News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Some have asked what we can expect this summer — weather and wildfire conditions. I’ll share what the Washington state climatologist states in the most recent monthly report: “The National Climate Prediction Center (CPC) May outlook has increased chances of above normal temperatures across the entire state. Slightly lower chances of above normal temperatures exist for a pocket in the northeast corner. The May precipitation outlook is split with equal chances of above, below or equal preci...
Given the current threat of the Novel Coronavirus and its potential effect on humanity, I thought I’d write about viruses in general. I’ll address the fact that viruses are in our atmosphere and ride air currents, eventually dropping to the ground regularly. They are abundant. They have been on the planet for at least 300 million years. Viruses are the most abundant microbes on the planet. We are host to them as well; they are part of the body’s microbiome. Let’s start with a highly abridge... Full story
I spend some time looking over weather and climate research sites. Generally, there’s something interesting that captures my attention. These are things that I like to share with you. Recently, I came across the term “flash drought.” I had never heard this term before. The National Weather Service’s (NWS) Climate Prediction Center defines a flash drought as “an event during which an area experiences degradation by two or more drought categories in a four-week period, based on the U.S. Drought M...
Since 1980, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has tracked United States weather and climate events. This tracking process is specific and addresses the economic and societal impacts. So far, the United States has sustained well over 250 weather events where the overall damage costs reached or surpassed the mark of $1 billion. The year 2019 witnessed many costly weather or climate events. A total of 14 events s...
Happy New Year to each of you, and welcome to the new Roaring Twenties! I’ll start off by gazing into the crystal ball of long-range weather prediction. The dedicated public servants with the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) at the National Weather Service have done well with the prediction for these past months. We’ve seen higher-than-average temperatures and less-than-average precipitation. So, what are their predictions for the next three months — January, February and March 2020? For the n...
The air around us is polluted, and the level of pollution in our air varies constantly. The causes of the pollution fluctuate as well. The pollution consists of gases and particulate matter. Common “natural” sources are forest and range fires, volcanic activity and various gases that originate in nature. Most all of these natural sources are not constant, unlike the sources that humanity produces on a recurring and regular basis. Envision pre-historic human activity after fire became part of...
Scientists have been coring glacial ice fields for some time now. One objective is to analyze the small atmospheric gas bubbles that got trapped as the ice formed. These gas bubbles contain atmospheric gases from our ancient past. Much of the research is done to address climate change. The Antarctic has proven to be the place where past climate clues can be found and by past, I mean long, long ago. Up until recently, the oldest complete Antarctica ice core data took the research back some...
Not a day goes by that we don’t see them — if we’re looking. In the trees, on the ground and, of course, in the sky. They are at their most majestic when in flight. Soaring through the lower atmosphere with a blue sky as background, a wonderful sight. The bigger ones catch our attention most it seems. We try to identify them — hawk, vulture, falcon or the bald eagle. Some of us feed them at our feeding stations. Some of us hunt certain types of birds and look forward to the bounty of our hun...
This time around we’ll be looking at the historic weather results for our summer – June, July and August and the summer of 2019. We’ll also take a look-see at what is being predicted for our upcoming winter – December, January and February 2019-20. First, let’s delve into the world of predicted weather as provided by the Climate Prediction Center (CPC). The CPC, as I’ve mentioned before, is a service of the National Weather Service, an agency under the broader umbrella of the National Oc...
The recent discussion about a new jail for Grant County, illegal drug use and the criminal actions created by drug users, focused my attention on a policy issue that the nation needs to be talking about. Certainly, if the nation won’t, the states should. Drug addiction is a real societal disease that has high costs in human lives, property loss and community resources. Smoke it, inject it or swallow it, and more is needed to keep the fix going. The fix wares off and the user scurries around, d...
As global temperatures rise (June 2019 was the hottest June ever recorded) they tend to sustain wildfires. Earlier this summer, in June and July, hundreds of long-lived, intense wildfires burned within the Arctic Circle. Most of the fire activity was in Alaska and Siberia. Alaska alone had over 400 wildfires. There were also large fires in Greenland. Associated with these large-scale fires is the release of tiny particles — megatons of particulate matter. Black carbon particulates, also known a...
It seems we are stumbling along with a mix of Spring and Summer weather. Cloudy days, spats of rain and temperatures going up and down. We’ll get to the June weather data later. Many scientists said one could not extract centuries-old El Niño weather events from Tropical Pacific Coral Reefs – it just couldn’t be done. Well, for some scientists when a problem is posed, they move ahead with innovative techniques and find an answer to the problem. Down Australia way, a group of scientists have p...
The short answer to the headline – yes, it does rain plastic. Take a look around, plastic is everywhere. It’s in our everyday lives; it is, in fact, omnipresent. It is in our rain too. Plastic is an environmental challenge that is piling up globally. About 300 million tons of plastic is manufactured annually. Landfills are full of plastic and it will be there for a long time. Our oceans are increasingly becoming a type of catchment for plastics of all kinds – mini-continents. Two recent studi...
