Seattle Ties May-June Dry Streak Record

Seattle, Washington just barely missed breaking its record for consecutive rainless days in May and June when a minimal 0.01" of rain fell in the last 6 minutes of the recording day yesterday. The National Weather Service report:

ITS OVER. A SHOWER THAT STARTED AT SEATTLE-TACOMA AIRPORT AT 1249 AM   
BROUGHT 0.01 INCHES OF RAIN BEFORE 1 AM ENDING THE DRY STREAK AT THE   
AIRPORT AT 29 DAYS. THE MEASURABLE RAIN WAS RECORDED BETWEEN 1254 AM   
AND 1 AM...THE LAST SIX MINUTES OF THE DAY. THE DAILY MIDNIGHT TO   
MIDNIGHT DATA IS ACTUALLY FROM 1 AM TO 1 AM WHEN WE ARE ON DAYLIGHT   
SAVINGS TIME. THE LAST TIME SEA-TAC GOT MEASURABLE PRECIPITATION WAS   
BETWEEN 9 AND 10 PM BACK ON MAY 19TH.  
   
THE FOLLOWING IS THE LIST OF THE TOP 5 DRY SPELLS /CONSECUTIVE DAYS   
WITH NO MEASURABLE RAINFALL/ FOR MAY AND JUNE AT SEATTLE-TACOMA   
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.  
  
29 DAYS   MAY 20TH - JUNE 17TH 2009      
29 DAYS   MAY 28TH - JUNE 25TH 1982  
27 DAYS   MAY 6TH  - JUNE 1ST  1963  
26 DAYS   JUN 5TH  - JUNE 30TH 1977          
24 DAYS   APR 30TH - MAY 23RD  1946  
  
THE ALL TIME RECORD NUMBER OF CONSECUTIVE DRY DAYS AT SEATTLE-TACOMA   
AIRPORT IS 51 DAYS SET BACK IN 1951. THERE WAS NO MEASURABLE   
RAINFALL DURING THE PERIOD FROM JULY 7TH THROUGH AUGUST 26TH OF THAT   
YEAR.  

Heavy Showers Add to DC Monthly, Yearly Rainfall Surplus

Heavy showers and thunderstorms in the early morning hours and again during the middle of the day have continued to add to Washington, DC monthly and year-to-date rainfall totals. As of 5 pm today, the daily/monthly/year-to-date totals were:

Washington National 1.01"/5.07"/22.34"
Washington Dulles   0.41"/6.15"/25.93"
Baltimore (BWI)     1.77"/5.09"/24.37" 

At Washington National, the month is 3.18" above average to date, and the year is 4.42" above. For the year, this is still over 5" below last year's soggy pace, however (27.69" to date).

Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season Kicks Off with Tropical Depression 1-E

The Eastern Pacific hurricane season kicked off just 2 days short of the record latest opening in the satellite observation era with the formation of Tropical Depression 1-E this morning off the Pacific coast of Mexico. As of 2 pm PDT, the storm had maximum winds of 35 mph; it's expected to reach tropical storm strength before making landfall on the west coast of Mexico late Friday or early Saturday. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for portions of the Mexican Pacific coast.

Summary of the latest storm information:

LOCATION...18.3N 108.2W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...35 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NORTH OR 360 DEGREES AT 7 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1005 MB 

Image (click to enlarge): Tropical Depression 1-E forecast track, from National Hurricane Center

WaPo is "Shocked, Shocked": Lobbying is being committed in the climate casino!

Let me see if I've got this straight. The Heartland organization, with a
known track record of policy advocacy and bogus science, holds a PR fest in NYC in March, and the intrepid junior journalist from Capital Weather Gang/WaPo proves he's the next Woodward/Bernstein by dutifully regurgitating a standard corporate-media "he said, he said" piece pimping a false equivalence between the Heartland's PR and a real conference in Copenhagen. Then Bullwinkle and Bast's Traveling Bad Medicine Show takes a ride on the shuttle and sets up its tents in Spin City. Our jr. journo finds a decoder ring in his Froot Loops and has a great revelation: There's lobbying going on in the climate casino. Then, after more than 2 weeks of brewing (original conference date: June 2) in the bowels of the WaPo editorial bureaucracy, this news flash emerges: The policy advocacy group is actually advocating policy!

