I’m sure you’ve heard a phrase like, that was a 100 year downpour, or a 50 year flood that we just had.  It’s important to know how frequently any one area can expect such rain events because it allows planning of infrastructure, buildings, roads, sewers, and so on to handle it.  The last time these numbers were updated was 1963, (yes 50 years ago).  It’s about time I would say.  Below is a brief article about this topic from the National Weather Service Green Bay website.  There is a link within it to take you directly to the new chart of rainfall frequency in Wisconsin.  For example in Wausau, the frequency of getting 1.30″ of rain in a 10-minute span is once every 100 years.   The frequency of getting 4.5″ of rain in Wausau in a 24-hour span is once every 25 years.   This is very interesting stuff.  Check it out.

Interests in private industry, government and academia have eagerly awaited the publication of new precipitation frequency estimates for Wisconsin as well as sixteen other Midwestern and southeastern states. Those estimates were recently published by the NWS Office of Hydrologic Development as Volumes 8 and 9 of NOAA Atlas 14, a web-based publication available at:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc
The Wisconsin precipitation frequency estimates are available directly at:
http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/pfds_map_cont.html?bkmrk=wi
The last time that these estimates were updated was in 1963.

Precipitation frequency estimates are estimates of climate variability. They are used as design standards for civil infrastructure built to cope with rainfall and runoff such as storm water drainage systems, roads, bridges, culverts, small dams, roofs, airport runways, stream erosion control, pollution control systems, flood insurance rate maps, and soil conservation, just to name a few. These new estimates directly contribute to the preparation of more cost-effective designs, plans and maps for protecting life and property and preventing pollution.

NWS precipitation frequency estimates–prepared since the 1950s–are cited as design standards in many Federal, State and Local Government regulations. These new NOAA Atlas 14 volumes will result in new design criteria for a large range of engineering and planning projects.

Posted under Education, Flooding, Natural Disasters

The pattern of extreme changes continues this spring.  Perhaps you heard about the huge ice shoves this past weekend that pushed mega piles of ice off Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota.  Homes and property on the southeast shore were damaged heavily as 35 mph northwesterly winds piled the floating up onto shore like a moving glacier.   You can watch the ice in action from the following link.  http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/ice-needle-shoves-surges-terrorize-great-lakes/12337031

Also a lake west of Winnipeg in Manitoba piled up ice 27 feet deep into some homes.  That is one of the weirdest natural disasters I can think of.  The wind that produced the ice pile ups was part of a deep trough of low pressure north of Lake Superior which drove the very chilly weather down into Wisconsin this past weekend.  Of course we had several record low temperatures Sunday night across Wisconsin.    The cold air is moving east.  In fact frost and freeze advisories were posted Monday night from portions of North Carolina northward to Maine.

Meanwhile red flag warnings have been posted into Tuesday in an area from Montana Iowa and Minnesota.  An intense burst of heat that originated in the Desert Southwest of the U.S. is shooting northeast across the country.  Highs could be close to 100 around Omaha, NE with 90s into southern Minnesota.  This coupled with low humidity, gusty winds, sunshine, and dry fuels will make for dangerous fire conditions.  Burning is prohibited and residents are asked to avoid any activities that could lead to sparks.

Red Flag Warnings are Pink. Frost and Freeze Warnings in Eastern U.S. in blue.

Just maybe the weather patterns will settle into something closer to normal over the next few weeks.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out.  The cold air intrusions have to run out sooner or later.  By the way we are getting to the point where gardeners wonder if we have seen the last frost for the season.  The average last frost date across Wisconsin varies from late April near Lake Michigan to early June in some northern areas.  So we are certainly getting a little safer from the cold with each passing day.

Posted under Fire, Freeze, Gardening, Heat, Natural Disasters, Records, Seasonal Items, Spring

A couple of really bad “science” stories have hit the media recently. One involves liability and the other dishes out mostly propaganda.

