History
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I recently ran across this story from January 2018 which describes an invited talk that Edward Geller, famous physicist and part of the Manhattan Project, gave to a gala celebration noting the 100th anniversary of the petroleum industry. According to a transcript of the speech, given in 1959, Geller warned petroleum executives that the increase…
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I’ll end my posts today with this scary story, just for Halloween. Be sure to read it all the way to the end for a surprise weather ending. Check it out at Atlas Obscura at https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-skeleton-lake-of-roopkund-india-f-3-p-2-india.
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Since Albany, Georgia is far inland, you don’t think of it as a place that suffers from terrible weather events like recent hurricanes. But in this story from the Washington Post, it points out that Albany has suffered from three natural disasters in the past two years–a tornado and Hurricane Irma in 2017 and this…
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Thirteen years ago today, Major Hurricane Katrina was barreling north towards the Gulf Coast as a category 5 storm. Robert Ricks of the National Weather Service put out one of the most chilling weather forecasts that I and my husband (also a meteorologist) had ever seen. Sadly, some people and even news agencies thought it…
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As we approach the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, I am seeing many stories in my social media feeds about the anniversaries of past tropical systems that have affected the Southeast. Here is one remembrance of TS Bonnie from the State Climate Office of North Carolina discussing why Bonnie has been overlooked in the…
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Today’s weather oddity comes from Atlas Obscura, who noted in an article this week that the height of the Washington Monument was almost half an inch lower than originally built due to repeated lightning strikes on the top, melting the metal cap. You can read more about this fascinating story at https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/washington-monument-lightning-rod.
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A megadrought is a strong and persistent drought that can last for one, two or three decades. While the US has not seen a real megadrought since climate started being measured here in the 1800’s, tree rings and lake sediments can go back much farther in time and tell a different story. There have been…