55 F. average high on October 24.
56 F. high on October 24, 2016.
October 24, 1922: A powerful low pressure system over Minnesota brings 55 mph winds to Collegeville.
Panic Optional: Forecasting First Flakes on Friday
Yesterday people were huddled together, talking in hushed tones, glancing up furtively at a black and blue sky. Nuclear fallout? Yellowstone Super Volcano about to erupt? Aliens landing in Blaine?
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the real reason for trepidation: they were chatting up the first snow of the season. Really? If we lived in Los Angeles or Honolulu I could understand a level of angst, but Minnesota? Say it isn't so, Flo!
National Weather Service data shows the average date of the first coating (tenth of an inch) is November 2 in the Twin Cities. Most autumns we don't see plowable snows capable of really gumming up our commutes until late November.
A little wet snow may slush up lawns & fields Friday, but ground temperatures are still warm. Much of that snow will melt on contact, and air temperatures should stay above 32F, meaning wet roads around the metro area. Deep breaths.
ECMWF guidance hints at showers and low 40s on Halloween. October 31, 1991 was a fluke - the last time the Twin Cities saw measurable snow on Halloween was 1995. Ah, the memories.
First Flakes. The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service helpfully reminds all of us that the first coating (1/10th of an inch) of snow falls, on average, on November 2.
2017 Could Tie Record for Billion-Dollar Disasters in a Year. Here's Why. A story at USA TODAY caught my eye: "And
the year's not over yet. This year's devastating hurricane season is
largely to blame. Hurricane Harvey will likely end up topping all of
this year's disasters with an estimated price tag of $190 billion. The
official death toll, now at 48, in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria
could rise into the hundreds, according to a report Wednesday from Vox.
Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean island of Dominica as Category 5
monster, destroying most of the island's structures and leaving the
infrastructure in ruins. It then took aim on the U.S. Virgin Islands and
eventually the U.S. mainland. It was also was a Category 5 storm for
longer than all other Atlantic hurricanes on record except Ivan in 2004..."
It's Time to Ditch the Concept of 100-Year Floods. An article at FiveThirtyEight is a worthy read: "...That’s no surprise to experts, who say the concept of the “100-year flood” is one of the most misunderstood terms in disaster preparedness. In the wake of catastrophic flooding on the Texas coast, the media has been working hard to explain the term, turning out dozens of articles explaining that a “100-year flood” is not a flood that you should expect to happen only once every 100 years. Instead, it refers to a flood that has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. Over the course of a 30-year mortgage, a house in a 100-year floodplain has a 26 percent chance of being inundated at least once.1 Stories that emphasize this fact are “doing the Lord’s work,” said Wesley Highfield, professor of marine sciences at Texas A&M University at Galveston. But there are still more holy offices to perform..."
File photo: Reuters, TPX Images.
The Only California County That Sent a Warning to Residents' Cellphones Has No Reported Fatalities. Coincidence? Here's a clip from The Washington Post: "...Five
years after it was launched by the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
the use of the nation’s alert system remains uneven. And despite a
campaign by FEMA to encourage local governments to participate, most
U.S. counties could not order an alert today if they faced an emergency.
More than 65 percent of the nation’s 3,500 counties do not have
agreements in place with FEMA to send alerts through the Wireless
Emergency Alert system, as it is known, the agency said. The alerts are
sent to all phones in the targeted area, often accompanied by a
vibration and a unique sound that FEMA says is “designed to get your
attention.” The majority of alerts sent over the system since 2012 —
more than 25,000 — have been related to flash floods, tornadoes and
other weather events, FEMA records show..."
* More on weather alerts issued during the recent California wildfires from HuffPost.