Perhaps you already heard about this one involving the liability of scientists. Seismologists in Italy were found guily of manslaughter for inaccurately predicting when an eartquake would strike. They were found guilty even though there was credible evidence that these scientists were pressured by superiors to produce a specific forecast and thousands of scientists around the world wrote letters of support on their behalf. First of all, earthquake forecasting is just that – it is forecasting – much like weather forecasting. Scientists look at the data, calculate what might happen, and issue a forecast that represents or indicates some level of confidence. This is a terrible legal precedent and going forward I would not want to be involved in any forecasting of anything in Italy.

Lawsuits of this nature have been tried a couple of times in regards to weather forecasting – a couple of times here in the U.S. and in some foreign countries. In those cases, the lawsuits were thrown out, thankfully, because it was understood that there is no guarantee that comes with the forecast. It reminds me of the snarky comment I sometimes hear that meteorologists are the only people who “can be wrong 50% of the time” (some people say “most of the time”) and still have a job. First of all, broadcast meteorologists do get fired if they do a poor job. It is just an old wives tale that meteorologists can be “wrong most of the time” and still keep their job. Secondly, everyone is wrong some of the time. Whether in our daily lives or any job one might be doing, we have to deal with uncertainty. We all make little “forecasts” everyday in order to plan for the future, whether it be figuring the best route to work through heavy traffic or deciding the direction a business might take. We are all wrong some of the time and every errant forecast has some sort-of negative side effect, yet we are not fired for every little misstep. If we were all right all the time, we would all be billionaires or would be ruling the world. The IPCC is not held criminally accountable for poor climate forecasts. Military planners are sent to the Brigg for every error on the battlefield. These Italian seismologists should not be guilty of manslaughter.

Drilling For Oil

The other ”media release” was centered around the oil and gas industry. The Union of Concerned Scientists (although maybe this time around they should be called political scientists), produced a puff piece about how 66% of the money you pay at the pump “goes into the pockets of the oil companies”. They rely upon the economic ignorance and natural envy of people in order to try to make some environmental point. You are supposed to read their press release study and be hopping mad at the oil companies. I think they deliberately did not talk about the difference between profits and revenue in order to confuse people and make them angry. In the oil business, Exxon might be the most valuable company in the world right now (essentially, because they produce the most valuable product in the world…right now), but they are not the most profitable. Their profit margin was only a little over 7% in 2012. Most of Exxon’s profits come from refining and making specialized petroleum products. It is typical that the big oil companies only make 2 to 4 cents PROFIT per gallon of gas. It costs a lot of money to get your gas from the ground to the pump. If it was easy and cheap, we would all just drill for our own oil. So 66% of what you pay at the pump goes into the “pockets of the oil companies” but Exxon only makes a profit of 1% or less on gas and a bit over 7% overall (last year)

Compare Exxon to Apple. Apple had a HUGE profit margin between 25 and 30% during 2012. Apple’s products are over-priced yet people willingly pay. Apple uses sophisticated methods to avoid paying U.S. taxes, yet they are not considered “evil” like the oil companies. Apple could cut the price of their (very high quality) products by 25% and still make a profit. Wouldn’t that be nice. Complaining about paying money for gas is like complaining about paying money for your phone, or for your car, or a refrigerator. All of the companies that make the products we use to live, charge money for their products and they need to make a profit. This basic economic fact seems to have escaped the Union of Concerned Scientists.

If you don’t want to pay the high price of gas, either go drill your own oil (and refine it), or don’t buy it. After hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005, the price of gas shot up to $4 per gallon (as commodities generally should during times of shortage). Many people I know started to complain loudly. I didn’t. I bought a bike. I have been riding my bike to work for 6 or 7 (warm) months out of the year for 7 years and been saving money the whole time. Don’t live close to work? Move closer. As I have pointed out before, there are tens of millions of empty homes in the U.S. right now just waiting for a buyer. I am suspect that most people could find one near their work. By moving, you can save money and “stick it to the oil companies” at the same time! Complaining about the fact that oil companies charge money for their product is probably counter productive. Besides that, in order implement cleaner alternatives at scale, we might need the expertise of some of the world’s largest energy companies. Maybe the Union of Concerned Scientists should focus more on developing such partnerships or work harder at educating people on ways to save more (which they only touched upon in their recent press release).

