Article: Winter photography tips: Protect your gear in extreme cold.How to keep all of your camera gear running smoothly when the weather outside is frightful

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Beware March 25, a Rough Weather Day for Austin

March 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Three of the most damaging and costliest hailstorms in the history of Austin, Texas, have all occurred on March 25.

While Texas usually waits for the months of April and May to experience its worst thunderstorm activity, March 25 stands out as the one day in the past 20 years to watch out for.

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U.S. Weather Forecaster Drops El Niño Watch

November 8, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsThe U.S. national weather forecaster has called off its El Niño watch five months after raising the alert as it is now less likely that the much-feared phenomenon that can wreak havoc on global weather will emerge.

Since June, the weather forecaster had predicted that El Niño conditions, essentially a warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can cause a major drought in Asia, would develop gradually during the Northern Hemisphere winter.

For the United States, El Niño can bring higher than average winter precipitation to the Southwest, less wintry weather across the North as well as stronger winter storms in California and increased storminess across the southern states.

“The previous El Niño watch has been discontinued as the chance of El Niño has decreased,” the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said on Thursday in its monthly report.

While the chances of El Niño are low, the CPC said the tropical ocean and atmosphere may still resemble a weak El Niño at times, with sea surface temperatures above average.

“While the development of El Niño, or even La Niña, cannot be ruled out during the next few months, … neutral is now favored through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2012-13,” it said.

La Niña is El Niño’s less infamous counterpart and cools the waters in the equatorial Pacific, mainly causing crop-killing droughts in the Americas.

The phenomenon was blamed for last year’s crippling drought – the worst drought in a century – in Texas, the biggest cotton growing state in the United States and only disappeared at the end of April.

El Niño leads to a heating of Pacific waters, triggering drought in Southeast Asia and Australia, which produce some of the world’s major food staples, such as sugar cane and grains. It can also cause flooding in South America.

The CPC is part of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

 

 

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: Climate Prediction Center, El Nino, El Nino 2012 forecastHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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U.S. Weather Forecast: Winter to Continue Hot Weather Trend

October 19, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 CommentsAfter a hot spring and a scorching summer, this winter is likely to continue a U.S. warming trend that could make 2012 the hottest year since modern record-keeping began, U.S. weather experts said Thursday.

Drought that ravaged much of the United States this year may spread in the coming months, said Mike Halpert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.

“The large majority of that drought we expect to persist,” Halpert said. “We even see drought expanding westward … into Montana, Idaho and part of Oregon and Washington.”

Dryer-than-usual winter weather is expected in much of the Pacific Northwest, with higher-than-normal precipitation predicted for the Gulf Coast, according to NOAA forecasts.

For much of the country, a three-month (December-February)winter forecast is hard to pin down. The vast majority of states have what the experts said was an equal chance of below-normal, normal or above-normal precipitation.

The densely populated East Coast, along with the southern tier of states from Texas to Florida and the upper Midwest also have an equal chance of colder, normal or warmer weather this winter, according to the forecasters.

Still, there is enough data to predict a warm winter overall, said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The first nine months of 2012 were the warmest of any year on record in the contiguous United States, and this has been the third-hottest summer since record-keeping began.

“The main issues facing the U.S. going into this (winter) outlook period stem from persistent heat and drought,” Arndt said at a telephone briefing. “It is likely that 2012 will be the warmest of the 118-year record for the contiguous United States.”

An El Nino pattern — a recurring patch of warmer than usual water in the equatorial Pacific that can have a potent effect on U.S. weather — gave hints of developing in September but then subsided, the first time this has happened in approximately 60 years of record keeping on this phenomenon, Halpert said.

“This is one of the most challenging outlooks we’ve produced in recent years because El Nino decided not to show up as expected,” he said. A record-warm winter would be in line NOAA’s latest report on global temperatures, which found September 2012 tied for the hottest September in world records going back to 1880.

However, Arndt said that the signal of human-spurred climate change is less apparent now in some U.S. regions, especially in winter. This is due in part to the changing baseline forecasters use.

U.S. government experts look back 30 years to figure out baseline temperatures for the country. In the past, they used the 30-year period from 1971 through 2000; this year, they used 1981 through 2010. That latest period shows little sign of a warming trend in areas like Florida and other parts of the southeast, Arndt said.

That updated baseline helps to “mask” the signs of climate change on a regional and seasonal basis, Arndt said.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: Climate Prediction Center, El Nino, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, warming, weather forecastHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Warm Weather, Dry Conditions Could Mean More Wildfires in Northeast

April 12, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Northeastern states are not known for frequent wildfires and brushfires. But that could be changing this spring as the region faces record-high temperatures and unusually dry conditions.

“With more than 15,000 temperature records broken in the U.S. in March 2012 alone, combined with low precipitation and little or no snowpack across much of the nation’s lower 48 states, this year could be very active one for wildfires and brushfires, including parts of the Northeast where such events are relatively uncommon,” said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute in New York.

In 2011, wildfires scorched more than 8 million acres across the United States, damaging thousands of homes, businesses and vehicles and causing $855 million in insured losses, according to the I.I.I.

The Institute offers resources online that explain what types of losses are generally covered under a standard homeowners or business property insurance policy.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety in Tampa, Fla., also noted this week that dry and windy conditions are triggering wildfire in the Northeast region. The group offers wildfire resources online for homeowners, including how to create defensible space zones to keep wildfires from spreading.

Also, the American Red Cross offers online a wildfire safety checklist, including a list of essential supplies to prepare in case of evacuation.

“More and more people are making their homes in woodland settings, rural areas or remote mountain sites. There, residents enjoy the beauty of the environment but face the very real danger of wildfires,” according to the American Red Cross. “Wildfires often begin unnoticed. They spread quickly, igniting brush, trees and homes. In a wildfire, every second counts.”

 

Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: East NewsTopics: brushfires, insurance Information Institute, widfiresHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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