WEEKLY WEATHER & CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

12-16 January 2015

Items of Interest:

Approaching coldest time of the year -- This upcoming week is the third week of January, which for many locations across the nation typically marks the coldest week of the year, as indicated by the daily normal high and low temperatures. Usually, those stations located away from the moderating influences of the oceans reach their lowest temperatures during the third week of January, or a roughly one month after the winter solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere receives the fewest hours of daylight and the smallest amounts of solar radiation. During that month, temperatures continue to fall to their lowest typical values as cooling continues. However, the increased length of daylight and increased sunshine during this month begins to warm the ground and overlying atmosphere as normal daily temperatures begin to rise toward their highest levels in mid to late July.
Free admission into the National Parks and Forests-- Next Monday, 19 January 2015, has been designated by the National Park Service as a fee-free day in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. This fee waiver will cover entrance and commercial tour fees in many of the national parks and monuments administered by the Park Service. [National Park Service Fee Free Days]

Weather and Climate News Items:

Eye on the tropics -- Tropical cyclone activity was found in the South Indian and South Pacific Basins during the last week:
In the South Indian Ocean Basin, Tropical Cyclone Colin formed late last week from a tropical storm that was located nearly 1000 miles to the east-southeast of Diego Garcia. Colin intensified as it traveled toward the southwest, becoming a category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale over this past weekend. Forecasts indicate that Colin should weaken as it curves toward the south and then to the southeast early this upcoming week, presenting no threat to any land masses. Additional information and a satellite image on Tropical Cyclone Colin can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the South Pacific Ocean basin, Cyclone Ian formed at the start of last week as a tropical storm to the east of Fiji. This tropical storm initially traveled toward the north, but reversed direction and traveled toward the south-southeast, intensifying into a category 4 tropical cyclone at the end of the week. Ian traveled across the Tonga Islands, producing strong winds, high seas and torrential rain. At least one fatality was reported as of Sunday. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Cyclone Ian.
NOAA's Atlantic hurricane research activities in 2013 deemed successful -- Despite a relatively quiet 2013 hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, researchers from the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory considered the season to be successful from the standpoint of data collection. These researchers conducted missions aboard hurricane hunter aircraft into two tropical storms and one of the season’s two hurricanes as part of the division’s Hurricane Field Program designed to collect atmospheric data that could be used in operational numerical weather prediction models. [NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research]
Large area of nation affected by the "polar vortex" -- An arctic air mass spread across a large section of the nation on the first weekend of 2014 and into the first full week of the year. While the core of the cold air was centered across the Upper Midwest, temperatures fell to the single digits above zero Fahrenheit across areas of the Deep South, resulting in new low temperature records. Some meteorologists claimed that this arctic outbreak was due to the "polar vortex", a large pool of cold air that extends upward through the troposphere (lowest 10 km) over the polar cap regions. On the periphery of this pool of cold air, the upper tropospheric polar jet stream circulates in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from above the North Pole, forming what appears as a vortex. One of the lobes of this vortex pushed southward across the eastern half of North America, resulting in the arctic air mass spreading across the eastern half of the United States early last week. An image from the NOAA's GOES-East satellite on 6 January 2014 shows the arctic air spreading southeastward behind a cold front. [NASA Global Climate Change]

NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews

Are Americans becoming "weather wimps?" -- An Associated Press science reporter found that despite all the media attention focused on the severity of the recent arctic air outbreak, this past Monday (6 January 2014) was only the 55th coldest day since January 1900, with an average temperature of 17.9 degrees Fahrenheit. He analyzed a dataset produced by a meteorologist at NOAA's Storm Prediction Center that contained 10,291 daily winter (December, January and February) temperatures averaged across the 48 coterminous United States beginning in January 1900 and running through last Monday. The reporter noted that this past Monday was the coldest in 17 years, the longest stretch since the last time the daily nationwide temperature fell below 18 degrees. Typically, these cold extremes have happened about once every four years since 1900. [AP The Big Story]
Great Lakes steam fog seen by satellite -- A natural-color image and a false-color image made from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite during the first week of January show the development of "steam fog" over each of the Great Lakes as a cold and dry arctic air mass moves across the open waters of the lakes. The steam fog develops on the western sides of the lakes and winds from the northwest carry the steam fog to the southeast across these lakes. [NASA Earth Observatory]
National Weather Service provides forecast assistance to other nations for typhoons and other disasters -- The NOAA National Weather Service's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has been actively assisting some of the other nations in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in forecasting typhoons and other severe weather events that may adversely impact these other nations. NCEP has a numerical weather prediction system that utilizes global weather models and operates the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, two of the six Regional or Specialized Meteorological Centres of WMO that specialize in tropical cyclone forecasting and warning related services. [NOAA Weather-Ready Nation News]
Updated regional climate impacts and outlooks released -- At the end of last month, NOAA and its partners released a set of regional quarterly climate impact and outlook reports for seven regions across the United States. These reports include descriptions of major climate events that occurred during the previous three months along with climate outlooks for the first quarter of 2014. [NOAA NCDC News]
Satellite shows sulfur dioxide emissions over India are increasing -- Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and colleagues have analyzed data collected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) onboard NASA's Aura satellite and found that emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere from power plants across India have increased by more than 60 percent between 2005 and 2012. Sulfur dioxide is an atmospheric pollutant with both health and climate impacts. [NASA Global Climate Change]
US Climate Action Report submitted for 2014 -- On New Year's Day, the US Department of State submitted its "2014 US Climate Action Report" to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This report, which fulfills requirements under the UNFCCC, details actions that the nation is taking domestically and internationally to mitigate, adapt to, and assist other nations in addressing climate change. [US Department of State]
Brazil receives flooding rain -- A precipitation anomaly map produced by the Real-Time TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis from data collected from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite shows that southeastern Brazil experienced record precipitation during December 2013. The satellite-derived precipitation estimates were confirmed by rainfall totals collected by traditional rain gages. [NASA Earth Observatory]
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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Return to AMS Weather Studies RealTime Weather Portal