25-29 March 2013

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Phenological events of note -- While astronomical spring commenced with the occurrence of the vernal equinox early last Wednesday morning (on 20 March 2013), several reoccurring phenological events also are used to note the onset of spring. These include:
• Buzzards return to Hinckley -- According to local reports from Hinckley, OH, spring occurred on Friday morning 15 March 2013 at 8:15 AM EDT when the first buzzard returned to roost at the Cleveland Metroparks Hinckley Reservation. According to legend, the buzzards return on the 15th of March of every year for nearly 200 years. [Cleveland.com]
• Swallows return to Capistrano -- Legend indicates that swallows return to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano in southern California every St. Joseph's Day (19 March). The return of the swallows appears to be sporadic, with some reports of sightings near the Mission. Increased urbanization around the Mission appears to keep the swallows away. [Los Angeles Times]. However, the 55th annual Swallows Day parade was held on Saturday 23 March 2013.
• Cherry Blossom Watch in Washington, DC -- Many tourists descend upon Washington, DC during the spring to view the sights, including the blossoming cherry trees that line the Tidal Basin along the Potomac River. The National Park service operates a website that reports the status of the cherry blossoms in anticipation of the 101th annual Cherry Blossom Festival that is scheduled for next two weeks (Saturday, 23 March to Sunday, 7 April 2013). This site also has a listing of the phenological observations for past bloom dates. According to a recent update, experts expect that the trees should be at peak bloom one week from now (3-6 April), as recent cold weather with snowshowers last Monday has delayed the anticipated bloom from the earlier projected peak during this week (26-30 March). [Localkicks]
• Tsunami Awareness Week -- NOAA and the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (a partnership between NOAA, the United States Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the 28 U.S. Coastal States, Territories, and Commonwealths) have designated this upcoming week (24-30 March 2013) as National Tsunami Awareness Week. Tsunami awareness training exercises will be conducted for the states and territories along the Pacific that is called Pacific Tsunami Exercise (PACIFEX 13). Open houses will be held at the National Weather Service's tsunami warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii, along with various community activities in coastal states. The Governor of Alaska has proclaimed this coming week as Tsunami Awareness Week in Alaska. This week coincides with the 49th anniversary of the series of devastating tsunamis that struck southeastern Alaska following several earthquakes. [Governor's Office for State of Alaska]
• Teachers become glaciologists for a week at NASA workshop -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center held a week-long History of Winter (HOW) program at Northwood School in Lake Placid, NY for elementary and secondary science teachers this past February in which approximately 200 educators worked with NASA scientists on cryospheric research, which is the study of the Earth's frozen regions. [NASA Goddard Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory]
• National Weather Service chief foresees "new normal" of extremes -- The new National Weather Service Director, Dr. Louis Uccellini, recently said that the extreme weather events such as tornado outbreaks, droughts, floods, hurricanes and winter storms that the nation has experienced during the last several years appear to be part of the "new normal" for weather patterns across the country. He also indicated that increased global temperatures are a "likely" contributor to extreme weather by making storms more intense. In addition, Dr. Uccellini also discussed topics involving the comparison of US and European weather prediction models, the potential weather satellites "gap" and the classification of Hurricane Sandy. [USA Today]
• Participate in fourth campaign of Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2013 -- The fourth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2013 will begin next Sunday (31 March) and continue into the following week, running through 9 April. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Orion or Leo in the northern hemisphere, and Orion and Crux in the southern hemisphere) with seven star charts of progressively fainter stars. In addition to this campaign and the three previously held in early weeks of January, February and March, the one additional GLOBE at Night campaigns will be in 2013: 29 April-8 May. Check the GLOBE at Night website for additional information on this week's activities plus a Teacher Information Page and activity packet.
• Reconstructing past climates -- Scientists from many disciplines have developed a variety of methods that use proxy indicators such as tree rings, ice cores and ocean cores to reconstruct past climates, some extending back thousands of years. For more details on paleoclimatology, or the study of past climates, and available data sets, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth.

