30 January-3 February 2012

• Eye on the tropics --- During the last week, several tropical cyclones (low pressure systems that form over tropical oceans) were found over the waters of the South Indian Ocean:
  Cyclone Funso continued to intensify early last week as it traveled southward through the Mozambique Channel between Mozambique and Madagascar. During the week, Cyclone Funso reached a major category 4 cyclone status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, as winds gusting to 150 mph created sea heights to 30 feet. By Sunday (local time), Cyclone Funso weakened to a tropical storm as moved to the south-southeast out over the South Indian Ocean to the south of Madagascar. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Cyclone Funso.
  At midweek, a tropical storm identified as Iggy formed over the waters of the South Indian Ocean approximately 350 miles to the north-northwest of Learmonth, Western Australia. This system began traveling toward the south-southeast and then to the south. By Sunday, Iggy had become a category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it continued traveling southward off the coast of Western Australia. Heavy rains associated with Iggy fell across coastal sections of Western Australia. For satellite images and additional information on Cyclone Iggy, see the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Becoming AWARE -- During this coming week (30 January - 3 February), Florida will observe its Severe Weather Awareness Week. If you live in the Sunshine State, you should take time to become familiar with the various public affairs announcements issued by your local National Weather Service Office. Other states farther to the north will be observing their Severe Weather Awareness weeks in the next ten weeks.
  With the approach of the severe weather season, officials with the National Weather Service are encouraging science teachers throughout the country to take time to relay various safety information concerning weather-related hazards to their students. These teachers should contact the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at their local National Weather Service Office. They can locate that person on-line by going to http://www.stormready.noaa.gov/contact.htm and clicking on the outline of their state.
• Climatology of Super Bowls updated -- Next Sunday (5 February 2012) is "Super Sunday" when the New York Giants play the New England Patriots in the National Football League's Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN. The service climatologist for the Southeast Regional Climate Center has provided a listing of the Super Bowl Weather & Climate 1967-2011. This annotated list contains the climatology includes the daily maximum and minimum temperatures, the 24-hour precipitation and the 24-hour snowfall along with comments on the weather observed in the host city on "Super Sunday" for each of the previous 45 Super Bowl games. Note: This document is a pdf file that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (see below). The climatology for the Indianapolis metropolitan area for this upcoming week leading to and including Super Sunday is also available.
  During the last 45 years the Super Bowl has been played in 13 different metropolitan areas. After years of restricting the selected site to relatively warm cities or at domed stadiums, NFL officials have been considering scheduling future Super Bowls in more northern cities, including those at outdoor venues. USA Today
• Newest satellite renamed for pioneer satellite meteorologist -- During the last week, NASA renamed its NASA/NOAA NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite, the newest Earth-observing satellite launched last October, for the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is widely recognized as "the father of satellite meteorology." [NASA Newsroom]
  NASA recently released a high-resolution visible "Blue Marble" image of Earth obtained in early January from the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite onboard the Suomi NPP satellite. [USA Today]
• NOAA Administrator addresses meteorologists -- Early last week, NOAA Administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, delivered a few keynote remarks to the 2012 annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) that was held in New Orleans, La. She discussed how the improvement of science and technology along with more accurate and reliable weather forecasts have helped protect life and property across the nation. She also described how the NOAA's Weather-Ready Nation initiative not only seeks forecast improvement but also attempts to understand human behaviors prior to and during severe weather events. [NOAA News]
• Research scientist earns international honor for climate change research -- A senior research scientist with the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, Isaac Held, PhD, will receive the internationally prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his studies on atmospheric water vapor that have contributed to improved understanding of atmospheric circulation systems and climate change. BBVA is an international financial services group based in Spain. [NOAA News]
• Los Angeles becomes StormReady and TsunamiReady -- NOAA's National Weather Service recently declared that the City of Los Angeles has become StormReady® and TsunamiReady™, which are part of two nationwide voluntary community preparedness programs designed to help communities develop plans to prepare and warn citizens about severe weather, flooding and tsunami threats. [NOAA News]
