4/10/16: Extreme Weather in the U.S.

This week we are exploring extreme weather events. In the figure from weatherunderground on the right you can see how today in the States there are a few happening, like high wind advisory, severe thunderstorm warning, and fire weather advisory.

Knowing your weather patterns matters. As the climate changes, so will the weather. As an example, January 2016 was the most abnormally warm month ever recorded (NASA, NOAA sources). This winter, areas across the globe experienced a shift in rain patterns due to the natural weather phenomenon known as El Niño. A new NASA visualization of rainfall data shows the various changes in the United States with wetter, wintery conditions in parts of California and across the East Coast.

The visualization below shows the rain accumulation from December 31, 2015 to January 6, 2016 with red patches indicating heavy amounts of rain accumulation over California. During this time an extreme event hit the state causing landslides. Credits: NASA/Goddard/Hal Pierce.

Global patterns like more droughts, more heavy downpours, heat waves, etc. can be linked to extreme weather events (NOAA). NOAA staff says: “The point here is that these events are causing up to billions of dollars of damage. As we see the increasing trends in these metrological and hydrological extremes, as a society we really need to think about how we are going to manage the risk, how we’re going to adapt to these changes in extremes.”

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center provides a variety of information detailing all these extreme weather events. Their yearly maps of U.S. Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters are very informative. We are to alone, the world map of significant climate anomalies in 2015 (figure) is clear.

Interesting times…