WEEKLY CLIMATE NEWS

31 July - 4 August 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

A celebration -- Tuesday, 1 August 2017, is the ancient Celtic holiday of Lammas that corresponds to one of the cross quarter days, lying nearly halfway between the summer solstice (21 June 2017) and the autumnal equinox (22 September 2017). This holiday, also known as "loaf-mass day", originally marked the first wheat harvest of the year in the British Isles. [Editor's note: This coming Sunday evening, 6 August 2017, represents the exact halfway point between the dates of the solstice and equinox. EJH]
In the Land of the Midnight Sun -- The sun will set at Barrow, AK early Wednesday morning (1:56 AM AKDT on 2 August 2017), marking the first time in nearly 12 weeks (since 10 May 2017) that the sun has gone below the local horizon. However, the sun will remain below the horizon for 75 minutes before rising at 3:11 AM on Wednesday. On each day until mid-November, the length of night will increase at Barrow. On the afternoon of 18 November 2017, the sun will set and remain below the horizon for a stretch of two months until late January 2018, when the sun will reappear above the horizon for slightly less than one hour.
High-quality maps of August temperature and precipitation normals across US available -- The PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University's website has prepared high-resolution maps depicting the normal maximum, minimum and precipitation totals for August and other months across the 48 coterminous United States for the current 1981-2010 climate normals interval. These maps, with a 800-meter resolution, were produced using the PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) climate mapping system.
August weather calendar for a city near you -- The Midwestern Regional Climate Center maintains an interactive website that permits the public to produce a ready to print weather calendar for any given month of the year, such as August, at any of approximately 270 weather stations around the nation. (These stations are NOAA's ThreadEx stations.) The entries for each day of the month includes: Normal maximum temperature, normal minimum temperature, normal daily heating and cooling degree days, normal daily precipitation, record maximum temperature, record minimum temperature, and record daily precipitation; the current normals for 1981-2010.

CURRENT CLIMATE STATUS

Northern Plains experiencing exceptional drought this July -- A contractor with NOAA's Climate Program Office wrote an "Event Tracker" feature in the ClimateWatch Magazine that focuses upon the rapid development of extreme to exceptional drought conditions (using U.S. Drought Monitor terminology) across sections of eastern Montana and the Dakotas. The lack of appreciable rainfall across the northern Plains along with weekly average maximum temperatures that reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit and accelerated evapotranspiration exacerbated the drought conditions. In contrast, the region had relatively lush vegetation because of abundant soil moisture. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Sea ice lingers on the waters of Hudson Bay -- A mosaic of natural-color images obtained from data collected by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite at the end of June shows the sea ice cover that remained on Canada's Hudson Bay. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Large iceberg continues to fracture off Antarctic coast -- Images made from data collected by the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite less than two weeks ago shows the fracturing of Iceberg A-68 off Antarctica into two smaller icebergs. Iceberg A-68 had calved from Larsen C Ice Shelf earlier in this month, as one of the largest icebergs to have formed in recorded history. Ocean currents, tides and winds battered A-68, which broke into two icebergs identified as A-68A and A-68B, along with additional other smaller unnamed pieces. [NASA Earth Observatory]

CURRENT CLIMATE MONITORING

Global cloud records have been updated and expanded -- Scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and their partners at NASA and several international satellite agencies have recently made updates that expands their record of satellite-derived cloud properties by reprocessing the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). The expanded dataset, which will soon extend through 2015, includes several cloud properties such as cloud amount, cloud top pressure and temperature, and cloud water path. These satellite-derived cloud properties can be used to understand weather and climate. [NOAA NCEI News]
Sea surface temperature dataset is updated -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently released an updated fifth version of its Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSSTv5) dataset. This fifth version of the dataset, which contains a decade of near surface seawater temperature data from ARGOS floats and an updated sea–ice concentration dataset , is a global monthly sea surface temperature dataset beginning in January 1854 and continuing to the present that also includes anomalies computed with respect to a 1971–2000 monthly climatology. The dataset can be used for global climate monitoring and assessment, tracking cycles of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), oceanic and environmental research, and applications in various industries and economic sectors, such as agriculture and water resources. [NOAA NCEI News]

