70 F. average high on May 18, 2015.
47 F. high in St. Cloud on May 18, 2015.
May 19, 1975: Strong winds cause over 2 million dollars of damage across Fridley, Mounds View and New Brighton.
A Solar No-Brainer - Warm Sunshine into Sunday
At a recent talk someone raised their hand with an observation. "Paul, the Creator had the good sense to bury dirty fossil fuels deep underground and put a safe fusion reactor high above our heads. Could he have made it any more obvious?"
Not sure, but the price of solar energy has fallen 80 percent in 8 years. As innovation accelerates at some point it will be so cheap you'd be crazy NOT to consider taking advantage of clean, free energy from the sun.
Minnesota has as much solar potential as Washington D.C. and northern Alabama. I hope to power my Tesla from solar panels on the garage and truly drive for free. Free has a nice ring.
Expect low 70s today; 80F by Sunday as a sticky south wind sets up. ECMWF guidance tries to print out a pop-up shower up north this afternoon, but dry weather prevails into the weekend. Dew points reach the sticky 60s early next week, fueling showers and storms Monday into Wednesday. Slowly but surely we are transitioning into a more summer-like pattern.
No wind chill or hard freezes this weekend. Just a healing, rehabilitating dose of vitamin D, courtesy of the sun.
Solar Potential Map above courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Image credit: "Year-to-date global average temperatures compared to previous record warm years." Image: NOAA/NCEI.
Image credit: "This simulation was created by NCAR scientist George Bryan to visualize what goes on inside a tornado. The animation is the "high swirl" version in a series that goes from low, to medium, to high. Click to enlarge." (Courtesy Goerge Bryan, NCAR.
Billion Dollar U.S. Weather and Climate Disasters. Here's an excerpt from the National Centers for Environmental Information: "The graphic below helps to visualize how the different types of identified U.S. Billion-dollar disaster events have changed over time. Caution should be used in interpreting any trends based on this graphic for a variety of reasons. For example, inflation has affected our ability to compare costs over time. To reflect this, the graphic also shows events with less than $1 billion in damage at the time of the event, but after adjusting for Consumer Price Index (inflation), now exceed $1 billion in damages. Continued assessment of these data are in process, as there are other factors as well that affect any rate of change interpretation. Comparison of events in most recent years is most reliable..."
Why The Effects of the 2016 El Nino Trumped Climate Change in the Alberta Wildfires. The Conversation has interesting perspective: "In the wake of the damaging Alberta fires, there has been a lot of attention paid to what role climate change plays in wildfires. Yet 2016 is also a powerful El Niño year, which has created ideal conditions for the extraordinary fires in Alberta. So what climate phenomena could have led to the persistent warm, dry conditions and the extreme fire events? I have analyzed weather trend data and found that higher temperatures and lower precipitation created the conditions for the extensive fires. It is by looking at exactly when those warmer months occur that we can begin to sort out the role of El Niño versus climate change..."
Is USA Falling Behind in Race to Prepare for Electromagnetic Pulse Attacks? Here's the intro to a story at Nextgov.com: "Electromagnetic pulses and violent space weather outbursts might seem like national security threats straight out of science fiction. But the House Homeland Security Committee wants to ensure federal agencies are doing their best to prepare for them. During an Oversight and Management Efficiency subcommittee hearing Tuesday, legislators reviewed the possible ramifications that a man-made EMP weapon, detonated nuclear device or even space weather phenomena could have on the nation’s power grid. While seemingly remote, the threats drew comparisons to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks..."
Photo credit above: "Caskets float away from a cemetery during flooding in Louisiana." Emily Dalfrey/AP.
Photo credit: Maurizio Pesce
TODAY: Partly sunny skies. Winds: S 8-13. High: 72
THURSDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Low: 51
FRIDAY: Mix of clouds and sun, pleasant. Winds: SE 8-13. High: 73
SATURDAY: Sunny and spectacular. Winds: S 7-12. Wake-up: 55. High: 77
SUNDAY: Windy and warm with sunshine. Feels like summer. Winds: S 10-20. Wake-up: 60. High: 80
MONDAY: Passing shower or T-shower. Winds: SW 10-15. Wake-up: 62. High: 77
TUESDAY: Some sun, late-day thunder? Winds: SE 8-13. Wake-up: 60. High: 80
WEDNESDAY: More numerous showers, storms. Winds: SE 8-13. Wake-up: 61. High: 78
Climate Stories...