 Before anyone chimes in with a comment, yes, I am aware that different companies have been involved in illegal activities in the past, and I definitely agree that they should be prosecuted for those crimes.  The economic issues presented here are mostly distinct from the legal issues.

While I am on the subject of bad science, how about a couple studies that are less bad, but still leave something to be desired.

Coal Power Plant

The first one is a wind power study out of Australia. It is really good news. Using wind power in Australia is now cheaper than building new coal or natural gas fired power plants (and another take on the study). So what happened in the last few years? Were new more efficient wind turbines invented? Not really. Did coal become a lot more expensive? Yes. Is Australia running out of coal? No. The price of coal has gone up because of a new carbon tax. That is part of the reason why wind power is calculated to now be cheaper than coal power. The other reasons are also not related so much to the science of energy production but on political considerations. According to the article, many banks who might help fund new coal power plants in Australia would include a risk premium that would jack up the price. The risk premium would have to be built in to the up front costs because the carbon tax could go up in future years and coal power plants might get sued by various, people, environmental organizations, or even entire nations in future years. It is also important to note that current coal and gas plants do produce electricity more cheaply than wind turbines. This study only calculates prices for future construction. I can’t help but wonder if there are some other flaws in this study such as not including new transmission line costs, battery back-up costs, or de-comissioning costs associated with wind turbine power. If wind power was cheaper that coal or gas on a stand alone basis (without political manipulation), it wouldn’t need to be promoted. Companies would be putting them up everywhere in order to save money. (Aside: I am neutral on wind power, it is a nice option for clean energy, but turbines do come with a handful of downsides).

Flu Virus

Lastly, a study that smells of confirmation bias. Remember back when I kept the big list of bad things that are happening or were going to happen because of AGW. I finally had to stop because the list got too big and included everything from more obesity and more starvation on up to the destruction of the planet. Let us hearken back to those days. What about the flu? A recent study “proves” that severe flu outbreaks are linked with AGW (anthropogenic global warming). The study comes to the conclusion that flu outbreaks will be worse after a warm winter. People don’t get ill during a warm winter – it is theorized – and then they are more vulnerable to infection during the next winter. I am sure you are wondering, “what about a warm winter followed by another warm winter?” That is what is expected if AGW comes to pass as predicted by the IPCC. Less cold winters should mean less flu overall, not more severe flu outbreaks – as theorized by the study. Cold and flu viruses spread more effectively when here is cold dry air around. If the world warms up and continues to turn more humid, one would think just the opposite (of what this study proclaims) would happen. Another deficiency with this study is that it only used data since the winter of 1997-98. That is a rather short chunk of time on which to base a study of influenza. It is a unique time in earth’s climate history (very warm) which is not representative of the climate history through which the flu has affected humans. The study could draw more robust conclusions if they could find a way to include data from prior years. As of now, I am not worried that flu outbreaks are going to get worse because of AGW.

Have a pleasant Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Nature, Science

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit off the west coast of southeastern Alaska just before 3 a.m. CST Saturday.  The following information is taken from the USGS website.  There was a tsunami warning in effect Saturday for portions of the Pacific Basin, but it has since been cancelled.

Tectonic Summary

Posted under Earthquake, Natural Disasters, Tsunami

2012 certainly did not have any shortage of extreme weather events across the United States.  In fact according to NOAA, there were 11 weather disasters that caused at least one billion dollars worth of damage.  Hurricanes, fires, droughts, floods, and tornadoes all made the list.  I suspect the greater our population becomes, and the more people that live along the coasts and in fire prone areas of the west and southwest, the greater the disaster potential will be in upcoming years.  The news article from NOAA printed below is a good summary with additional links if you want to dig in deeper to what happenned in 2012 and even prior years.  Keep in mind the NOAA article was written before the destructive storm that hit the southern and eastern U.S. on December 25th and 26th.

