The Future of Drone Delivery Hinges on Predicting the Weather Block by Block

Imagine a weather report so precise it provides wind-gust forecasts for individual city blocks. Such micro-weather data may soon become a reality—and a necessity for future fleets of delivery drones.

As Amazon.com Inc., United Parcel Service Inc., Domino’s Pizza Inc., and others gear up to launch autonomous drone deliveries of books, pills, and pizza, companies are realizing it’s the quality of hyperlocal weather data more than anything else that will steer their packages around storm clouds and through wind-buffeted urban canyons.

“The weather issue is a very significant one,” said Sean Cassidy, director of safety and regulatory affairs for Amazon’s drone unit. “We don’t have anything at the level of granularity that you would need to operate.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-21/the-future-of-drone-delivery-hinges-on-predicting-the-weather-block-by-block

Sun Showers and the Science Behind This Weather Paradox

Some just call it a sun shower. Others say the devils are getting married — or the rats, or the foxes are having a wedding. In some places, a hyena is giving birth or there’s a hole in the heavens. And although unnerving, some casually remark that the devil is beating his wife. These are a few ways people around the world have described the phenomenon of rain falling at the same time the sun is shining.

You won’t find any of these terms in the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, but there’s always a place somewhere on this planet where you can stumble upon this magical weather paradox. And as summer officially begins, full of sunshine and thunderstorms, let’s take a moment to appreciate the science behind these sun showers, even if they don’t make much of an impression on meteorologists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/science/sun-showers-science-meterology.html

I Pulled 30 Years of Weather Data to Calculate the Perfect Wedding Date

I am insufferable.

Here's what happens when you get engaged: you experience roughly 24 hours of heady bliss, champagne, and congratulations. Then reality descends and you remember you now have to plan a wedding.

According to common sense, Pinterest, and Emily Post, the first step is to pick a date, which should be fairly simple. But if you want to get married in the cheap showiness of nature (and in Canada) like I do, weather is a pretty big consideration. Since my fiancé is a data journalist and I'm a science journalist, we naturally decided we'd choose the date based on data.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xpygz/i-pulled-30-years-of-weather-data-to-calculate-the-perfect-wedding-date

A terrifying threat from Tropical Storm Cindy: Floating masses of deadly fire ants

Tropical Storm Cindy may have been downgraded to a tropical depression Thursday, but that doesn’t mean Gulf Coast residents are in the clear.

As the storm moves inland, it’s still expected to dump enough rainfall between Texas and Florida to cause severe flooding, which raises the possibility of another threat that may take some locals by surprise: floating fire ants.

The notoriously tough insects are just as dangerous when they’re wet as they are dry, according to Alabama officials, who are warning residents to keep their eyes peeled for floating mounds of fire ants.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/22/a-terrifying-threat-from-tropical-storm-cindy-floating-masses-of-deadly-fire-ants/?tid=pm_local_pop&utm_term=.0de028770e67

IBM just threw its hat into the weather modeling ring

Computing giant IBM is getting into the weather modeling business. After buying the Weather Company — a.k.a. the Weather Channel — in 2016, it was only a matter of time before IBM combined supercomputers and weather forecasting.

Specifically, IBM and the Weather Company are collaborating with the National Center for Atmospheric Research to implement the MPAS model, or Model for Prediction Across Scales, on IBM’s new generation of supercomputers. The MPAS has been available for research and forecasting since 2013.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/22/ibm-just-threw-its-hat-into-the-weather-modelling-ring/?utm_term=.1cb6eea36a81

Why Phoenix gets so hot in June

PHOENIX — In the hottest big city in America, summer temperatures routinely top 100 degrees, and on rare occasions can creep beyond 120.

This week, the USA's 12th largest metro area is expected to flirt for at least three days with that top number. Not high enough to fry an egg on a sidewalk, but you might be able to sneak in the extra 40 degrees or so of heat if you set a dark-colored skillet in the sun first.