Climate Change Puts 1.3 Billion People and $158 Trillion at Risk, World Bank Says. The Guardian reports; here's the intro: "The global community is badly prepared for a rapid increase in climate change-related natural disasters that by 2050 will put 1.3 billion people at risk, according to the World Bank. Urging better planning of cities before it was too late, a report published on Monday from a Bank-run body that focuses on disaster mitigation, said assets worth $158tn – double the total annual output of the global economy – would be in jeopardy by 2050 without preventative action. The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery said total damages from disasters had ballooned in recent decades but warned that worse could be in store as a result of a combination of global warming, an expanding population and the vulnerability of people crammed into slums in low-lying, fast-growing cities that are already overcrowded..."
Photo credit: "The mayor of Coral Gables, Fla., worries that the continued rise in sea levels could sink the property values of waterfront neighborhoods." PictureWendy/Flickr.
Climate Change, Runaway Development Worsen Houston Floods.
The tempo and severity of flash flooding and river flooding in Texas is
increasing - odds are it's not a coincidence, based on a variety of
factors. Here's an excerpt from ABC News: "...Extreme
downpours have doubled in frequency over the past three decades,
climatologists say, in part because of global warming. The other main
culprit is unrestrained development in the only major U.S. city without
zoning rules. That combination means more pavement and deeper
floodwaters. Critics blame cozy relations between developers and local
leaders for inadequate flood-protection measures. An Associated Press
analysis of government data found that if Harris County, which includes
Houston, were a state it would rank in the top five or six in every
category of repeat federal flood losses — defined as any property with
two or more losses in a 10-year period amounting to at least $1,000 each..."
File photo above: Texas Monthly.
"A person paddles through a flooded neighborhood, Tuesday, April 19,
2016, in Spring Texas. Storms have dumped more than a foot of rain in
the Houston area, flooding dozens of neighborhoods." AP Photo - David J.
Phillip.
A
person paddles through a flooded neighborhood, Tuesday, April 19, 2016,
in Spring, Texas. Storms have dumped more than a foot of rain in the
Houston area, flooding dozens of neighborhoods.
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) - See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/houston-sustainable-flood-postmortem/#sthash.pfuPezbK.dpuf
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) - See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/houston-sustainable-flood-postmortem/#sthash.pfuPezbK.dpuf
A
person paddles through a flooded neighborhood, Tuesday, April 19, 2016,
in Spring, Texas. Storms have dumped more than a foot of rain in the
Houston area, flooding dozens of neighborhoods.
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) - See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/houston-sustainable-flood-postmortem/#sthash.pfuPezbK.dpuf
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) - See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/houston-sustainable-flood-postmortem/#sthash.pfuPezbK.dpuf
Climate Change Doubters Really Aren't Going to Like This Study. Here's an excerpt from The Washington Post: "Researchers have designed an inventive test suggesting that the arguments commonly used by climate change contrarians don’t add up, not only according to climate scientists (we know what they think already) but also in the view of unbiased experts from other fields. The trick? Disguising the data — and its interpretation — as if it was part of an argument about something else entirely..."
Middle Schoolers Asked Me How To Stop Using Fossil Fuels. Here's My Response. Here's an excerpt of a Dave Roberts post at Vox: "...The good news is that there are millions of ways for you to chip in and help solve this problem. Because fossil fuels are everywhere, opportunities to reduce fossil fuels are also everywhere. Typically, when young people ask how they can help, adults respond by telling them all the ways they can reduce their own personal use of fossil fuels. You can take the bus more, or carpool, or your family can buy an electric car. You can insulate your house better, or put solar panels on the roof. You can eat more vegetables and less meat. All that stuff is great. Truly. Knock yourself out. The more people see other people doing it, the more they will do it themselves..."
Photo credit: "
File image: NASA.
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