Browsing: Weather

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NOAA Outlook: Warmer Spring, Some Flooding

Here is NOAA’s new weather forecast for the spring: Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center — a division of the National Weather Service — predict above-average temperatures for most of the Continental U.S. and Alaska, as part of NOAA’s Spring Outlook released today for April through June. Meanwhile, NOAA’s National Water Center predicts a lower-than-average flood risk across the entire country, due in part to historically low winter snow cover across the Upper Great Plains and western U.S. “Climate change is affecting the timing, intensity and duration of weather events in the United States,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D.…

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Studies: Climate Change Causing More Hurricanes

Climate change has already caused a “decisive increase” in violent  hurricanes, according to this Grist story about two new studies: In our world of warming waters, extreme Atlantic hurricane seasons are becoming more likely and much wetter. That’s according to a pair of studies published this week. The fact that heat and moisture fuel hurricanes isn’t new, but the two studies offer fresh insights into how climate change is shaping today’s hurricanes. “Climate change is often thought about as a long-term problem,” said Kevin Reed, an extreme weather expert at Stony Brook University and lead author of one of the studies,…

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Hurricane Season Just Started: What To Expect

Hurricane season is officially underway. Here, from weather.com, is what we can expect in the next two months: Hurricane season officially begins Tuesday, June 1, and while it’s expected to be another active year, the early part of the season has historically been slow. The National Hurricane Center selected the June 1 to Nov. 30 period for the Atlantic hurricane season because it encompasses more than 97% of tropical cyclones. But storms can occasionally form before or after those dates, as we saw this May with the brief development of Tropical Storm Ana east of Bermuda. Early in the season,…

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SSCA Starts Daily Weather Net with Chris Parker for All Atlantic Cruisers

Here’s some good news if you’re planning to cross the Atlantic this year. The Seven Seas Cruising Association has formed a partnership with Chris Parker, the chief forecaster for the Marine Weather Center, and two other HAM stations to provide a Trans-Atlantic Cruisers’ Net. The service is available to all mariners, not just members of the SSCA. The service started on April 15 and will continue through the traditional crossing seasons. Parker (pictured above) will provide weather routing for the Atlantic. He will broadcast at 2200 UTC on SSB frequencies 8.137 and 12.350. Half an hour earlier, at 2130, SSCA…

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More Atlantic Hurricanes than Usual This Year, Says Colorado State Forecast

Last year was the worst hurricane season ever on the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. This year, according to the well-regarded annual forecast from Colorado State, there will be more hurricanes than average, with a chance that seven named storms will turn into hurricanes. And there’s a 63 percent chance the U.S. will be hit by a major hurricane. No one wants a repeat of last year, when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria caused more than $217 billion worth of damage, the most ever. The Colorado State study, now in its 35th year, predicts that the Atlantic coast will have…

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Weather Experts: Possibly More Hurricanes on East Coast This Season

How bad will it be? What remains for the hurricane season this year? We already have three named storms, an unusually high number since it’s not even the end of June yet. And a new consensus from six major weather centers, from NOAA to AccuWeather, suggest the hurricane season will either be normal or just above normal for the remainder of the year. For named storms affecting the east coast of the U.S., the predictions range from a low of 10 to a high of 17. For hurricanes, the range is from six to 10; for major hurricanes, the range…