WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

15-19 August 2016

DataStreme Earth Climate System will return for Fall 2016 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 22 August 2016. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

A view of 2016 Summer Olympic Games site from space -- An image of the region around Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was obtained from the the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument onboard NASA's Terra satellite within three days of the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in downtown Rio de Janeiro, a large metropolitan area that has been experiencing elevated levels of airborne particulate matter for the last several months. A corresponding image reveals the aerosol optical depth, a measure of the attenuation of incoming solar radiation by the aerosols. [NASA Feature]
A story revealed as to how space weather forecasters helped avoid nuclear conflict in 1967 -- A senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) High Altitude Observatory recently published a paper describing the actions of several US Air Force officers who as space weather forecasters altered the high ranking military officials of the potential that a solar storm on 23 May 1967 could disrupt surveillance radar and radio communications especially in polar regions. This disruption by the impending geomagnetic storm could have been interpreted as possible jamming by the Soviet Union. Because of this warning, US military aircraft were not deployed, which avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the former USSR. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

July 2016 weather and climate for the nation reviewed -- Scientists at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently reported on their analysis of preliminary weather data collected during the month of July 2016:

National weather and climate -- The average temperature for the contiguous US during July was 75.3 degrees F, or 1.6 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century (1901-2000) average. Therefore, July 2016 was the fourteenth warmest July since comprehensive nationwide temperature records began in 1895. Above to much above average July temperatures were reported across the southern tier of states running from California eastward to Florida and along the Eastern Seaboard from Georgia northward to Maine. New Mexico and Florida reported their highest statewide July temperatures in 122 years of record, while fourteen other states across the South and East had statewide temperatures for the month that were within the top ten on record. On the other hand, a dozen states running from the Pacific Northwest eastward across the northern Plains to the Midwest had near average July temperatures.
The nationally-averaged July precipitation total across the contiguous United States was 2.87 inches (or 0.09 inches above the 20th century average), which made July 2016 the 52nd wettest (or 71st driest) July in the 122-year record. Nearly half of the states (23) across the Ohio Valley, the Great Plains and the much of the West had July 2015 statewide precipitation totals that above or much above the 20th century average. States across the nation's midsection (the Midwest and northern Plains) as well as the Northwest had above to much above average rainfall. Kentucky and Illinois experienced statewide July precipitation totals that ranked third in 122 years, while Minnesota, Missouri and North Dakota had July totals that were in the top ten on record. Drier than average conditions were found across the Southwest and Rocky Mountain States, the Southeast, the eastern Great Lakes and sections of New England. Georgia had a statewide precipitation total for July 2016 that was the second smallest on record, Florida had the third smallest reading, while Wyoming was the ninth driest July and New Mexico the ten driest July on record. [NOAA NCEI State of the Climate]
NOTE: A description is provided of the climatological rankings employed by NCEI for their monthly and seasonal maps. [NOAA/NCEI]
July national drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its July 2016 drought report online. Based on the Palmer Drought Index, severe to extreme drought affected about seven percent of the contiguous United States as of the end of July 2016, which represents an increase in areal extent from the previous month. About 11 percent of the contiguous U.S. fell in the severely to extremely wet categories at the end of July..

Satellites record extreme heat during summer of 2016 across Eurasia and North America -- Three maps were recently generated of land surface temperatures across sections of Russia, the Middle East, and North America obtained from data collected during the 20-27 July 2016 interval by the MODIS sensor onboard on NASA's Terra satellite. These information on these maps this page was displayed as land surface temperature anomalies or differences between the observed temperatures and 10-year average temperatures obtained from the same sensor for the same dates from 2001 to 2010. Some places across Siberia, Afghanistan and the southern United States experienced land surface temperatures during late July 2016 that were as much as 12 Celsius degrees (22 Fahrenheit degrees) above the 10-year average. Although the satellite-derived land surface temperatures are not the same as the official air temperatures taken in instrument shelters at nearly two-meter height above the surface, the widespread extent of the abnormal summer heat is telling. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Cool water strip detected in equatorial Pacific during July -- A recently constructed map of the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies across the Pacific Ocean Basin during July 2016, which represent the arithmetic difference between observed and the 1981-2010 average temperatures, showed cooler-than-average waters across the central equatorial Pacific. This cool water strip is seen by climate scientists to be an indication of the end of last year's El Niño event. A description is made of how the high-resolution sea surface temperature data are obtained across the Pacific. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Polar orbiting satellite sees nearly ice-free Northwest Passage -- Early last week a true-color image was made of the Canadian Arctic by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite that showed nearly ice-free water in the famous Northwest Passage. This Northwest Passage has long been considered to be a potential sea route along the northern coast of North America connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean. However, until recent years sufficient amounts of summer sea ice prevented this realization. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
Drought is not limited to California as it expands elsewhere across the nation -- A feature article was produced for the NOAA ClimateWatch magazine that provides an animated loop of images taken from the weekly US Drought Monitor between 1 March and 2 August showing how drought conditions have expanded across several large sections of the nation to the east of the Rockies including the northern Plains, the Southeast and the Northeast. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

