WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

8-12 May 2017

DataStreme Earth Climate System will return for Fall 2017 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 21 August 2017. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Becoming AWARE -- The month of May is Volcano Preparedness Month in Washington state.
Land of the Midnight Sun -- Barring clouds, the sun should rise at Barrow, AK early next Wednesday morning (2:54 AM AKDT on 10 May 2017) after spending 62 minutes below the horizon. The sun should then remain above the local horizon for the next 12 weeks, before going below the horizon for 30 minutes on 2 August 2017 (at 1:56 AM AKDT). [US Naval Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Spring comes to interior Alaska -- The ice on the Tanana River at the community of Nenana, AK officially went out at noon on Monday, 1 May 2017 (Alaska Standard Time). A webcam provides a continuously updated view of the official tripod set up on the river ice to officially determine the winner of the famous Nenana Ice Classic This year's ice out date represents the 27th earliest breakup on record in the famous 101-year history of the event. The earliest breakup occurred on 20 April 1998, while the latest breakup on record was on 20 May 2013. The median date for ice-breakup is 5 May. [Nenana Ice Classic] The jackpot for this year's annual Nenana Ice Classic of $267,444 was to be shared by several winners who had not been identified as of this weekend. [Alaska Dispatch News] NOTE: A graph of the date of ice-out for each year since the Classic was started in 1917 has been plotted by this editor. Interannual (year-to-year) variability in ice-out dates associated with changes in winter temperature and snowfall accumulation in interior Alaska are superimposed upon the nearly century long trend in earlier ice out-dates associated with long-term climate changes. EJH
Drought disappears from most of the nation in recent weeks -- According to the US Drought Monitor, only six percent of the contiguous United States experienced drought conditions at the end of April 2017, which was the lowest percentage of drought in at least 17 years. Over the last five years, California and Texas had experienced extreme drought conditions, but during the last several months, seen major improvement as recent heavy precipitation has essentially caused the drought conditions to be eliminated. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Drought conditions expand across Florida this spring -- A meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center wrote an "Event Tracker" feature for the ClimateWatch Magazine describing the expansion and intensification of the severe drought conditions across Florida during the past month. Attention was focused upon the lack of precipitation across the Southeast during March 2017 and to the much above-average temperatures across the southeastern quadrant of the nation during the first three months of the year. These warm and dry conditions appear to be consistent with a La Niña pattern that was found across the tropical Pacific during the winter of 2016-17. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Springtime across the Great Plains can bring tornadoes and blizzards -- A "Event Tracker" feature appearing in the ClimateWatch Magazine focused on a late winter storm that traversed the Great Plains one week ago, bringing tornado and hail producing severe thunderstorms to the eastern Plains and Missouri Valley, as well as snow and blizzard conditions to the western Plains. The storm resulted in at least 13 fatalities from as many as 30 tornadoes from Texas to Indiana and seven deaths due to flash flooding from torrential rains in Arkansas and Missouri. To the west, between 15 and 40 inches of snow fell across the high Plains of Kansas and Colorado. Blizzard conditions resulted in deep snow drifts across the region. In addition to the snow and strong winds, cold air spread across the Plains, which could adversely affect the wheat crop in Kansas. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Satellite shows magnitude of Midwest flooding -- Two false-color images taken only one week apart of the mid-Mississippi Valley obtained from the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite show the magnitude of last week's flooding across the Midwest. The first image was made on Tuesday, 25 April, while the second image was made on Tuesday, 2 May. Over this week, some locations received more than nine inches of rain, which led to rapid runoff and flash flooding. Some of the flooded areas along the Mississippi and its tributaries are apparent on the more recent satellite image. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CLIMATE MONITORING

Greenhouse gases to be measured over Mid-Atlantic region this month -- A team of scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will be making measurements of several greenhouse gases over the Mid-Atlantic States during this month of May as part of the Carbon Airborne Flux Experiment (CARAFE), an airborne campaign designed to help scientists understand the exchange of carbon dioxide and methane between the atmosphere and Earth. A NASA C-23 Sherpa aircraft from the Wallops Flight Facility will be used to make the measurements at various altitudes over an area that extends from North Carolina northward to New Jersey. [NASA Global Climate Change News]
AIRS instrument has provided a 3-D view of atmosphere for 15 years -- This past week marked the 15th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Aqua satellite, which contained the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. Making 7 billion observations of the Earth's atmosphere per day, AIRS provides scientists with the opportunity to construct a three-dimensional view of the atmosphere that included maps of greenhouse gases, volcanic emissions, wildfire smoke and other pollutants. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Feature]
Sounding rocket makes 1500 images of Sun in five minutes -- Last Friday afternoon a NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket was launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and flew to an altitude of 184 miles. The rocket payload carried instruments that were used to observe the Sun during the flight as part of the Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment (RAISE). Following the mission, the experimenter from the Southwest Research Institute claimed that good data were collected as 1500 images of the Sun were to be made during a five-minute portion of the flight. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Feature]

