We know that El Nino years tend to correlate with decreased tropical activity in the Atlantic Basin, usually resulting in a season with fewer named storms.  This does not mean that there won’t be any significant hurricanes during El Nino years, but the overall activity will be suppressed by cooler Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) across [...]

I noted that I read more (with interest) about waves today than I did in Phys.Oceanography.  Part of the reason is the visualization tools that are at our fingertips today, which were not around when I was in school.
case in point: this image from NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Laboratory.

I’ll be at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting from Jan 24-27.  I will be giving a talk on Tuesday on 2010 weather events and impacts to the global food supply chain, and a poster on Wednesday discussing how the Weather Trends long range forecast can be used as a tool in [...]

Following our post (Wheat Weather) the other day regarding the devastating flooding across eastern Australia, we encourage readers to follow the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) to monitor conditions in the region through January.  The map below depicts the Dec2010 SPI, and it will be worth noting the changes when the Jan2011 index is released.

( map [...]