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Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Luke Howard, a pharmacist and amateur meteorologist who proposed the cloud classification scheme that is still in use today, 220 years later. In his honor, several meteorological agencies have posted stories about how to classify clouds based on information regarding how they look and how high…
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Hurricane Ian caused a lot of agricultural damage to central Florida when it crossed the peninsula earlier this year. The biggest damage was to citrus, but many vegetable crops also took a hit. Clint Thompson discussed the resulting loss in tomato supply due to the winds knocking off tomatoes and flowers from the plants in…
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This week, The Week posted a story describing how climate is likely to change in Florida in the coming decades based on quotes from a variety of climate scientists and policy-makers. Florida is uniquely placed in the Southeast because of its location as a peninsula jutting out into the area where tropical storms are active.…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
The low pressure area that is developing in Texas has a big rain shield ahead of it. That should move into the Southeast later this weekend, bringing rain to a lot of the region other than the Florida peninsula and the Southeast coast. That should help keep drought from expanding in next week’s Drought Monitor…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
The dry summer and fall has led to delays in the shuck split for Stuart pecan varieties, according to Lenny Wells, the UGA pecan specialist, as quoted in a recent edition of Specialty Crop Newsletter. The average date of 50% open is October 20, so they have been delayed somewhat this year. Wells encourages producers…
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One question that I often get asked by farmers is how we can reduce the use of fossil fuels like diesel in farm production to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. After all, tractors, harvesting equipment, and water pumps nearly all run on these fuels, which are efficient and portable. However, there are a lot…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
The latest Drought Monitor map, released earlier this week, shows a slight expansion of moderate drought in Alabama and Georgia. Most of the rest of the region did not see any changes from last week due to some rain over the last few days. Since the next rain system is expected to drop precipitation across…
Posted in: Drought