Preliminary Info on 2012 U.S. Billion-Dollar Extreme Weather/Climate Events

(source:  NOAA)

 

Today, NOAA released preliminary information on extreme weather and climate events in the U.S. for 2012 that are known to have reached the $1 billion threshold in losses. As of December 20, NOAA estimates that the nation experienced 11 such events, to include seven severe weather/tornado events, two tropical storm/hurricane events, and the yearlong drought and associated wildfires.

These eleven events combined are believed to have caused 349 deaths, with the most significant losses of life occurring during Sandy (131) and the summer-long heat wave and associated drought, which caused over 123 direct deaths (though an estimate of the excess mortality due to heat stress is still unknown).

The eleven events include:

• Southeast/Ohio Valley Tornadoes — March 2–3 2012
• Texas Tornadoes — April 2–3 2012
• Great Plains Tornadoes — April 13–14 2012
• Midwest/Ohio Valley Severe Weather — April 28–May 1 2012
• Southern Plains/Midwest/Northeast Severe Weather — May 25–30 2012
• Rockies/Southwest Severe Weather — June 6–12 2012
• Plains/East/Northeast Severe Weather (“Derecho”) — June 29–July 2 2012
• Hurricane Isaac — August 26–31 2012
• Western Wildfires — Summer–Fall, 2012
• Hurricane Sandy — October 29–31 2012
• U.S. Drought/Heatwave — throughout 2012

Economic losses for two events, Sandy and the yearlong drought, are the big drivers this year in terms of costs and are still being calculated. It will take months to develop a final, reliable estimate for each. Given how big these events are likely to be, NOAA estimates 2012 will surpass 2011 (exceeding $60 billion, CPI-adjusted to 2012 dollars) in terms of aggregate costs for annual billion-dollar disasters, even with fewer number of billion-dollar disasters. The greatest annual loss to date was 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis struck Florida and the Gulf Coast states (costs exceeded $187 billion, CPI-adjusted to 2012 dollars).

Further information about each of these eleven events can be found at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/events.

The impacts of natural disasters, as seen this year, are a stark reminder of how deadly and destructive weather can be and how important it is to be prepared. Through NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation initiative, we are taking steps to lessen the impacts of extreme weather on our communities and our nation’s economy. To learn more, visit http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/.

Posted under Flooding, Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Severe Weather, Storms, Tornadoes, Weather NEws

Before getting into the heart of this blog post, I need to mention that there is an increasing likelihood that tomorrow could be the winning date for the First Snowfall Contest. The latest weather data indicates that an “inch or so” is likely in much of the area tomorrow. Earlier this morning I was forecasting a slight chance that we could get up to an inch. I would put the odds closer to 50/50 now. So if you predicted November 6th for the First Snowfall Contest, keep your fingers crossed and you might be one of the big winners of the R-store gift cards. Keep checking in with StormTrack9, Newsline9, and Wake-up Wisconsin to find out if we will have our winning snowfall date on Tuesday.

Note: The following is an article I had written already on Tuesday of last week, just one day after Sandy hit the east coast. I didn’t want to publish it right away due to the recovery efforts underway. I figured people did not want to think about infrastructure resilience so soon after the storm struck. I see Newscientist has now come out with an article along the same lines, so I assume it is now ok for this article as well.

_______________________________ 

How do you prepare for a “black swan” event? You don’t. By definition, a highly improbable event is the last thing anyone prepares for.