CLIMATE FORCING

Trees can have an impact on city weather -- Researchers at the University of British Columbia found that the presence of a single urban tree can influence wind speeds in an urban environment, which can have an impact upon pedestrian comfort, wind pressure on nearby buildings and upon heating costs. These results were found from simulations on a highly detailed computer model of a neighborhood in Vancouver, BC that was created using remote-sensing laser technology. Several different computer simulations were run: no trees, bare trees, and trees in full leaf. The resulting output was used to determine how these various scenarios would affect airflow and heat patterns around individual streets and houses. [University of British Columbia News]

CLIMATE MODELING

Discussion focuses on butterflies, rounding errors and chaos in context of climate models -- A researcher at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory has posted an article on the ENSO Blog describing dynamic climate models, which are computer algorithms run on supercomputers that utilize physical equations to determine the future states of the Earth's climate systems from known boundary conditions. However, the climate system undergoes changes that are explained by chaos theory, including the "butterfly effect" that theoretician Ed Lorenz used to describe how uncertainty in initial conditions can lead to widely divergent results, using the analogy of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could conceivably lead to a tornado forming in Texas several weeks large. [NOAA Climate.gov News]

COMPARATIVE PLANETOLOGY

High-altitude balloons to study effect of Mars-like environment on life during North American eclipse -- Fifty high-altitude balloons are scheduled to be launched by student teams across the nation scattered from Oregon to South Carolina on the day of the total solar eclipse on 21 August 2017 as part of NASA's Eclipse Balloon Project. This project, which is led by the Director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC), should be one of the most unique and extensive eclipse observation campaigns ever attempted as aerial footage of the Great North American total solar eclipse will be streamed live to NASA's website from the balloons floating in the upper stratosphere, where environmental conditions are similar to those on Mars. A research group research at NASA's Ames Research Center is intending to conduct a low-cost experiment called MicroStrat on 34 of the balloons that is designed to simulate life's ability to survive beyond Earth, and maybe on Mars. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]

CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

The "plastic problem" reaches a remote region of paradise -- An image made by the Advanced Spaceborne Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA's Terra satellite in April 2009 of Henderson Island in the South Pacific Ocean. This image shows plastic trash littering some of the beaches of this uninhabited tropical island, the result of trash being carried to these beaches by a large gyre in the ocean. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Historical Events:

31 July 1861...Numerous world rainfall records were set at Cherrapunji, India as of this last day of July. These records include: 366.1 inches for a single 31-day month (during July 1861); 502.63 inches for two months (June-July 1861); 644.44 inches for three months (May-July 1861); 737.72 inches for four months (April-July 1861) and 1041.78 inches for 12 months (Aug. 1860-July 1861). (WMO, NWS)
31 July 1991...Roswell, NM closed out the month with a total of 6.68 inches of rain to set a new record for the month. (Intellicast)
31 July 1986...The temperature at Little Rock, AR soared to 112 degrees to establish an all-time record high for that location. Morrilton, AR hit 115 degrees, and daily highs for the month at that location averaged 102 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
31 July 1993...Alabama finished its hottest July on record since 1879, while receiving less than half the normal rainfall. Meanwhile, the Great Flood of 1993 was reaching its peak in the Midwest and was eventually responsible for 48 deaths and $23.1 billion in damage. (National Weather Service files)
31 July 1997...South Pole, Antarctica recorded their coldest July ever. The average temperature of -86.8 degrees broke the previous record of -83.6 degrees set in July 1965. (National Weather Service files)
1 August 1977...Excessive rains at Muduocaidang, China were responsible for establishing two world records, to include 33.07 inches in 6 hours and 55.12 inches in 10 hours. (WMO, NWS)
1 August 1985...A nearly stationary thunderstorm deluged Cheyenne, WY with rain and hail. Six inches of rain fell in six hours producing the most damaging flash flood of record for the state; a 24-hour precipitation record for the Cowboy State was also established with 6.06 inches. Two to five feet of hail covered the ground following the storm, which claimed twelve lives and caused 65 million dollars property damage. (Storm Data)
1 August 1993...San Francisco, CA hit 98 degrees, the hottest ever recorded for the city in August. (Intellicast)
3 August 1898...Philadelphia, PA had one of its worst thunderstorms ever when 5.84 inches fell in just 2 hours. The hydraulic pressure in the city sewers due to the force of the accumulated runoff caused overflows in toilets, basins and sinks to rise to second-floor levels in some cases. (Intellicast) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
3 August 1914...Temperature reached an all-time August high of 96 degrees for Calgary, Alberta. (The Weather Doctor)
3 August 1970...Hurricane Celia made landfall near Port Aransas on the Texas coast, producing wind gusts to 161 mph at Corpus Christi, and estimated wind gusts of 180 mph at Arkansas Pass. Even at Del Rio, 250 miles inland, Celia produced wind gusts to 89 mph. The hurricane was the most destructive of record along the Texas coast causing 454 million dollars damage as 8950 homes were destroyed on the Coastal Bend. Celia also claimed eleven lives and injured 466 people. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
3 August 1987...Beckley, WV established an all-time record with an afternoon high of 93 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
3 August 1990...Highest temperature recorded in the United Kingdom prior to 2003 heat-wave was 98.8 degrees at Cheltenham, England: (The Weather Doctor)
3 August 1995...South Bend, IN received 4.83 inches of rain in 24 hours to set the city's greatest daily rainfall record. (Intellicast)
3 August 2011...Little Rock, AR set their all-time high temperature record of 114 degrees. (National Weather Service files)
4 August 1644...The first weather observations made on a regular basis in the U.S. were taken by Reverend John Campanius Holm in Wilmington, DE. (National Weather Service files)
4 August 1881...The highest temperature recorded anywhere in Europe was 122 degrees Fahrenheit reported at Seville, Spain. (NCDC)
4 August 1930...The temperature at Moorefield, WV soared to 112 degrees to establish a state record, having reached 110 degrees the previous day. This new record for the Mountain State was subsequently tied in July 1936. (The Weather Channel)
4 August 1960...The Vostok station in Antarctica recorded a record low temperature of 127 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale, which remained the lowest recorded global temperature until 1983. (The Weather Doctor)
4 August 1961...Spokane, WA reached an all-time record high temperature of 108 degrees. Kalispell, MT set an all-time record with a reading of 105 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
5 August 1843...A spectacular cloudburst at Chester Creek, near Philadelphia, PA turned the small creeks and streams entering the Delaware River into raging torrents. As much as sixteen inches of rain fell in just three hours at Concord, which still stands as the greatest amount of precipitation in a three-hour span in the U.S. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
5 August 1961...The temperature at Ice Harbor Dam, WA soared to 118 degrees to equal the state record established at Wahluke on 24 July 1928. The afternoon high of 111 degrees at Havre, MT was an all-time record for that location. (The Weather Channel)
5 August 1988...Floods ravaged parts of Sudan during August, the result of 8.27 inches of rain that fell in Khartoum in 13 hours on the 4^th and 5^th. The previous 24-hour record at Khartoum was 3.46 inches. More than one million people were made homeless. At least 96 died in Sudan's worst flooding since 1946. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
5 August 1994...Fairbanks, AK soared to 93 degrees for the highest ever August temperature. (Intellicast)
5-6 August 1959...A bucket survey showed that thunderstorms dropped 16.70 inches of rain on parts of Decatur County, IA. The total was accepted as Iowa's 24-hour rainfall record. (The Weather Channel)
6 August 1905...Princeton, IN received 10.50 inches of rain, which established a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for the Hoosier State. (NCDC)
6 August 1918...Unusually hot weather began to overspread the Atlantic Coast States, from the Carolinas to southern New England. The temperature soared to an all-time record high of 106 degrees at Washington, DC, and Cumberland and Keedysville hit 109 degrees to establish a state record for Maryland. (David Ludlum)
6 August 1947...Sault Ste. Marie, MI hit 98 degrees, equaling the highest temperature ever recorded at that location. (Intellicast)
6 August 1987...Afternoon thunderstorms deluged Milwaukee, WI, breaking all previous rainfall records for the city. Among the records: 1.10 inches in 5 minutes, 3.06 inches in 1 hour, 5.24 inches in 2 hours, 6.24 in 6 hours and 6.84 inches in 24 hours. Floodwaters were four-feet deep at the Milwaukee County Stadium, and floodwaters filled the basement of the main terminal at the airport. Flooding caused 5.9 million dollars damage, and claimed the life of one person. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

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