The most intense geomagnetic storm of the 20th Century took place one hundred years ago during solar cycle 15 in a 3-day period from May 13-15 in 1921. The storm occurred before the widespread electrical dependence of infrastructure that we have in today’s world, but the impact from an extraordinarily powerful coronal mass ejection was still quite extensive. The storm’s electrical current sparked a number of fires around the world including one near the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. In addition, auroras appeared throughout the eastern US creating brightly lit nighttime skies and telegraph service virtually stopped in its tracks due to blown fuses and damaged equipment. Research in recent years has suggested that this super solar storm of May 1921 was equally as intense as the granddaddy of all super storms in recorded history – the “Carrington Event of 1859”.
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Weather played an important role in the 1912 disaster of the sinking of the Titanic and it likely played a direct role in another disaster that took place 25 years later – at least that is the prevailing belief. On May 6th, 1937, while the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg was attempting to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, a flame appeared on the outer cover of the rear of the ship. Within 34 seconds, the entire airship was consumed by fire and the golden age of airship travel was over.
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The magical soil temperature for cicadas to make a triumphant return from underneath is 64 degrees and this week’s big time warm up in the Mid-Atlantic region is bringing that requirement much closer to reality. It has been 17 years since the last Brood X cicada emergence took place in the Mid-Atlantic region and they are about to make a noisy return. Unlike the greenish annual cicadas, periodical cicadas in northern states are known for their massive takeovers every 17 years and they are also known for their bold red eyes. It’s been since 2004 that the Brood X variety emerged to the surface and this emergence comes on a massive scale which is a simple evolutionary tactic. By coming out in the millions, cicadas overwhelm any predators and ensure the very survival of the species.
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Earlier today, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter became the first aircraft to make a controlled flight on another planet. The solar-powered helicopter became airborne at 3:34 AM (ET) which was at a local time on Mars that was determined to likely feature optimal energy and flight conditions. Data indicates Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed altitude of 10 feet and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended and touched back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. This was an important test for the helicopter which was full of unknowns as Mars has an extremely thin atmosphere and significantly lower gravity than Earth.
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Today marks the 109th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (April 15, 1912) and I thought I’d revisit the overall weather pattern that played a key role in the tragedy. By studying weather maps and written records from that time period, some definitive conclusions can be drawn about the weather during the trip across the Atlantic, and there are also some interesting relatively new theories involving atmospheric conditions and their possible effects.
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March is known to feature some crazy and surprising weather and the 1958 blizzard that occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region between March 18th and 23rd was indeed rather unexpected. In general, forecasts on the morning of March 18th had no mention of snow. This was in an era before computer forecast models were being utilized by weather forecasters on a daily basis and it was even before satellite imagery existed which could aid in the forecast. By afternoon on that particular day, the light rain had changed into huge, wet snowflakes and - for the next few days - history was being made.
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The winter of 1992-1993 was not bad at all in the Mid-Atlantic region in terms of cold and snow, but one storm at the end of the season will put that particular winter in the history books forever. One of the most intense storms ever observed in the eastern US took place from March 12-14, 1993 and it will be forever known as the “Storm of the Century”. This intense storm generated tremendous snowfall totals from Alabama through Maine, high winds all along the east coast, extreme coastal flooding along the Florida west coast and incredibly low barometric pressures across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The aftermath of the “Storm of the Century” was unseasonably cold and broke records in many spots for the middle of March. To this day, the storm also known as the “Superstorm of 1993” ranks among the deadliest and most costly weather events in US history.
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It has been 17 years since the last Brood X cicada emergence took place in the Mid-Atlantic region and they are about to make a noisy return. Unlike the greenish annual cicadas, periodical cicadas in northern states are known for their massive takeovers every 17 years and they are also known for their bold red eyes. It’s been since 2004 that the Brood X variety emerged to the surface and this emergence comes on a massive scale which is a simple evolutionary tactic. By coming out in the millions, cicadas overwhelm any predators and ensure the very survival of the species.
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Running for his third presidential term, Franklin Roosevelt made a 1940 campaign promise to allow for the training of African American military pilots. In cooperation with the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama which was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881, the Army created a program in 1941 to induct and train what would eventually amount to more than 14,000 airmen, of whom about 1,000 would become pilots; the others became navigators, bombardiers, radio operators, administrators, support personnel - and some became weathermen.
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With the passage of one storm system in the overnight hours, attention to those in the Mid-Atlantic region will now turn to the next storm system and this one is likely to generate significant snow and/or ice for the DC-to-Philly-to-NYC corridor with several inches on the table. The next storm will take a track farther to the east compared to last night’s system and this will help to keep in place a cold air mass that arrives in the overnight hours. This cold air mass will be anchored by strong high pressure to the north and low-level temperatures are likely to remain at or below freezing during much of the upcoming event in the immediate I-95 corridor – virtually assuring a buildup of snow and/or ice.
Elsewhere, historic and dangerous cold continues today across much of the central US. Several sites have set their all-time low temperature records and many others have experienced their lowest temperatures ever recorded in the month of February. In addition to the extreme cold, snow and ice has accumulated all the way down to the Gulf coastal region of Texas. In fact, nearly three-quarters of the US is now covered by snow which is the highest amount ever recorded since this kind of data began to be collected in 2003.
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