Was “Superstorm Sandy” a black swan event? I would say maybe. Hurricane and storm surge potentials along the east coast have been modeled many times over. It is certainly true that Sandy brought together some unlikely scenarios, such as a hurricane being absorbed into a Nor’easter type storm, coming in at high tide, and under a full moon, but risk analysts and insurance companies had run through the scenario because hurricanes have struck New York/New Jersey in the past. Once an area is hit by a bad storm, and sets a new record for storm surge (or any other weather parameter) risk analysts survey the impacts and then model what would happen if a bigger storm surge hit in the future. 

One of the reasons New York officials were confident in ordering evacuations is because they knew what effects would happen during a big storm surge and what areas would be hardest hit. Things such as the flooding of LaGuardia airport were certain to occur. The airport flooded as far back as 1950 from a regular Nor’Easter that produced winds up 62 mph, not that much less than Sandy, which had 70 to 80 mph gusts.

So why was there so much damage (in New Jersey) and flooding (in New York) when the effects of a large storm were well known? Because hardly anybody prepares for the most extreme weather events. It is not just New York or New Jersey, it is very similar here in Wisconsin. In Wausau, we are not prepared for an F5 tornado. If an F5 tornado strikes Wausau, people will die. It could be me. It is sad, but it is the reality. We are probably not even well prepared for an F3 tornado (from an infrastructure standpoint). The Merrill tornado last year was only a weak F3 and it wiped out an entire neighborhood. In the sense that no one died during that tornado, citizens of Merrill were “prepared”. The infrastructure was not. Residential and commercial structures were heavily damaged. Power and communication lines didn’t stand a chance. If an F5 tornado struck Wausau, there would be utter devastation. Power and wire/cable-based communication would be almost completely knocked out (for days). Most houses would be wiped away. The only buildings left standing might be a couple of the older designated nuclear fallout shelters, the county courthouse, and maybe a few of the other brick/steel buildings. For most people, the only hope would be underground shelters, like a basement. So why don’t we prepare better?

It is a cost/benefit analysis. The chance of an F5 tornado striking the heart of the city is low enough that we don’t see the need to spend money “hardening” the infrastructure. If we wanted the power to remain on after an F5 tornado, then we should be spending a lot of money (right now) to bury ALL of our power lines (ditto for cable lines). By the way, I have contacted WPS to get their opinion on burying more powerlines, so hopefully I will have some additional information later this week. 

If we wanted all the houses to remain standing then we should pass a building code that all homes need be made of steel with specially designed safe areas in all the basements. We could even trim the urban trees to make them less likely to be blown over. We don’t do this because it costs too much money and the risk is low. More of our “assets” are put into warning systems and emergency services so that people can be warned ahead of time and so that we can (hopefully) get to the disaster scene quickly afterward to save people.

The same calculations are made in other parts of the country. There is no question that cities on the New Jersey shore and various boardwalks would be heavily damaged if a strong hurricane (with a high storm surge) hit. It was not a surprise that some subways in New York were flooded/closed when the water flowed into lower Manhattan. The subways are not built to keep water out. There is no way to seal them during an impending storm. The best that can be done is to pump the water out as quickly as possible after a storm hits. About the only pro-active thing that could be done (for the future) is build higher sea-walls (or build big dikes – such as in the Netherlands), but these would be very expensive undertakings. Storms such as Sandy do not happen very often, so how would one justify spending so much money? Maybe it would be more cost effective just to improve evacuations and thus minimize the loss of life. Damage from flooding would be very hard to minimize in New York. Much of the infrastructure is below sea level. The area is large. The city cannot be moved. In New Jersey, the boardwalks and houses near the sea will be rebuilt, knowing full well that another storm in the future could wash it all away again. People place a high value on living and playing by the ocean, and ultimately the risks are low.

In the end, even though it is the beginning of the 21st century, we are all still at the mercy of the weather. Many improvements in infrastructure and emergency services have been made, but there are legacy effects that make it nearly impossible to prevent widespread damage in vulnerable areas when an extreme storm hits. I expect we will continue to improve services and structures as the years go by, and in the far future we might be able to control the weather to some extent, but until that point be sure to heed the warnings and save your life.