Climate change, tree rings and us Like a book of factual history, tree rings are the annual chapters of a tree’s life. Through the eyes of a trained professional, tree rings tell the real story of a location through a living thing — the tree. Those rings can yield a lot of information about the climate at a specific location. The oldest trees are the bristlecone pine (pinus longaeva), dating back some five millennia, and they are found at a high elevation in the California desert White Mou... Full story
In every stage of life we go through, there seems to be some type of test. We all faced the required tests that 12 years in school presented. There was a variety of tests for those who spent time in the military — weapons, equipment and the many skills testing. There are college-entry exams and graduate-school-entry exams like the GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, etc. Want to drive a vehicle? Have to take a state-mandated test to be licensed. All those professionals we interact with, such as lawyers, d...
We just witnessed an event that is part of the Water Cycle on our home planet — snow melt. Though the quick disappearance of snow is not fully attributed to melt-off. There are other events going on as the snow gradually disappears. Yes, there were waterfalls on the Grand Coulee walls, lots of runoff water dumped into Banks Lake. Those waterfalls were a part, albeit a good part, of the snow disappearance. Let’s also take a look at evapotranspiration (e·vap·o·tran·spi·ra·tion), generally...
With all the snow occupying our landscape, it’s hard to image spring at all. Be assured that it will arrive; in fact, March 20 will bring vernal, or spring, equinox. It’s that point in time that we have equal daytime and nighttime hours. Yes, even with the passing of equinox, it’s highly likely we’ll still have snow on the landscape. A couple of other things March will bring us – Sunday, March 10, we go through the antiquated ceremonial turning of our clocks forward one hour. Here’s hoping Wash...
It caused a great uproar in the news media and with those living in parts of Canada and the U.S. The Upper Midwest felt the effects of the ever-present Polar Vortex. TV news reporters stood outside showing viewers just how cold the air was — frozen things were displayed for all to see. People shot video of themselves holding frozen shirts, pants or their wet, frozen hair. More importantly, the TV reports and newspaper articles addressed the health consequences of truly cold air. Add some wind t...
I’ve lost track of how many years I’ve been writing this monthly column about our weather, and climate and related issues and events. One thing I do like — and I admit I’m a bit of a facts-driven person — is gathering the weather data from the previous year and sharing it here. We’ll have to rely on data from the home weather station only, for now the “partial government shutdown” is affecting access to our local official weather station data. So, let’s take a look back and see what happened...
Each of us can recall severe storms we’ve lived through. Major thunderstorms with crashing lightning and heavy rain and hail. Wind events, not unlike some we’ve had right here in the Coulee — those walls of dust moving through, blowing over trees, damaging roofs. There’s the major league storms — tornadoes and hurricanes, and the results they bring. I recall witnessing at least three storms that came close to stopping most all human activity. Ice storms can slow or stop us in our tracks ve...
In the last column, I wrote about the physical changes occurring in and around the Arctic Ocean. Those changes are occurring due to climate change. Shipping lanes are being used for commerce, significantly cutting travel time and saving fuel. Other transformations are happening as a direct result of climate change in that part of the world as well. The geopolitics of the Arctic is affected as much as the physical body of the region. Several nations are looking at the region and envisioning...
Commerce, likely many other things, is dependent on current weather and long-term climate. Our regional wheat growers know that our climate is conducive to their work and production. The same applies to the transportation of goods. Be they from a farm or a manufacturing plant, the goods have to be brought to market. We know that major weather events can cause havoc on the highways, rail systems and open seas. Climate change will affect the transportation of goods as weather events change. A... Full story
Can you feel it? That seasonal change is coming — tree leaves are starting to turn color, temperatures are dropping a little. The official day for Autumn Equinox is Sept. 22 this year. Cool, crisp air and clear skies, if we don’t get any more wildfire smoke — fingers crossed! We’ve been blanketed again this season with much smoke and fine particulate matter. We’ve seen an active wildfire season and smoke has filtered into our region from considerable distances. Early in August, we got hit with...
Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker, went on a 30-day McDonald’s fast-food diet and he ended up with health problems. He documented his feast in his film “Super-Size Me.” When we satisfy our daily news diet, it can be analogous to fast food. Add some social media and a boatload of websites that many feed themselves and we have an even bigger diet of “news.” It all boils down to our personal choice and acceptance. We all live in a self-created bubble of some sort. We surround ourselves with...
In past columns I’ve talked about the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or as some call it, the Southern Oscillation. Let me briefly review what this thing does. There are two ocean temperature and wind actions that occur down along the Tropical Pacific Equator that can, and do, affect global climate. These fluctuating ocean wind and temperature events also play a role in our winters here in the Pacific and Inland Northwest. One is referred to as El Niño (the child, Spanish) and the oth...