The extended impacts associated with the California drought -- A climate scientist at the Utah State University posted a guest blog that describes how the continued lack of precipitation across a large section of California during this past winter has continued the region's drought as well as causing a reduction in groundwater levels in southern and central California. The relationship between California precipitation and ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) status was also considered. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Lunar transit affects operation of the Solar Dynamics Observatory mission -- On the morning of Tuesday, 2 August 2016, the Moon passed between NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft and the Sun in what astronomers call a "lunar transit." The SDO spacecraft is in a geosynchronous orbit of Earth and is designed to monitor the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time in order to understand the Sun's influence on Earth and Near-Earth space. This lunar transit caused the three SDO instruments to initially go into an inactive mode, but by last Wednesday they were all back in operation, sending back information on the Sun to Earth. [NOAA News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Investigation made of Denver's ozone problem -- Researchers at NOAA's the Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado, Boulder have recently conducted a study that has found that oil and gas emissions from the energy industry along Colorado's northern Front Range is an important contributor to the region's ozone problem, especially in the Denver metropolitan area. This metro area has exceeded the EPA's ozone standard for nearly a decade due to Denver's location in a basin with a topography that accumulated high background ozone levels, high nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels from metropolitan traffic, and daily infusions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including from oil and gas activities, which react with NOx to form ozone during hot summer days. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion & La Niña watch -- NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) recently released their El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion that showed sea surface temperatures (SST) across eastern sections of the equatorial Pacific were slightly below-average levels. Hence, ENSO-neutral conditions were being observed, mean that neither El Niño or La Niña conditions were found. However, most of the predictive models used by the CPC and IRI indicate development of La Niña during the next three months. Consequently, the forecasters at CPC have continued a their La Niña watch that a 55 to 60 percent chance exists of the development of a La Niña during the upcoming fall and winter 2016-17 seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. A detailed El Niño/Southern Oscillation Diagnostic Discussion with supporting maps and charts is available from CPC.
An easy-to-read ENSO blog written by a CPC contractor discusses the current ENSO-neutral conditions and the possible onset of La Niña conditions in the next several months. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Updated 2016 NOAA Atlantic hurricane outlook is released -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center(CPC) issued their updated Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook for 2016, which increased the number of predicted named tropical cyclones for the North Atlantic Basin (including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico) from their initial seasonal outlook that they made in May. Specifically, they are now predicting a 70-percent chance of 12–17 named tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms with sustained surface winds of at least 39 mph), as compared with their earlier outlook of 10 to 16 named systems. They also currently envision between five and eight hurricanes (with maximum sustained surface winds of 74 mph or higher) along with two to four major hurricanes (Category 3 hurricanes or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale with winds of at least 111 mph), which represent slight increases in their earlier forecasts of four to eight hurricanes and one to four major hurricanes. These new projections indicate their expectation of a high probability of a near-average to an above-average hurricane season, as long-term statistics show that an average Atlantic season consists of 12 named tropical cyclones and the six hurricanes that normally form during each year. Three of these hurricanes typically become major hurricanes. At the same time, the CPC forecasters lowered the chances of a below-average season to 15 percent.
The CPC forecasters claim that the increased likelihood of average to above average tropical cyclone activity across the Atlantic basin is due to several factors that include the end of last winter's enhanced El Niño event, weaker trade winds and vertical wind shear across the central tropical Atlantic Ocean and a stronger west African monsoon. As of the early August, the Atlantic basin has had three tropical storms (Bonnie, Colin and Danielle) and two hurricanes (Alex and Earl) during 2016. in the North Atlantic basin (that includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico) [NOAA News]
An updated Atlantic hurricane forecast was issued by Dr. Philip Klotzbach and associates at Colorado State University one week ago in which they predicted a total of 15 named tropical cyclones for the entire 2016 season, including eight hurricanes. The forecasters also anticipated two major hurricanes and a near-average probability of major hurricane landfalls along the coasts of the continental United States and the islands in the Caribbean. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

