV-news folks for 31 years, I am rarely surprised by politics or politicians! You tend to get rather jaded because you end up seeing a lot of crazy things, day in and day out! That said, this is one I really could not believe. It seems the House of Representatives proposed …
4 March 2011
A Wonderful Illustration of Just how Thin Our Atmosphere Is
We live in a very, very shallow layer of life giving air. It only takes the space shuttle 2 short minutes to get into space. The rest of the engine burn time is just for getting higher and going fast enough to reach orbit. Look at the video below taken from a camera on the solid rocket booster. It separates from the shuttle at 2 minutes into the flight. When …
Glory Not To Be- It Crashes into the Pacific.
The failure of the Glory launch today is not just bad news. It’s a catastrophe for earth science; Especially American earth science. The failure of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, (OCO-on the same type of launch vehicle) and now this are going to set back critical research into the the Earth’s energy balance severely. I went over to REAL CLIMATE written by NASA Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt and he has a …
26 February 2011
Yes, People are Breathing This-Smog over China
It’s called the ABC. The Asian Brown Cloud. The air pollution from cooking fires, coal fired power plants, and gasoline/diesel engines are the cause. This air pollution is measurable across the Pacific and into the West Coast of the U.S. Air pollution (from different areas of the world) has its own unique signature. A recent study indicated that about 30% of San Francisco’s particulate levels are from China.
16 February 2011
Despite What You Saw on Twitter- January 2011 was 17th Warmest.
The National Climate Data Center released the January temp. anomalies today. In spite of the cold and snowy January in the Eastern USA, it was the 17th warmest on record. The global sea temps. were the 11th warmest on record. What is really eye catching is the intense cold in Central and East Asia. The weakening La Nina, in the Pacific, is also to be seen along with the intense …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.