Is Weather Control a Dream or Nightmare? Science News for Students separates out the science from the conspiracy theories: "...There’s a lot of natural variability,” explains Jeffrey French. He’s an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. In time, money for cloud-seeding research dwindled. More effort was put into improving weather prediction. Weather modification did not, however, disappear. More than 50 nations now have cloud-seeding programs, according to the World Meteorological Organization. China, for instance, set off hundreds of rockets to seed clouds in 2008. Its goal was to ensure clear skies for the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics in Beijing. There also are dozens of private weather-modification companies. And many other companies pay for cloud seeding. What they achieve, today, is much more subtle than the grand visions that had once been proposed..."
Image credit: "Weather control is the stuff of science fiction, but scientists have made it at least a little bit real. Whether people should be controlling their weather, though, is another matter." Nastco/iStockphoto.
* Access to the paper referenced above is available at The Lancet.
Solar Costs Set to Fall Further: From Climate Nexus Hot News: The already-plummeting costs of installing solar power could fall an additional 60 percent over the next decade, the head of the International Renewable Energy Association said Monday. IRENA director general Adnan Amin told Reuters that the organization expects an additional 80 to 90 GW of solar capacity will be added worldwide each year for the next five to six years, and that improvements in technology, including batteries, will help drive down costs. Earlier this month, a new solar project in Saudi Arabia set a record for the lowest bid prices ever recorded for solar energy at 1.79 cents/kWh. A report from the International Energy Organization earlier this month hailed a "new era" for solar, naming it the fastest-growing source of new energy in 2016. (Irena: Reuters, PV Magazine. Saudi Arabia: Bloomberg. IEA: Reuters, CNBC, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Mashable. Commentary: ThinkProgress, Joe Romm column)
For Clean Energy Jobs, Sky's the Limit. The Star Tribune reports: "...Osborn’s
job, wind technician, is the fastest growing occupation in the nation.
As utilities rapidly increase the amount of power they get from wind
farms, workers willing and able to climb hundreds of feet to keep
turbines running smoothly are in high demand. Students in wind power
training programs in Minnesota are getting jobs as soon as they graduate
or even before. “I do what pays the bills, and I looked at what was
happening and will be happening for the next 30 years, and wind
maintenance seemed win-win,” said Osborn, who works for Vestas, a global
wind energy giant. As wind and solar energy have grown, they’ve created
a tide of jobs nationwide in fields from construction to manufacturing.
Renewable energy jobs, most of which are in wind and solar, grew by 16
percent to around 6,200 in Minnesota from 2015 to 2016, according to a
recent study by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, an industry-led
nonprofit..."
Photo credit: Glen Stubbe – Star Tribune. "Wind
technician Will Osborn perched outside a wind turbine’s nacelle, a
small room housing the gear box. He and Chris Berg, lower right, were 24
stories up servicing a Vestas wind turbine at the Black Oak wind farm,
below, in Sauk Centre, Minn."
Over 40% of Tech Workers Worried About Losing Their Jobs to Ageism. Bizjournals.com has the details: "More
than 40 percent of tech workers polled are worried they will lose their
jobs because of ageism, a new study from job listing site Indeed, with almost 20 percent saying they worry “all the time” about becoming too old for their jobs. Indeed
polled 1,000 tech workers in September 2017 for its study, which found
that 46 percent of the tech sector is comprised of millennials, with a
much smaller minority of 26 percent made up of baby boomers and Gen
Xers. The average tech worker polled had been in tech for 15 years and 9
months, with 36 percent saying the average age at their company is
between 31 to 35..."
TODAY: Partly sunny. Wind Advisory. Winds: NW 25-45. High: 48
TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear and cool. Low: 37
WEDNESDAY: Peeks of sun, less wind. Winds: NW 10-15. High: 56
THURSDAY: Clouds and winds increase. Winds: NW 10-20. Wake-up: 43. High: 55
FRIDAY: Sloppy mix. Slushy lawns possible. Wet roads. Winds: NW 15-25. Wake-up: 34. High: 41
SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy, still chilly. Winds: NW 10-15. Wake-up: 29. High: near 40
SUNDAY: More clouds than sun - brisk. Winds: SW 7-12. Wake-up: 27. High: 45
MONDAY: Partly sunny, seasonably cool. Winds: NW 7-12. Wake-up: 31. High: 48
Climate Stories...
