The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Dear Diary. Hurricane Zeta did its worst as it moved through the Southeast from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning. As of this writing the system is moving through the Mid-Atlantic as a 50 mph sustained wind tropical storm. The forecast of 40-60 mph winds did verify in my neck of the woods across North Georgia. Yours truly has a giant pine tree spread across his lawn, which just missed crashing into my condominium by a couple of feet. My power is on, but about a half million Georgia residents remain in the dark after Zeta ripped through the area early this morning. Of course, residents closer to the Gulf Coast, and especially in New Orleans are suffering from much worse damage. The system reminds me of Hurricane Opal in 1995, which ripped through the South during the fall of that year, not having a chance to wind down due to its fast forward speed.
Last evening I got a big reaction to the following tweet. Even renowned newscaster Dan Rather took notice. Was I being too hyperbolic? After getting news from the South the next couple of days, you be the judge:
Unfortunately the climate changed atmosphere and sea surface temperatures are so warm that Zeta likely won’t be the last named storm of the 2020 season. We may have another named system within 96 hours brewing in the Caribbean if this morning’s GFS model is correct:
Looking at the 500 millibar pattern anything that forms in the Caribbean is likely to move almost due west into Central America, but we will see. We probably soon will need to keep an eye on “ETA,” the next Greek alphabetically named storm.
From what I can ascertain, the worst damage in New Orleans is not from flooding but from winds leading to power outages and food damage. Thankfully, reinforced levees since Katrina made landfall, held.
Today everyone will be starting to pick up the pieces from Zeta’s wrath. I’ll be listing more messages in association with the storm. The latest messages, as usual, will be at the top of this list:
Here are more eye opening, frigid “ET’s” from a historic cold wave that occurred over the last few days:
Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”