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

• Natural climate swings appear to contribute significantly to increased monsoon rainfall -- An international team of scientists claim that natural swings in the climate appear to have significantly intensified Northern Hemisphere monsoon rainfall and that these natural climate swings appear to make a larger contribution to this increased rainfall than increases in global temperature. The researchers warn that the swings must be taken into account for climate predictions in the coming decades. [School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa]
• New upper air temperature climate data record released -- During the last month, officials at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center announced the release of the Upper Air Temperature Climate Data Record (CDR), which represents a time series of upper air temperature measurements at four distinct layers within the troposphere and stratosphere between 1978 and 2011. These data for the CDR were obtained from temperature-sounding microwave radiometers on polar-orbiting weather satellites. The records are of sufficient length, consistency, and continuity to determine climate variability and change. [NOAA National Climatic Data Center News]
• First images from a new environmental satellite released -- This past week the first natural color images of the Earth's surface made by NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) were released. The first image collected by sensors onboard this orbiting satellite last Monday was of a section of the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming, along with the adjacent Plains. LDCM, a joint mission of NASA and the US Department of Interior's US Geological Survey (USGS), has an Operational Land Imager (or OLI) instrument that is used to make natural color images from reflected sunlight in the visible and the near infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum and a Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) that detects thermal infrared radiation emitted from the Earth's surface. The LDCM spacecraft and its instruments are currently being tested by NASA before becoming operational in late May, when it will be renamed Landsat 8. Data from the OLI and TIRS instruments will be processed and added to the Landsat Data Archive at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in South Dakota. The public will be able to access these images for free over the Internet. [NASA Earth Science News Team] [USGS Newsroom]
• Greenland's peripheral glaciers provide significant contribution to sea-level rise -- Scientists from Switzerland's University of Zurich and colleagues participating in the European Union's Ice2sea program claim that the contribution made by those Greenland glaciers separated from the ice sheet to global sea-level rise constitutes approximately ten percent of the estimated contribution of the entire world's glaciers and ice caps. Furthermore, this contribution is higher than expected. The researchers recently completed an inventory of Greenland's glaciers and ice caps, using lasers to measure the height of the ice from space and to determine changes in the mass of those ice bodies, separate from the main ice sheet. [EurekAlert!]
• An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]

CLIMATE FORECASTS

• New Seasonal Climate Outlooks released -- During the last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) released their Three-Month (Seasonal) Climate Outlooks for the three-months running from April through June 2013, which contains the last two months of meteorological spring and the first month of meteorological summer. [NOAA News] Specific details include:
• Temperature and precipitation outlooks -- According to their temperature outlook, a large section of the 48 coterminous United States should experience a high chance of above average spring temperatures, with the greatest probability of such an occurrence across the South Central States and New England. Only the Northwest appears to have a good chance for below average temperatures. Elsewhere, near equal chances of warmer or cooler than normal conditions were foreseen.
  Their precipitation outlook calls for better than even chances of dry spring conditions for a large section of the West Coast, the Great Basin and the Gulf Coast States. Sections of the Midwest around the Great Lakes were expected to have a wetter than average spring. The rest of the coterminous states should have equal chances of below and above average spring precipitation. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center] Outlooks for April are also available. A summary of the prognostic discussion of the outlook for non-technical users is available from CPC. These forecasts were based in part that the current ENSO-neutral conditions (ENSO = El Niño/Southern Oscillation) should continue into spring, where neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions should prevail.
  