Photo credit: "Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo has joined 20 Republican colleagues on a resolution that calls conservation a “conservative principle.” (Bill Clark/Roll Call File Photo).
Sea Level Rise Could Flood 1.9 Million U.S. Homes by 2100. Yale E360 reports: "An estimated 1.9 million U.S. homes could be flooded by 2100 if seas rise 6 feet in response to climate change, according to a new analysis by the real estate company Zillow. The affected properties are valued at $916 billion dollars and represent 1.8 percent of the country’s housing stock. The report, published last week, finds that without climate resiliency measures such as sea walls, the majority of flooded homes will be moderate- or lower-priced properties. High-end real estate accounts for 39 percent of at-risk houses. “While the damage caused by recent hurricanes is a devastating reminder of how quickly the weather can undo people’s lives and destroy their homes, the potential for damage from a slower-moving phenomenon could be even more destructive,” the report says..."
Photo credit: "Lindsay Mouw, 23, of Sioux Center has taken her message of acting against global climate change to fellow church members and the conservative northwest Iowa community." Mike Kilen.
Global Warming Could Make This Lurking Climate Threat Even Worse. Forbes explains: "...Like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide (yes, the same stuff as laughing gas) traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Although it’s thought to account for only about 6% of the greenhouse effect today, it is about 300 times worse for the climate than CO2. One major source is runoff from farms and fields. Bacteria breaking down nitrogen compounds from manure and synthetic fertilizers generate nitrous oxide as a waste product. Climate scientists and policy makers have tried to include nitrous oxide in their models of climate change. But until now we haven’t had a good idea about whether nitrous oxide emissions will get worse or better as global temperatures increase..."
File photo: iStock.
EPA Blocks Scientists From Speaking on Science: From Climate Nexus: The EPA has barred three scientists from appearing at a conference to talk climate change, the New York Times reported Sunday. An EPA spokesperson confirmed that no agency scientists would speak publicly today in Providence at the State of Narragansett Bay and Its Watershed program and would not elaborate on the agency's reasoning behind the decision. The silenced scientists had contributed substantially to a 400-page report on the state of the bay, scheduled to be discussed today, which finds that climate change is altering the bay's health. The EPA helps to fund the program putting on the conference in Providence, but Scott Pruitt's proposed budget would cut funding for the Rhode Island program and other estuary funding nationwide. (Scientists: New York Times $, Washington Post $, Reuters, The Hill, AP. Conference: Providence Journal)
Stanford Climate Scientist Addresses Misconceptions About Climate Change. People can adapt to the averages; it's the extremes that tend to wreak havoc. Here's an excerpt of a story from Stanford News that made me do a double-take: "..."People tend to ask, 'When will the average conditions cross a threshold that results in climate change?' But that's not really relevant. People and ecosystems can adapt to the average conditions, but where things fall apart is in the extremes. We experience damages from climate mainly at the extremes, and it's the extremes that can result in disasters. "Farmers might have enough rain on average to grow corn in Illinois. But in a drought, as in 2012, yields get whacked. Corn yields decline rapidly when temperatures rise above 29 C (84 F). If temperatures are above that 29 C threshold once every 200 years, it may not be a big problem. But if it is every five years, farmers start seeing impacts on yield and, if the high temperatures occur too frequently, on the viability of corn farming in that area. "We're already seeing evidence of climate-change impacts in the increased frequency of extreme events..."
Photo credit: "Poorly developed cornstalks show the effects of prolonged hot, dry weather. Extreme temperatures year after year have an impact on the viability of corn farming in an area, Stanford scientist Chris Field says." Earl D. Walker / Shutterstock
Thanks for sharing such an amazing article, really informative.
ReplyDeleteMain page here
See here
Next page
Browse this site