WEEKLY WEATHER & CLIMATE NEWS

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS

5-9 January 2015

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Items of Interest:

Welcome weather science educators to the annual AMS meeting -- The 95th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is being held this week (4 - 9 January) in Phoenix, AZ. The theme for this year's AMS meeting is "Fulfilling the Vision of Weather, Water, and Climate Information for Every Need, Time, and Place." One of the numerous symposia and conferences that will be conducted at the meeting is the 24th Symposium on Education, where educators from kindergarten through university levels will be attending workshops or giving presentations on weather, ocean, climate and space science education issues.
check -- AWARE -- Montana will observe Ice Awareness Day on Thursday, 9 January 2014. If you live in the Treasure State, consult your local National Weather Service Forecast Office for additional information. Check -- http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/tfx/icejam/
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Weather and Climate News Items:

Eye on the tropics -- The Indian Ocean was the only ocean basin to experience tropical cyclone activity during the last week.
In the South Indian Ocean Basin, Tropical Cyclone Christine made landfall at the start of last week along the northern coast of Western Australia slightly more than 100 miles to the west-southwest of Port Hedland, Australia. Earlier, Christine had become a major category 3 tropical cyclone. The NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Tropical Cyclone Christine.
The second tropical cyclone to develop in the South Indian basin during the last week was Tropical Cyclone Bejisa. This system intensified quickly from a tropical storm that had formed early last week approximately 700 miles to the north-northwest of La Reunion Island. By New Year's Eve, Tropical Cyclone Bejisa had become a major category 3 tropical cyclone as it traveled southward, passing off the eastern coast of Madagascar. Maximum sustained surface winds had reached 125 mph, with wind-driven sea waves reaching 35 feet in height. The strong winds, high seas and torrential rain associated with this system resulted in widespread power outages, uprooted trees and damaged homes on La Reunion Island. By late in the week, Tropical Cyclone Bejisa dissipated to the south of La Reunion and Mauritius. Additional information and satellite images on Tropical Cyclone Bejisa can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Storm 1B formed this past weekend to the east-northeast of Sri Lanka. As of late Sunday (local time), Tropical Storm 1B was traveling toward the west-southwest and could pass across northern sections of Sri Lanka as a tropical storm on Monday. (Note: The designation 1B means that this system is the first tropical cyclone of 2014 in the Bay of Bengal sector of the North Indian Ocean.)
Canadian national seasonal outlook issued -- Forecasters with Environment Canada issued their outlooks for temperature and precipitation across Canada for the first three months of 2015, which represent the remainder of meteorological winter (January and February) and the first month of meteorological spring (March). Their temperature outlook indicates that a large section of eastern Canada extending across Ontario and Quebec could experience below normal (1981-2010) temperatures for these three months. On the other hand, sections western Canada including British Columbia along with the Yukon and Northwest Territories could have above average winter and early spring temperatures. Elsewhere, near normal temperatures were to be expected for the next three months.
The Canadian precipitation outlook for January through March 2015 indicates that most of the Canadian Arctic including the Nunavut Territory and northern Quebec could experience below average precipitation. Conversely, above normal precipitation was projected for a large area extending across most of the Prairie Provinces along with sections of Ontario around the eastern Great Lakes and coastal sections of Atlantic Canada.
[Note for comparisons and continuity with the three-month seasonal outlooks of temperature and precipitation generated for the continental United States and Alaska by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, one would need to use Environment Canada's probabilistic forecasts for temperature and precipitation.]
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Importance of tropical forests and carbon dioxide assessed -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion s reported that that tropical forests may be absorbing far more atmospheric carbon dioxide than previously thought. The researchers claim that these tropical forests absorb 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than is absorbed by boreal forests across Alaska, Canada and Siberia. Total global absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has been increasing due to human activity, Is estimated to be 2.5 billion tons. [NASA Earth Science News Team]
Eruption of undersea volcano monitored from space -- Two images made early last week from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite show the development of a plume of volcanic ash from the eruption of an underwater volcano off Hunga Ha'apai, an island in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc in the western South Pacific Ocean. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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