CLIMATE FORCING

Would climate be changing cloud heights? Early studies conducted five years ago using ten years of data collected by the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite led scientists from New Zealand to suggest that cloud heights around the globe may have been getting lower. However, a new analysis of a longer 15-year period of record using the same MISR instrument finds that clouds worldwide show no definitive trend during this period toward decreasing or increasing in height. The new study updates an earlier analysis of the first 10 years of the same data that suggested cloud heights might be getting lower. However, scientists still wonder if changing climate conditions could change cloud heights. [NASA Global Climate Change News]

CLIMATE AND THE BIOSPHERE

Late spring frosts can doom the apple crop in the Northeast -- The Director of the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY recently wrote a feature article for the ClimateWatch Magazine describing how relatively low temperatures in March and April across the Northeast could damage the Northeast's apple crop. He noted that temperatures across the region in February 2017 were well above average, eerily similar to those in early spring 2012, which led to the early formation of buds. The cold weather that followed is similar to conditions from last winter which resulted in abnormally high freeze damage to apple and other fruit crops in the Northeast. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
"Eyes in the sky" monitor global food supply -- A feature article was recently written describing how NASA satellites are being used to help farmers, scientists and policy makers develop strategies designed to improve food production and availability. Several examples of the use of satellite data for monitoring factors that could affect food security were cited. One example involved the use of soil moisture data collected from NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The soil moisture data from SMAP are also sent to a USDA tool called Crop Explorer, which can be used by farmers and those who work in foreign agricultural policy. Another example involves the monitoring of the health of ocean life by instruments aboard NASA's Aqua and Suomi NPP satellites that collect color of the ocean data. [NASA Global Climate Change News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

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

Historical Events:

8 May 1784...Eight people were killed in what may have been the U.S.'s deadliest hailstorm. Hail nine inches in circumference also killed sheep and birds when it fell along the Wateree River in South Carolina. (National Weather Service files)
8 May 1902...On the previous day, Martinique's Mount Pelee began the deadliest volcanic eruption in the 20th century. On this day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map. The volcano killed an estimated 30,000 people. (National Weather Service files)
10 May 1910...A meteorograph ascent of an instrumented Weather Bureau kite to 23,835 feet from Mount Weather, VA set the altitude record for the site. The ascent, which had a kite with instruments to measure atmospheric conditions aloft, used 10 kites in tandem and 8.5 miles of kite wire. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
10 May 1966...Morning lows of 21 degrees at Bloomington-Normal and Aurora established an Illinois state record for the month of May. Snow flurries were reported at Kansas City, MO and Chicago, IL (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
10-11 May 1986...Bangkok, Thailand received 15.79 inches of rain in 24-hours, which was a national record. (The Weather Doctor)
11 May 1934...A tremendous dust storm affected the Plains as the Dust Bowl era was in full swing. According to The New York Times, dust "lodged itself in the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers," and even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks. (National Weather Service files)
11 May 1966...The 1.6 inch-snow at Chicago, IL was their latest measurable snow of record. Previously the record was 3.7 inches on the 1^stand 2^nd of May set in 1940. (The Weather Channel)
11 May 2003...A total of 4.63 inches of rain fell at Nashville, TN, breaking the previous 24-hour record for the month. (The Weather Doctor)
12 May 1916...Plumb Point, Jamaica reported 17.80 inches of rain in 15 minutes, which set a world record. (The Weather Doctor)
13 May 1930...A man was killed when caught in an open field during a hailstorm 36 miles northwest of Lubbock, TX. This event was the first, and perhaps the only, authentic death by hail in U.S. weather records. (David Ludlum)
13 May 1992...Record late season snow ended over the Tanana Valley and Yukon Uplands in Alaska. This storm set two records at Fairbanks. The 9.4 inches of snow from the storm was by far the greatest May snow on record, shattering the previous record of 4.5 inches set on 13 May 1964. The total water content of the melted snow and rain was also a new one-day record for May (0.78 Inches). Snowfall in excess of two feet occurred at elevations above 2000 feet. (Intellicast)
14 May 1834...The greatest snowstorm ever to occur in May hit the Northern Atlantic coastal states. The hills around Newbury, VT were covered with up to 24 inches of snow and the higher elevations around Haverhill, NH received up to three feet. (Intellicast)
14 May 1896...The mercury plunged to 10 degrees below zero at Climax, CO, the lowest reading of record for the U.S. during the month of May. (David Ludlum) This record has since been broken in May 1964 by a reading of 15 degrees below zero at White Mountain in California. (NCDC)
14 May 2001...A storm stalled south of Nova Scotia drenching Halifax with 3.89 inches of rain, the greatest daily May rainfall since records began in 1871. (The Weather Doctor)

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