• Seasonal Drought Outlook released -- The CPC's US Seasonal Drought Outlook was released for April through June 2013 that indicates a persistence or expansion of drought conditions across most of the southwestern quadrant of the nation, especially across the southern Plains, the southern Rockies, the Great Basin and California. Drought was expected to continue or develop across the Florida Peninsula. The forecasters foresee an improvement in the drought conditions across sections of the Upper Mississippi Valley and the northern Plains. Interior sections of the Southeast, including the southern Appalachians should also experience improvement in the drought. Some limited improvement in drought conditions could also occur across the northern and central Plains. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center] Note: a Seasonal Drought Outlook Discussion is included describing the forecasters' confidence.
• Spring flood outlook for nation -- Forecasters with the National Weather Service's Hydrologic Information Center issued their National Hydrologic Assessment for Spring 2013 that includes moderate to major flooding across several river basins in North Dakota including the Red River of the North and the Souris River. Minor to moderate flooding was anticipated for sections of the upper Mississippi and upper Missouri Valleys. Some flooding could occur on lower sections of the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys and across several rivers in the Southeast. Because of continued drought conditions, below normal flood risks were expected across Texas and the Southwest. [National Weather Service]
• More frequent extreme storm surges in future -- In research conducted at Denmark's Niels Bohr Institute, scientists have found that a tenfold increase in the frequency of extreme storm surges produced by tropical cyclones (primarily from hurricanes) would occur if the global temperatures would increase by two Celsius degrees. They based their conclusions from daily tide data from monitoring stations along the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts extending back to 1923. Statistical climate models were used to predict the number of hurricane surges 100 years into the future. [Niels Bohr Institute]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

• Florida manatees take winter refuge in warm springs -- Analysis of organized annual statewide winter counts of the endangered Florida manatees by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute has indicated that the manatees rely on warm-water refuges in the waters around the southern two-thirds of the Florida Peninsula during winter cold spells. The manatees consistently return to specific refuges that include warm water discharges from power plants and warm-water springs. The researchers found that hot springs offered the manatees the best protection of the refuges studied. Therefore, protecting and improving access to these warm springs may be critical for the long-term survival of Florida manatees. [PLoS ONE]

• Packrats provide information on past climates -- A feature produced by scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center described how paleoclimatologists use packrat middens from caves and rock shelters across the Southwest to ascertain past climate conditions across the region. Packrat middens are debris piles constructed by woodrats. The USGS/NOAA North American Packrat Midden Database has been developed to makes paleoclimatic data available in a standardized, quality-controlled format. [NOAA National Climatic Data Center News]
• Mass extinction at end of Triassic triggered by huge volcanic eruptions -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and colleagues from other research institutions claim that numerous huge volcanic eruptions occurred at approximately 200 million years ago, which was at the same time as a massive extinction that decimated 76 percent of marine and terrestrial species of life. This mass extinction marks the end of the Triassic geologic period and the onset of the Jurassic, during which dinosaurs flourished during the next 135 million years. The massive volcanic eruptions from a large region known as the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) over a 40,000-year span at the end of the Triassic appear to have triggered the mass extinction as the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose, which caused acidification of the oceans and increased global temperatures. [MIT News]
• Evolution of early life challenged by oxygen-poor ocean -- Geochemists from the University of California, Riverside and their colleagues from Virginia, Canada and France have analyzed the chemistry of the ancient oceans between 1.8 billion to 0.8 billion years ago and how this chemistry affected early marine organisms. Based upon their tracking of a variety of elements including chromium and molybdenum, they found that during this one-billion year interval oxygen levels in the ancient oceans were generally low. The low oxygen levels meant that marine life was dominated by bacteria rather than diverse and large populations of more complex organisms. This general lack of complex life organisms during this interval have led some scientists to label it the "the boring billion." [University of California, Riverside Today]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

• Website for human dimensions of climate change -- An interagency effort within the US federal government that included NOAA, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service, has resulted in a website called HD.gov (for HumanDimensions.gov) that provides users, such as natural resource managers, with information on the human dimensions on a variety of topics of interest such as climate change. [HD.gov]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Extending the Historical North American Drought Record

Through history, drought has been a major concern for many people as the lack of adequate water can adversely affect agriculture, and in the extreme case, the availability of potable (drinkable) water. The Case in Point for Chapter 9 describes the migration of ancient peoples across the semiarid Southwest due to what may have been major drought conditions. During the last century, the "Dust Bowl" era drought in the 1930s created many problems in this country. The effects of this seven-year long drought were made worse by poor agricultural techniques and land management. The effect of the drought on the nation was also exacerbated by the coincident Great Depression. Drought remains a problem today across Texas and the West Coast as we can see from inspection of the current weekly US National Drought Monitor produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center.