July has this area's hottest average high temperature, 106.1 degrees compared to 103.9 in June. But three of the four hottest days on record in Phoenix, including the all-time high of 122 degrees on June 26, 1990, have occurred in June.

Monday's high is expected to be 118 degrees. On Tuesday, it will be 120, and Wednesday it will be 119 before Thursday's "cool wave" brings it down to 114. At around 6 a.m. each day, we'll hit a low of 88 or 89.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/19/arizona-desert-heat-june/408363001/›

It’s June. California Is Still Covered in Snow

The summer solstice is just around the corner, but someone forgot to tell California’s snowpack.

After years of wallowing in drought, this winter walloped California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in a major, record-setting way. And while the calendar says summer, winter still has its grips on the granite spine of the Sierras.

NASA Earth Observatory released satellite imagery on Thursday that shows what a difference a year makes. Snowpack is at 170 percent of normal when averaged across the state and some areas are reporting way higher totals than that, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Alpine Meadows, located just west of Lake Tahoe, reported 288 inches of snow on the ground (no, that’s not a typo) as of early June. Deep green hues of healthy vegetation also extend down the Sierra Nevada western slope, another benefit of all that precipitation.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/june-california-snow-21548

Deadly Heat Waves Could Endanger 74% of Mankind by 2100, Study Says

Deadly heat waves—already a risk for 30 percent of the world's population—will spread around the globe, posing a danger for 74 percent of people on Earth by the end of this century if nothing is done to address climate change, according to a new study.

Nearly as alarming, the researchers project that even if greenhouse gases are aggressively reduced, at least 48 percent of the population will still face deadly heat waves by 2100 because of the amount of long-lived heat-trapping gases that already have accumulated in the atmosphere.

"We're running out of good options for the future," said lead author Camilo Mora, a biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "For heat waves, our options are now between bad or terrible."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19062017/heat-waves-world-population-risk-endangered-climate-change-study

Newly-named cloud makes eerie appearance over Great Lakes

Strange clouds appeared above Michigan's Thumb June 13, 2017. These clouds have been given their own classification in the past 10 years. This type of cloud is the first cloud type to get a new classification since the 1950s.

The wavy clouds that appeared over Michigan's Thumb June 13, 2017 are now called asperatus clouds. That cloud classification didn't even exist until the World Meteorological Organization recognized them in the International Cloud Atlas this past spring.

Asperatus means rough. If you flew through air where these clouds were located, you would know why we call them rough. The clouds are formed in the leftover undulating atmosphere, after a complex of severe thunderstorms rolls through. These clouds were formed Tuesday morning, June 13, 2017, after severe storms moved through northern Lower Michigan Monday night.

http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/06/newly_named_cloud_makes_eerie.html

Strange ice lolly icicles seen floating in clouds above the UK

A cloud full of ice lollies sounds like something out of a fairy tale. But this phenomenon has been spotted in cloud systems over the UK and North Atlantic.

A significant concentration of these curious ice formations – in the shape of a stick with a spherical head at the end – were seen on a research flight over the north-east Atlantic Ocean last September, after previously being observed over the south-west UK in January 2009. Stavros Keppas and his colleagues at the University of Manchester have now published their findings from both flights.

The observations made in 2009 were more comprehensive, as measurements from the aircraft’s on-board probes were combined with data from a radar system in the southern UK. There was no radar coverage in 2016 because the sighting was in a relatively remote region.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2137646-strange-ice-lolly-icicles-seen-floating-in-clouds-above-the-uk/

Climate change in schools where it's 'fake news'

(CNN)Eric Madrid teaches advanced sciences, including topics on climate change and evolution, to high school students in the deep-red Texas Hill Country.

As one might expect in this conservative bastion of the nation, some of the students say it's all lies or fake news.