Have a fine Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Flooding, Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Severe Weather, Storms, Weather NEws, Weather Safety

Sandy is expected to come ashore in southern New Jersey, but its impacts will be felt in many areas.

Storm surge is forecast to be an important piece of the story as Hurricane Sandy gears up for a collision course with the U.S. 

As of Sunday evening, the storm is considered a category one hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.  Despite its low ranking on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, the National Weather Service and government authorities are taking no chances as the storm moves toward land.

Storm surge is a dangerous component to hurricanes, moving tremendous amounts of water toward land.  Despite its devastating impacts storm surge intensity is not taken into consideration with the Saffir-Simpson ranking.  The scale only accounts for wind speed.

The center of the storm’s circulation is forecast to move toward southern New Jersey, but the brunt of the storm surge activity will be north.  That is putting areas like New York City, Long Island and lower New England on alert.

In addition to the storm coming ashore, residents of the mid-Atlantic, New England and eastern Great Lakes will feel the impacts of the storm meeting a stationary front and support from the jet stream. 

With colder air surging southward with the jet stream, locations in parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina could see considerable snowfall amounts. 

Storm Track 9 meteorologist Rob Duns has more in this explanatory video. 

http://www.waow.com/story/19938287/storm-surge-concerns-raised-as-hurricane-sandy-approaches

Posted under Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Nature, Records, Science, Seasonal Items, Severe Weather, Weather History, Weather NEws

October 8th is the sad anniversary of the deadliest forest fire on record in North American, the Peshtigo Fire of northeast Wisconsin in 1871.  It actually was a series of fires that devastated areas from well southwest of Peshtigo all the way northeast into parts of southern Upper Michigan.  It even skipped across the Bay of Green Bay and charred parts of Kewaunee and Door Counties.   The final death toll is astounding, somewhere between 1200 and 2400 according to most sources.  This is also the anniversary of a Great Chicago Fire that killed around 200.  Anyway, about 1.2 million acres were burned in Wisonsin, and 2.5 million acres burned in Upper Michigan on that horrible evening.

The main conditions that led to the Peshtigo Fire were a prolonged and severe drought, unusually warm temperatures, and strong winds.  Gusty southwest winds were racing up into Wisconsin on October 8th, 1871 because of the pressure gradient around a strong low pressure system centered near Colorado and Nebraska.  On the weather map from the U.S. Weather Bureau from that date, you’ll notice a lot of black lines in a ring around that low pressure area.  The are isobars, or measure of air pressure.  And the tighter they are packed, the stronger the winds generally will be.  Wisconsin was on the warmer side of the storm with the south to southwest air flow.

Of course there were other important factors involved including farming and logging practices of the day, and many piles of cut trees and brush near railroad lines, along with many stockpiles of saw dust and logs near the saw mills.  So once the fire began, there was a tremendous amount of dry fuel to consume.

There are some incredible stories and accounts of how the fires behaved and how people tried to save themselves.  Please visit the following web sites for in depth information on the Peshtigo Fire.   You could also visit the Peshtigo Fire Museum in Peshtigo (400 Oconto Avenue, Peshtigo, WI 54157).  Phone 715-582-3244.

http://www.peshtigofire.info/

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/?n=peshtigofire

http://www.wisconsincentral.net/Culture/Culture/PeshtigoFire.html

Posted under Fall, Fire, Natural Disasters, Weather History

In this year of 2012 when some say the world will end one might think of giant asteroids or meteorites crashing into the Earth.  It got me thinking, do we have any record of such things hitting Wisconsin?  As it turns out the answer is yes.  According to the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey,  they have evidence of a meteorite hundreds of millions of years ago impacting western Wisconsin.  Specifically the site is in eastern Pierce County at Rock Elm.  They say another one might have struck four miles south of Coloma as well, but the evidence is not quite as clear.  You can learn all about this fascinating topic by reading the selection below put together by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. 