• Weather-Ready Nation emergency response project launched -- The New Orleans/Baton Rouge Forecast Office of NOAA's National Weather Service unveiled a rapid response project designed to provide emergency response 24 hours per day and 7 days per week during high-impact weather events and other disasters as a part of NOAA's Weather-Ready Nation initiative. A 38-foot response trailer would provide mobile weather capability. The response desk would include a team of meteorologists and hydrologists who would provide forecasts, warnings and decision support services. [NOAA News]
• Satellites help rescue over 200 people last year -- During last year (2011), 207 people were rescued from life-threatening situations throughout the US and on its surrounding waters in part because of the role that NOAA’s fleet of satellites played. Detecting distress signals from emergency beacons, these satellites helped in pinpointing the location of these people and relaying this information to first responders who perform the actual rescue. NOAA's geosynchronous and polar-orbiting satellites, together with Russia’s Cospas spacecraft, are part of the international COSPAS-SARSAT (COSPAS a Russian abbreviation for "Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress" and SARSAT "Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking") system. [NOAA News]
• Annual drought report -- The National Climate Data Center has posted its 2011 annual drought report online. This report describes how the areas experiencing drought and wet conditions changed throughout the calendar year. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, approximately 18 percent of the area of the United States experienced moderate to severe drought conditions at the start of January 2011. By the end of December 2011, the size of the moderate to severe drought had reached approximately 25 percent of the nation's area.
• New national plant hardiness map released -- Recently, the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service released its new USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map for the United States that is based upon 30 years of data running between 1976-2005. This new GIS (Geographic Information System)-based map map, which considers average annual extreme minimum temperature for the 30-year interval, is designed for use on the Internet by gardeners as a guide to planting and replaces a map produced in 1990 that was limited to a single printed national display of average minimum temperatures for the 1974-1986 period arranged in latitudinal belts. The new maps show that the hardiness zones, which are based upon 10 Fahrenheit degree increments, have tended to migrate northward in response to higher temperatures during the last several decades. [USA Today] [Editor's note: The Arbor Day Foundation has also produced its own map in 2006 based upon the 1991 through 2005 data. EJH]
• Case of Earth's "Missing Energy" is solved -- A researcher from NASA's Langley Research Center and an international team of atmospheric scientists and oceanographers have resolved the mystery of "missing energy" in the Earth's system related to inconsistencies between satellite observations of planetary energy budget and measurement of ocean heating. The new study used data collected between 2001 and 2010 from NASA Langley's orbiting Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Experiment (CERES) instruments that measure changes in the net radiation balance at the top of Earth's atmosphere and estimates of the heat content of the global ocean from three independent ocean-sensor sources. Their analysis found that the satellite and ocean measurements are in broad agreement when observational uncertainties are considered. [ NASA Langley Research]
• Studying the Alaskan permafrost from the air -- A pioneering airborne electromagnetic survey conducted by the US Geological Survey of the ground surface of east central Alaska has yielded images showing the presence or absence of permafrost across the Yukon Flats near Fort Yukon. These images obtained from an aircraft showed the permafrost to depths of nearly 328 feet and provide a detailed picture of the state of the permafrost in the boundary region between continuous and discontinuous permafrost. [USGS Newsroom]
• Evaluating geoengineering and global food supply -- A research team from the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University conducted numerical climate simulations to examine the potential effects that geoengineering would have upon climate and global food supply. One of the geoengineering proposals considered would involve dispersing small particles across the stratosphere to produce a sunscreen to lower global temperatures. The team found that sunshade geoengineering leads to increased crop yields in most regions, but some areas would be harmed by the geoengineering. [Carnegie Institution for Science]
  In a similar study, University of Washington researchers claim that injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere to serve as a sunscreen would achieve only a portion of the desired effect, but could also cause some serious unintended consequences. [University of Washington]
• An All-Hazards Monitor--
This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [ NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes --
A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [ NCDC]
• Earthweek --
Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2012, The American Meteorological Society.