How do the current drought events compare with earlier droughts? A time series of computed Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) values began in 1895 when a sufficiently dense climate network was established. During the 20th century, several episodes of drought have had a major national impact. The exceptional drought that developed in the early 1930s extended across much of the nation resulting in the "Dust Bowl" era. The PDSI time series shows that the 1930s drought was the worst in the last century, with nearly 80 percent of the nation experiencing moderate to extreme drought in 1934. During the 1950s, the southern Plains and the Southwest also experienced a major drought, when 50 to 60 percent of the nation was under drought conditions.

What about farther back in history? Sophisticated tree-ring analysis techniques allow researchers to extend the drought record across a large section of North America farther into the past. In 1998, Edward R. Cook at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory along with colleagues at Arizona and Arkansas reconstructed past drought conditions across the nation based upon annual tree-ring data obtained from a network of 388 climatically sensitive tree-ring sites. From these data, time series of annual summertime (June-August) PDSI values were determined back to 1700 at 155 grid points across the nation. These gridded tree-ring chronologies were calibrated with PDSI chronologies generated by instrumental records at selected Historical Climate Network stations commencing in the late 19th century. The researchers found that the 1930s drought was the most severe drought to hit the nation since 1700.

By 2004, the series was expanded to 835 tree-ring sites, primarily across the West, where exactly dated annual tree-ring chronologies were obtained. The new grid covered most of North America with a latitude-longitude spacing of 2.5 degrees. In addition to the 286 grid point PDSI time series, annual contour maps of PDSI were constructed that span much of the continent. This work permitted extension of the spatial and temporal coverage of the drought reconstruction not only into Canada and Mexico, but back 2000 years. From this more recent data set they produced an online "North American Drought Atlas." They found several "megadroughts" in North America were even more severe than the 1930s drought. In addition to being more severe, some droughts extended over several decades, considerably longer than those of the 20th century. One such megadrought was in the 16th century, an event that along with another megadrought into the early 17th century has been implicated by some researchers in the hardships encountered by British settlers in the Virginia area, such as the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony.

Concept of the Week: Questions

(Place your responses on the Chapter Progress Response Form provided in the Study Guide.)

1. The 1930's Dust Bowl era drought [(does), (does not)] appear to be the most intense across the nation of any in the last two thousand years.
2. The "North American Drought Atlas" is based on 835 sites where trees in climatically sensitive areas produce [(monthly),(annual),(biennial)] growth rings.

Historical Events:

