Posted inCalifornia

NOAA satellites capture atmospheric rivers hitting U.S. West Coast (VIDEO)

From late Dec. 2022 into Jan. 2023, a series of nine “atmospheric rivers” dumped a record amount of rain and mountain snow across the western U.S. and Canada, hitting California particularly hard. More than 32 trillion gallons of water rained down across the state alone, and the moisture also pushed into much of the Intermountain West.  The San Francisco Bay […]

Posted inCalifornia

Photo story: Fighting fire with forecasts

To date, the U.S. has seen more than 50,000 wildfires resulting in nearly seven million acres burned in 2022. Organizing resources and crews to fight wildfires is an enormous undertaking. Today, more than 15,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are assigned to wildfire incidents across the country. Among the crews are specially trained meteorologists with […]

Posted inEnviro

Earth had its sixth-warmest June on record

Globally, June 2022 was the sixth-warmest June in the 143-year NOAA record. The year-to-date (January-June) global surface temperature was also the sixth warmest on record. According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Outlook, there is a greater than 99% chance that 2022 will rank among the 10-warmest years on record but only an 11% chance that […]

Posted inSci/Tech

U.S. supercomputers for weather and climate forecasts get major bump

Today, NOAA inaugurated the nation’s newest weather and climate supercomputers with an operational run of the National Blend of Models. The new supercomputers, first announced in Febuary 2020 with a contract award to General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), provide a significant upgrade to computing capacity, storage space and interconnect speed of the nation’s Weather and Climate Operational […]

Posted inSci/Tech

NOAA predicts above-normal 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, are predicting above-average hurricane activity this year — which would make it the seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season. NOAA’s outlook for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which extends from June 1 to November 30, predicts a 65% chance of an above-normal season, […]

Posted inEnviro

Earth had its Fifth-warmest March on Record

The global temperature for March 2022 was the fifth highest for March in the 143-year NOAA record, which dates back to 1880. The year-to-date (January-March) global surface temperature was also the fifth warmest such period on record. According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook, it is virtually certain (> 99.0%) that the year 2022 […]

Posted inSci/Tech

October 2021 ENSO update: La Niña is here!

Our second-year La Niña has materialized, as indicated by the ocean and atmosphere in the tropical Pacific. There’s an 87% chance of La Niña this winter, the season when North American weather and climate are most affected by ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the entire El Niño/La Niña system). The winning numbers The first step on our […]

Posted inUS

Summer 2021 neck and neck with Dust Bowl summer for hottest on record

Last month brought Hurricane Ida, numerous wildfires and devastating floods, capping off a summer of record heat and rainfall for many states throughout the country. A summary of key findings from NOAA’s latest monthly U.S. climate report follows:  Climate by the numbers Meteorological summer | June through August The average temperature during meteorological summer for the contiguous […]

Posted inSci/Tech

NOAA predicts another active Atlantic hurricane season

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. Forecasters predict a 60% chance of an above-normal season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. However, experts do not anticipate the historic level of storm activity seen in 2020.  For 2021, a likely range of […]

Posted inSci/Tech

May 2021 ENSO update: bye for now, La Niña!

La Niña conditions have ended and NOAA forecasters estimate about a 67% chance that neutral conditions will continue through the summer. The ENSO forecast for the fall is less confident, with odds of a second-year La Niña currently hovering around 50–55%. Spring cleaning If you’ve been paying very close attention to the surface temperature of the tropical […]

Posted inEnviro

NOAA: The new U.S. Climate Normals are here. What do they tell us about climate change?

Every 10 years, NOAA releases an analysis of U.S. weather of the past three decades that calculates average values for temperature, rainfall and other conditions.   That time has come again. Known as the U.S. Climate Normals, these 30-year averages — now spanning 1991-2020 — represent the new “normals” of our changing climate. They are calculated using climate […]

Posted inLife

Keeping score: The groundhog vs. the temperature record, 2021

February 2, 2021 – 10 contacted NID In Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania, at the crack of dawn this morning, the nation’s most famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow — meaning six more weeks of winter, according to longstanding folkloreoffsite link. How accurate was Phil’s 2020 ‘forecast’? Last year, Phil “predicted” a shorter winter and early spring when official observers declared he did not see his shadow. But in fact, […]

Posted inSci/Tech

Fire fuels in high northern latitudes are becoming more flammable

December 14, 2020 – In the 2020 issue of NOAA’s Arctic Report Card, experts reported on the evolving wildfire landscape across the taiga—the boggy, coniferous forests that occupy much of the high northern latitudes. Rising air temperature and fuel availability over the past 41 years indicate that conditions in Earth’s largest terrestrial biome are becoming more […]

Posted inSci/Tech

La Niña is likely to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2020-21

December 10, 2020 – La Niña persisted during November, as indicated by well below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) extending from the Date Line to the eastern Pacific Ocean [Fig. 1]. Most of the weekly indices fluctuated through the month, with the westernmost Niño regions Niño-4 and Niño-3.4 ending up around -1.0°C [Fig. 2]. The negative equatorial subsurface […]

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