In the ocean of bad news and pessimism that we have hearing in recent days regarding the coronavirus perhaps there is a small island of hope and optimism, and, believe it or not, it is related to the weather. The weather has an important impact on all kinds of things ranging from, for example, the price of coffee to the sweetness of your wine to the distance that a baseball can travel on a summer night. The weather also has an impact on the spreadability and survivability of respiratory viruses including influenza which tends to thrive as weather conditions become colder. While there is much unknown about this particular new strain of coronavirus, there is hope that its impact will diminish as temperatures, humidity and hours of sunlight climb as the northern hemisphere transitions from late winter-to-spring-to-summer.
Read More
It was a little past 1 AM on February 3rd, 1959 when American musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa along with pilot Roger Peterson. Weather conditions were certainly contributing factors in the plane crash as there was poor visibility on that cold night with snow blowing across the runway. Hours before, Holly and his tourmates were on the eleventh night of their “Winter Dance Party” tour through the snow-covered Midwest. It was a Monday and a school night, but 1,100 teenagers crammed into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa for two sold out shows with the second one ending around midnight. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie”.
Read More
Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster which occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. STS-51-L was the 25th American Space Shuttle Program flight since the program began in 1981. It was also the first mission to have a civilian on board, American teacher Christa McAuliffe. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). According to the Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, weather conditions were likely one of the factors that contributed to the incident. Tests conducted during the subsequent investigation showed that O-rings were much less resilient at lower temperatures, but the extreme cold at the Kennedy Space Center was not the only weather factor involved with this tragedy.
Read More
December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. Morale was low, hope for winning the war was diminishing, and the Continental Army led by George Washington was thinning in numbers after many battles lost to the British. December began with lots of rain and muddy travel conditions for the men which did not help with their spirits. After retreating through New Jersey, they set up camp in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania where the army was met with very cold weather that led to plenty of ice on the Delaware River. All in all, things were not looking good for Washington's army. However, George Washington devised a plan that would change the course of the war and the history of our nation.
Read More
The sun is currently in the midst of a deep solar minimum and it is about to reach an historic milestone. So far this year the sun has been blank (i.e., no visible sunspots) for 266 days and, barring any major surprises, it’ll reach 269 days early next week which will be the quietest year in terms of sunspots since 1913 when the sun was spotless for 311 days. In fact, the current stretch of consecutive spotless days has reached 29 and for the year the sun has been blank 77% of the time. The current record-holder in the satellite era for spotless days in a given year is 2008 when the sun was blank for 268 days making the 2008-2009 solar minimum the deepest since 1913.
Solar minimum is a normal part of the 11-year sunspot cycle, but the last one and the current one have been far deeper than most. One of the consequences of a solar minimum is a reduction of solar storms and another is the intensification of cosmic rays. The just ended solar cycle 24 turned out to be one of the weakest in more than a century – continuing a weakening trend that began in the 1980’s – and, if the latest forecasts are correct, the next solar cycle will be the weakest in more than 200 years.
Read More
The weather on Oahu, Hawaii in the early morning hours of Sunday, December 7th, 1941 was not at all unusual for the time of year with mild temperatures and mainly clear skies. Unfortunately, the weather conditions on that particular day would play a role in the bombing of the U.S. naval base by Japanese fighter planes at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. As Japanese fighters crossed the Pacific Ocean, they were given hope that their mission would succeed when the announcement was made of “clouds mostly over the mounts…visibility good”. It is believed that the decision to attack on that particular day had plenty to do with the projected favorable weather conditions.
Read More
For 60 years, the Colony Glacier of Alaska hid the remains of 52 servicemen in a frozen grave after an Air Force plane crashed into the side of a mountain during bad weather. The military transport plane was on route to Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage when it crashed into Mount Gannett on November 22nd, 1952 in the Chugach Mountain Range about 40 miles east of Anchorage. The wreckage of the plane and the remains of the 52 servicemen slid into the glacier next to the mountain. Recovery efforts never got into high gear that year as Alaska’s unforgiving winter came on quickly and by later the following year, the glacier and new deep snow pack had claimed the aircraft and its passengers.
It was not until 60 years later in June 2012 that the wreckage was spotted about 12 miles from the original crash site by members of the Army National Guard during a routine training mission. Since then crews have returned every summer to try to recover the remains and personal effects during a small window of opportunity of about one month when it is relatively safe to do so on the glacier. This painstaking effort is in a race against time, however, as the relentlessly north-flowing Colony Glacier continues to advance relatively quickly and it won’t be long before the plane wreckage and passenger remains are pushed into nearby Inner Lake George - and perhaps lost forever to history.
Read More
Forty-four years have passed since a major storm over the Great Lakes helped to sink the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior taking the lives of all 29 crew members on November 10th, 1975. When launched on June 7, 1958, it was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and to this day she remains the largest to have sunk there. The Edmund Fitzgerald was in the worst possible location during the worst weather of the ferocious storm. The wind and waves from the west hit the freighter broadside as it tried to flee south to safety in Whitefish Bay. The Edmund Fitzgerald was loaded with about 26,000 tons of taconite pellets on Nov. 9, 1975, at Superior, Wisconsin and was bound for Detroit, Michigan when the storm hit.
Read More
The World Series between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros began last night in Houston, Texas, but weather was not a factor. The Astros stadium known as Minute Maid Park has a retractable roof and it was closed last night for Game 1 which was won by the Nationals with a 5-4 score. The World Series will shift to Washington, D.C. on Friday night for Game 3 and then Games 4 and 5 (if necessary) are scheduled for Saturday night and Sunday night respectively.
From this vantage point, it appears the weather will be decent for Game 3 on Friday night with cool and dry conditions, but then rain could become a factor this weekend for Games 4 and/or 5. It does not appear that any of these three scheduled games in Washington, D.C. will be played under truly cold conditions as any significant cold air outbreak for the Mid-Atlantic region should hold off until later next week – perhaps in time for Halloween Day. Weather has indeed had a big impact on some World Series games in recent history in terms of both cold and precipitation.
Read More
On September 21, 1938, one of the most destructive and powerful hurricanes in recorded history struck Long Island and Southern New England. It was the first major hurricane to strike New England since the year 1869. The storm developed near the Cape Verde Islands on September 9, tracking across the Atlantic and up the Eastern Seaboard. The storm hit Long Island and Southern Connecticut on September 21, moving at a forward speed of 47 mph! Tomorrow marks the 81st anniversary of storm known as "The Great New England Hurricane of 1938" as well as "The Long Island Express" and the "Yankee Clipper". With no warning, the powerful category 3 hurricane (previously a category 5) slammed into Long Island and southern New England causing approximately 682 deaths and massive devastation to coastal cities and became the most destructive storm to strike the region in the 20th century. Little media attention was given to the powerful hurricane while it was out at sea as Europe was on the brink of war and the overriding story of the time. There was no advanced meteorological technology such as radar or satellite imagery to warn of the storm’s approach.
Read More