• 25 March 1914...Society Hill, SC was buried under 18 inches of snow, establishing a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 25 March 1975...The town of Sandberg reported a wind gust to 101 mph, a record for the state of California. (The Weather Channel)
• 26 March 1913...The Ohio River Basin flood reached a peak. Ten-inch rains over a wide area of the Ohio River Basin inundated cities in Ohio, drowning 467 persons, and causing 147 million dollars damage. The Miami River at Dayton reached a level eight feet higher than ever before. The flood, caused by warm weather and heavy rains, was the second mostly deadly of record for the nation. (David Ludlum)
• 26 March 1930...A two-day snowfall of 19.2 inches at Chicago, IL was the greatest modern snowfall on the record books at Chicago. (Intellicast)
• 26 March 1954...The temperature at Allakaket, AK plunged to 69 degrees below zero, setting a record for the lowest temperature ever for March. (The Weather Channel)
• 26-28 March 2004...The first ever confirmed hurricane in the South Atlantic Ocean, named Catarina, struck the coast of the Brazilian states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul with heavy rains and winds, before dissipating over land late on the 28th. (The Weather Doctor)
• 27 March 1931...A blizzard that struck western Kansas and adjoining states was called the "worst since January 1888". The low temperature of 3 degrees below zero, which was reached during the blizzard, stands as the lowest temperature recorded so late in the season. (Intellicast)
• 27-28 March 1964...The most powerful earthquake in US history, the Good Friday Earthquake, rocked south central Alaska, killing 125 people and causing $311 million in property damage, especially to the city of Anchorage. The earthquake in Prince William Sound, which had a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter scale, caused some landmasses to be thrust upward locally as much as 80 feet, while elsewhere land sank as much as 8 feet. This earthquake and submarine landslides also created a tsunami that produced extensive coastal damage. A landslide at Valdez Inlet in Alaska generated a tsunami that reached a height of 220 feet in the inlet. A major surge wave that was approximately 100 ft above low tide caused major damage to Whittier (where 13 died) and other coastal communities in Alaska. The first wave took more than 5 hours to reach the Hawaiian Islands where a 10-foot wave was detected, while a wave that was 14.8 feet above high tide level traveled along portions of the West Coast, reaching northern California 4 hours after the earthquake. Nearly 10,000 people jammed beaches at San Francisco to view the possible tsunami, but no high-amplitude waves hit those beaches. Tsunami damage reached Crescent City in northern California. Tens of thousands of aftershocks indicated that the region of faulting extended about 600 miles. The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center was established in the wake of this disaster, with a mission to warn Alaskan communities of the threat from tsunamis. [See the 1964 Prince William Sound Tsunami page from the University of Washington.] (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (US Coast Guard Historians Office)
• 27 March 1984...A strong storm system traversing northern Texas pulled very hot air northeastward into southern Texas. The temperature at Brownsville, TX soared to 106 degrees, which broke not only the monthly record high temperature but the all-time record as well. Cotulla, TX reached 108 degrees, equaling the March record for the U.S. (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 27-28 March 2009...A blizzard moving across the southern Plains was responsible for new 24-hour snowfall records for the states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. A 30.0-inch snowfall at Pratt eclipsed the previous Kansas 24-hour record of 24 inches set at Norcator on 26 October 1996. Freedom and Woodward in Oklahoma replaced the 24.0-inch state snowfall record at Buffalo on 21 February 1971. In Texas, 25.0 inches fell at Follett, which broke the previous 24.0-inch record at Plainview set on 4 February 1971. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 28 March 1902...McMinnville, TN (elevation 900 feet) received 11.00 inches of precipitation, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Volunteer State. (National Climate Data Center).
• 28 March 1955...Florida's latest measurable snowfall occurred at Marianna when one inch of snow fell. Ground is whitened further south in Panama City. (The Weather Doctor)
• 29 March 1879...The temperature at Los Angeles, CA climbed to 99 degrees, which was 3 degrees higher than any other March day had ever reached in the city. (Intellicast)
• 29 March 1886...Atlanta, GA was drenched with a record 7.36 inches of rain in 24 hours. (The Weather Channel)
• 29 March 1920...Clear Spring, MD received 31 inches of snow in 24 hours to establish a state record. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)
• 29 March 1942...The "Palm Sunday snowstorm" buried Baltimore, MD under 22 inches of snow in 24 hours. This was the heaviest 24-hour snowfall ever for the city for the month of March as well as the heaviest snow for so late in the season. (Intellicast)
• 29 March 1945...Providence, RI hit 90 degrees to establish a March record for the New England area. (The Weather Channel)
• 30 March 1977...Hartford, CT hit 87 degrees to establish a record for the month of March. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 March 1890...Saint Louis, MO received 20.4 inches of snow in 24 hours, which was the worst snowstorm of record for St. Louis. (David Ludlum)
• 31 March 1954...The temperature at Rio Grande City, TX hit 108 degrees, which for thirty years was the U.S. record high for the month of March. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 March 1992...Seattle, WA closed out its first snowless winter ever (November through March). Las Vegas, NV recorded 4.80 inches of rain during the past month, which set 2 records -- the wettest March ever (old record 1.83 inches set in 1973) and the wettest month ever (old record 3.39 inches in September 1939). The normal yearly rainfall for the city is only 4.19 inches! (Intellicast)

Return to DataStreme ECS website

Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2013, The American Meteorological Society.