Recent major El Niño event may have limited impact upon the California Current System -- Researchers with the University of California, Santa Cruz, NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center and Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently reported that the impacts upon the marine ecosystems and primary production in the California Current System due to the record 2015-2016 El Niño event are likely to be weak. The researchers suspect that although this event was a record, the impacts upon the California Current System would be weak because Kelvin waves and weakened upwelling-favorable winds did not accompany the record high tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures. However, earlier major El Niño events in 1982-1983 and 1997-1998 triggered significant changes to ecosystems in the North Pacific. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Historical Events:

15 August 1946...Saint Louis, MO was deluged with a record 8.78 inches of rain in 24 hours. (The Weather Channel)
15 August 1995...Apalachicola, FL soared to 103 degrees to set all-time high temperature. (Intellicast)
15 August 2004...The weather station at Yakutat, AK reported its all-time maximum temperature: 88 degrees. (The Weather Doctor)
16 August 1909...A dry spell began in San Bernardino County of southern California that lasted until the 6th of May in 1912, a stretch of 994 days! Another dry spell, lasting 767 days, then began in October of 1912. (The Weather Channel)
17 August 1885...Amos, CA hit 130 degrees to set the unofficial August U.S. high temperature record. (Intellicast)
18 August 1924...A record August rainfall for the United Kingdom occurred when 9.4 inches deluged Cannington (Somerset) England. (The Weather Doctor)
18 August 1927...Pressure in unnamed tropical storm fell to 887 millibars (26.18 inches of mercury) over the Pacific Ocean east of Luzon in the Philippines, one of the lowest surface measurements on record. (The Weather Doctor)
18 August 1931: The Yangtze River in China peaked during a horrible flood that killed 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months. This was perhaps the worst natural disaster of the 20th century. (National Weather Service files)
18-19 August 1935...The temperature soared to record high levels in each of the Maritime Provinces, with a 98 degree reading at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 101 degrees in Collegeville, Nova Scotia and 103 degrees in Rexton, New Brunswick. (The Weather Doctor)
18 August 1936...Iowa had its hottest ever August day with the average high temperature for 113 stations being 106.5 degrees Fahrenheit. (Intellicast)
18-19 August 2007...A cooperative observer near Hokah in southeastern Minnesota recorded 15.10 inches of rain, establishing a new 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Gopher State. (NCDC)
19 August 1939...Tuckerton, NJ received 14.81 inches of rain, which established a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Garden State. (NCDC)
19 August 1955...Rains from tropical Storm Diane fell on ground saturated from Tropical Storm Connie a week before. Westfield, MA recorded 18.15 inches in 24 hours, to set a statewide record for the Bay State, while the 24-hour precipitation record for the Nutmeg State was set at Burlington, CT with 12.77 inches. Extreme flooding occurred in all of New England. (Intellicast)
19 August 1960...The heaviest recorded 24-hour precipitation accumulation to date for the Arctic drenched Mould Bay, Northwest Territories with 1.88 inches of rain. (The Weather Doctor)
19 August 1969..."Never say die" Camille let loose a cloudburst in Virginia resulting in flash floods and landslides that killed 151 persons and cause 140 million dollars damage. Massies Hill in Nelson County, Virginia received an estimated 27 inches of rain in 24 hours. This amount is an unofficial record for the state, while the official 24-hour maximum precipitation record is 14.28 inches at Williamsburg on 16 September 1999. (David Ludlum) (NCDC)
19 August 1986...The temperature at San Antonio, TX soared to an all-time record high of 108 degrees. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders 1987)
19 August 2010...A 2-month long heat wave in Russia ended on this date. During the heat wave daily maximum temperatures in Moscow were as much as 27 degrees above average. The heat wave caused 15,000 deaths, 600 wildfires, and $15 billion loss of economic growth. (National Weather Service files)
21 August 1983...The temperature at Fayetteville, NC soared to 110 degrees to establish a state high temperature record. (The Weather Channel)
21 August 1992...The earliest recorded snowfall in Edmonton, Alberta since record keeping began in 1884. (The Weather Doctor)
21 August 2007...Hail with diameters of up to 5.25 inches fell in southeastern South Dakota, resulting in considerable damage to roofs of buildings. The largest hailstone had a circumference of 18.00 inches and weighed 1.0 pound, which represents the largest documented hailstone in South Dakota since records began in 1950. (NCDC)

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