Tell me again: Who was it who reversed position?
Is smoking still good for you?
Is Al Gore still fat?
And where should the Pulitzer Committee mail the Prize for Disingenuous Reporting?

Who subsidizes this incompetent and/or dishonest foolishness (besides the slave-labor union-busting "bloggers" who work for sub-sub-minimum wage at WaPo online)? Let's take a glance at the WaPo's carbon-based edition.

• Today (June 18): Page A5, full-page color ad, Heartland Institute:
  "Let's make global warming about the science again . . ."
  
• Yesterday (June 17): Page A5, full-page color ad, Heartland Institute:
  "The debate over global warming is supposed to be about science . . . "
  
• Tuesday (June 16): Page A18, full-page color ad, Heartland Institute:
  "More than 31,000 American scientists have signed a petition . . ."

Image: From Heartland Institute

May 2009 Fourth Warmest on Record

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported on Monday that May 2009 had the fourth warmest global average temperature in 130 years of data. Most land areas were above average in temperature, with the warmest readings relative to average in Alaska, Iceland, the western contiguous U.S., and much of Europe and Asia.

Cooler-than-average regions included New Zealand, Canada, and parts of western and central Asia and Australia. Large portions of Canada were 2-5°C (4-9°F) below average.

Sea surface temperatures were above average over most of the oceans; the notable exceptions were parts of the northeastern Pacific and central Atlantic.

Precipitation patterns during May were generally mixed, according to NCDC:

During May 2009, above-average precipitation fell over areas that included southeastern Asia, the southeastern contiguous U.S., northeastern Brazil, east central Australia, and parts of Russia, northern Europe, and northern India. Drier-than-average conditions were present across the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska's panhandle, the central U.S., northeastern South America, southern Europe, eastern Asia, and most of Australia.

Images (click to enlarge): May global temperature departures from average since 1880, May 2009 land and sea surface temperature departures, May 2009 precipitation departures, all from NOAA/NCDC

Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season Nears Record

In a Tropical Update report Tuesday evening, The Weather Channel's tropical expert Dr. Steve Lyons reported that the eastern Pacific hurricane season is nearing a modern record for latest start. Since the beginning of the satellite observation era in 1965, the latest beginning of the season in that region was June 20, which is now only 4 days away.

As of 5 pm PDT, however, the National Hurricane Center was identifying an area about 350 miles off the coast of Mexico as having a high probability (over 50%) of developing into a tropical depression in the next 48 hours.

Image (click to enlarge) from National Hurricane Center

Major New U.S. Report Assesses Climate Change, Future Impacts

June 17 Update: News conference video is available here (Lubchenco's comments come near the end, after 54:30):



11 pm Update:
At a news conference this afternoon presenting the results of the report, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco called it a "game-changer":

The findings are a game-changer. Much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road . . . This report demonstrates, provides the concrete scientific information that says unequivocally that climate change is happening now, and it's happening in our own back yards and it affects the kinds of things that people care about.

Original post:
The U.S. Government's Global Change Research Program, a joint activity of 13 departments and agencies, this afternoon released a report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The report "summarizes the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future." It is the "first report in almost a decade to provide an extensive evaluation of climate change impacts on the United States at the regional level." The 189-page report is available online to download in full or in part, and is also being published by Cambridge University Press.

The report's key findings:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
   
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
   
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
   
4. Climate change will stress water resources.
   
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
   
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
   
7. Threats to human health will increase.
   
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
   
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
   
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

Image (click to enlarge): Atmospheric CO₂ content and global average temperatures since 1880 from U.S. Global Change Research Program