The climate debate goes on…and it’s reached a peak during the past few weeks with two huge pieces of news from the Obama Administration and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Recently the Obama Administration released a report on the global climate.   Here’s the link: Globalchange.gov    Barak Obama is a Democrat, and you can probably guess the slant the report takes, which is fine.   And no, I’m not Republican…I’m registered as an Independent…so I’m unbiased here. 

 Here’s the main idea of the report for us…New England’s climate could become that of the Carolinas in the next 100 years!  Here’s the section describing this: Northeast Climate Impacts.  Judging by the weather over the past few weeks, you might not mind that. 

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Maybe Chicken Little was right.

I know the chances of this happening are like one in a gazillion, but it’s a fear of mine….being hit by a meteor.  My very first post in my Weather and Science Blog talked about an asteroid coming pretty close to Earth back in the winter. 

Well…a 14 year old boy in Germany was reportedly hit by a meteorite.   Yes.  A German boy was reportedly hit by a meteorite and lived!! 

Courtesy of the Telegraph: Gerrit Blank survives being hit by the tiny meteor in his hand.

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Courtesy The City of Worcester. The Worcester Tornado of June 9, 1953

The stories are amazing. The destruction was incomprehensible. The lives lost….94. It was an historic storm for two reasons:

1. The size of the storm and the death and destruction it caused.
2. It helped shape the future of severe weather prediction in the United States

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Yes, they get tornadoes in Maine.  And so do we here in RI (remember last year’s crazy summer?)

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Hurricane Season begain June 1st, and experts are expecting an average number of tropical storms and hurricanes. 

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 The United States wants to paint the world white….well at least roofs.  Now, don’t run outside to get the ladder and start painting your  roof.  What the Obama Administration wants is to see flat roofs painted white or a lighter color to keep the buildings cooler.   It makes sense.  White reflects sunlight away from the buildings, while black attracts the sunlight to it.  Flat roofs are especially common in city environments like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.  Painting these flat roofs would, in turn, reduce the amount of energy used by air conditioning.  

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Some new information regarding El Nino has been published by the International Research Institute (IRI).  The information indicates that according to computer models, El Nino will definitely kick in this summer.  Also, the chart below indicates that a moderate El Nino could exist by the end of summer…the peak of hurricane season.  On the bottom of the chart, there are groups of 3 months.  For instance, ASO means August-September-October.  The vertical shows the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomaly or distance from the average.  I know..this is getting a little technical.  Basically, most of the computer models show that El Nino will strengthen during the next several months.  The dynamical models (the ones with the squares) use the below-sea-surface data to arrive at their solutions, and are probably more accurate.  Bottom line….El Nino is kicking in and will strengthen through the summer.

El Nino, if you remember, is the warming of the East Pacific waters around the equator. 
This warming effects weather patterns around the globe, including over New England and the Atlantic Ocean.   Below are maps of the Pacific Ocean from NOAA.   The bottom map is the one which should interest you the most….the anomalies.  That peachy color off the coast of South America (right side of map) indicates above normal temps in the East Pacific.  El Nino has begun.

It’s important to track these slight temperature changes (which are actually large) because El Nino can impact the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic.  El Nino can prohibit hurricane growth.   The upper-level winds, which develop over the Atlantic during an El Nino, can blow the tops off developing tropical storms/hurricanes….stopping their ability to grow.

If those NOAA scientists are correct, we could be seeing an early end to hurricane season.  However, nothing is carved in stone.  El Nino may not strengthen to forecast levels and those upper-level winds may not knock down those developing hurricanes.  Obviously a constant monitoring of the tropics is necessary through the summer and fall.  That’s what we’re here for!

Hurricane season begins on Monday, and I’ll be conducting an online chat on Sunday evening to talk all about hurricanes.  Look for more information soon on wpri.com.

We’ve been monitoring this fairly broad area of low pressure over Florida and the Bahamas for the past few days.  We’ve been watching it very closely because the forecast charts we look at are indicating that this system will move into the Gulf of Mexico and strengthen a bit…and, of course, the first thing to comes my mind is…”hurricane”.    As I’m typing (3:35pm on Tuesday, May 19th), it isn’t tropical, but the system has dumped a tremendous amount of rain and given some big wind to the state of Florida.  Florida has been desperate for some rain, so this is a good thing for them.  Although, some areas have been seeing 8 to 13″ of rain!!!  That’s probably a little too much.

Anyway, that low is expected to move out into the Gulf of Mexico and become better organized; however, it does not appear, right now, that it will become a tropical system.  In fact, the National Hurricane Center said in a statement that the system has “less than 30 percent (chance) of tropical cyclone development….during the next 48 hours.  We’ll see…maybe it should serve as a gentle reminder that hurricane center is just around the corner.  It begins June 1st and runs until November 30.

What kind of of hurricane season will it be?  Many forecasters are expecting it to be a fairly busy year.  There are a number of factors which they consider when making their forecasts including El Nino, water temperatures and Sahara Desert dust…yes…Sahara Desert dust.  We’ll talk about the dust another time.   Some forecasters have stated that the East Coast has a higher than average chance of being struck by a hurricane.  It’s been nearly 18 years since we’ve had a hurricane up our way!! Let this seemingly harmless low over Florida serve as reminder to you that hurricane season is just about here.  Prepare yourself and your home. 

Here’s a great website to peruse for preparations: American Red Cross

And we’ll be talking about this a lot more throughout the summer.

Be safe!

The astronauts are scheduled to link up with the Hubble Telescope today (Wednesday) and you can watch it all live on NASA TV. 

Here’s the link: NASA TV

This is a very cool site because you can watch the astronauts during their space walks, see live rocket launches and learn about space and space travel with their educational program.

Check it out!

 The Space Shuttle Atlantis is orbiting the Earth right now (May 12), unfortunately this time we won’t be able to see it.  Atlantis will be servicing the Hubble Telescope among other projects.  The Hubble is orbiting the Earth around the Equator.  However, you can see the International Space Station pass over the Southern New England skies….check out this link.

International Space Station Sightings

This will be the last service mission by a Space Shuttle to the Hubble Telescope.  In a few years, the Hubble will be plunged into the Ocean.  Hubble’s orbital life started with bad eye sight (remember that debacle?)   Well that problem was fixed, and the telescope has been delivering stunning pictures back from the far reaches of the universe.  This is my favorite:

 
Hubble Deep Field courtesy HubbleSite.org.  This image shows
hundreds of distant galaxies, some nearly 12 billion years old. 

To see more of Hubble’s pictures…you can go to HubbleSite.org