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…