Posted under astronomy, Environment, Geology, Natural Disasters

Since I was gone last week I didn’t have a chance to blog about the current state of the 2012 drought. The last US Drought Monitor showed significant improvements in the drought intensity across the Ohio valley – thanks to the remnants of hurricane Issac (a fact I alerted everyone to in advance). Many parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana are no longer in the exceptional or extreme drought category. The worst drought continues to be in the plains states from Oklahoma all the way up to southern South Dakota. So there was improvement in the drought over the Ohio Valley but most other parts of the country saw some deterioration.

One of the biggest changes happened right here in Wisconsin. Because of the very dry conditions during the last two weeks of August, the latest drought monitor shows nearly 80% of the state at “abnormally dry” or worse. The situation in the northern half of the state will probably not improve over the coming week because the heaviest rain from the next weather system (moving through late Wednesday into Thursday morning) will probably drop the heaviest amounts of rain in the southern half of the state. If southern Wisconsin ends up with an inch or more of rain, we might finally see the area of extreme drought disappear from the Drought Monitor map.

Will the current drought in much of the nation continue into the Winter? It would certainly be bad news. One year of drought would not have a devastating affect on food supplies and prices but two years of drought in one of the most productive agricultural areas of the earth – the U.S. - probably would. The latest drought outlook from the CPC indicates some continued improvement in the mid section of the country through the end of November.

A Weak El Nino Developing

I hope there is some improvement in the drought situation, but some commentators and forecasters are worried it will remain dry because of the development of El Nino. The latest ENSO forecast discussion indicates that a weak El Nino will develop during the month of September and that a weak to barely moderate El Nino could persist through the first half of the Winter. El Nino conditions over the last 2 to 3 decades have almost always meant drier then normal conditions for the northern half to two thirds of the country as well as warmer than normal temps. El Nino typically brings above normal precipitation to southern California, the Desert Southwest and the Gulf Coast regions of the U.S. The stronger the El Nino the bigger the typical effects, so maybe it is good news that the El Nino is expected to remain on the lighter side.

Computer model outlook for El Nino into the Winter

Even though El Nino is expected to remain on the weak side, this hasn’t stopped a lot of people from prognosticating continued trouble in the U.S. and around the world because of rising food prices. I think is has to do a bit more with human psychology than actual atmospheric conditions. When bad things happen, people naturally expect more bad things to pile up in the future. There is certainly a chance that the drought could continue or intensify through the Winter and into next year, but it is not the most likely outcome, based on a weak El Nino forecast through the first half of Winter.

What is more certain is that food prices DO have an effect on world political stability. A recent study has shown that riots increase when the U.N. food price index rises above 210. It is above 210 right now. Seeing the potential for trouble makes me once again be thankful for free trade around the world. Famines and death are much less likely when people and nations can trade products more freely. If a persistent drought hits one area of the world, there are still many more locations around the world who can help fill the food gap. Modern farming techniques have spread to many areas of the world as well. So while the most advanced land-rich nations of the world (like the U.S.) have the most productive agriculture, other nations are not far behind, and typically grow more food year-over-year.

I have never lived through a prolonged time of food shortage, food riots, or political instability caused by the lack of food. We are lucky here in the U.S. that it hasn’t been much of a problem since the 1930s and even then it seems, most areas of the country remained civil. Then again, back in the 1930s people were more self-reliant and knew how grow food and raise animals for food. Nowadays, less than 2% of the population is engaged in agricultural production. Is that a bad sign? I guess it behooves us to maintain good relations with other countries of the world (in order to preserve an adequate food supply) and to be adequately prepared with at least a little back-up food supply. Without such measures and with persistent drought, things could get bad pretty quick. Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein is purported to have said “after three missed meals, most men are willing to kill for food.”

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, ENSO Update, Natural Disasters, World Weather