"But that's usually in the beginning of the semester," said Madrid, who left a Ph.D.-level research gig to go into public education. "As I show them data and evidence, that tends to go away."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/health/climate-change-schools-partner/index.html

Scientists just linked another record-breaking weather event to climate change

Last year, a remarkable April heat wave shattered all-time temperature records across Southeast Asia, prompting public health concerns, killing at least one elephant and making international headlines. Now, scientists believe the event was driven by the combined influence of a strong El Niño event and human-caused climate change. And they say events like it will only become more common in the future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/06/scientists-just-linked-another-record-breaking-weather-event-to-climate-change/?utm_term=.af4d10f862dc

Cheesecake Factory shares plunge after restaurant chain blames weather for declining sales

Cheesecake Factory said sales will fall this quarter because of poor weather, but investors aren't buying that excuse.

Shares of Cheesecake Factory dropped 8 percent in trading Tuesday.

The company lowered its second quarter 2017 outlook and now expects comparable sales at Cheesecake Factory restaurants to be down approximately 1 percent. This adjustment represents a shift from the company's previous guidance for an increase of one to two percent for the quarter. Analysts expected an increase of 1.7 percent, on average, according to FactSet.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/13/cheesecake-factory-drops-after-restaurant-blames-weather-for-sales.html

Hot Weather Workout? Try a Hot Bath Beforehand

There are many ways to cope with exercising in hot weather. But one of the most effective may be, surprisingly, to soak in long, hot baths in the days beforehand, according to a well-timed new study of how best to prepare for athletic competitions in the heat.

Across the United States and much of the Northern hemisphere, summer temperatures are spiking, which can make outdoor exercise grueling. When it is hot, our hearts labor to shunt more blood to the skin, which allows internal heat to dissipate but also leaves us feeling fatigued and logy and potentially at risk for heat illnesses, ranging from nausea to grievous heat stroke.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/well/move/hot-weather-workout-try-a-hot-bath-beforehand.html?_r=0

15 Suggestions By Leading TV Meteorologists To Improve Weather Communication Now

The majority of meteorologists (greater than 91%) are not on television as the public assumes, however, the roughly 9% that are in the broadcast sector play a critical role in communicating weather information and warnings. In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that properly and effectively warning the public about weather hazards is about more than the latest radar, models, or satellite technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/06/08/15-suggestions-by-leading-tv-meteorologists-to-improve-weather-communication-now/#7c963928117e

Brad Pitt Delivers Bleak Weather Forecast: ‘There Is No Future'

Brad Pitt won’t silently weather the storm. The actor made a surprise appearance on Comedy Central’s The Jim Jefferies Show and didn’t hold back while poking fun at President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/brad-pitt-predicts-there-is-no-future-in-weather-forecast-w486718

Huge Fish Die-Off in Washington's Puget Sound Blamed on Hot Weather

Thousands of anchovies washed up on the shores of Puget Sound in Washington last week after hot weather over the Memorial Day weekend changed the feeding patterns of the fish, state wildlife officials say.

The fish reportedly began to wash up on beaches at Case Inlet near Belfair, Washington, early last week and continued to do so throughout the week, KOMO News reported.

https://weather.com/science/nature/news/washington-fish-die-off-hot-weather

How does weather influence your allergy symptoms?

Weather determines if seeds will sprout, if flowers will bloom and where pollen will spread, so it can play a major role in aggravating the symptoms of allergy sufferers.

"The best weather for allergy sufferers depends on what you are allergic to," said Dr. Cristina Porch-Curren, fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Coastal Allergy Care. 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-does-weather-influence-your-allergy-symptoms/70001608

Does the weather affect voter turnout at elections?

The long-held belief, is that a rainy election day puts people off venturing outdoors and heading to the polling station. If that is the case, then turnout could be poor for the general election this Thursday, with rain and also blustery winds in the forecast.

Most of central and northern Great Britain will see rain spreading up from the south throughout the day, with blustery winds making things feel more unpleasant for areas across the west. Cities such as Cardiff, Bristol, and even Birmingham in the Midlands will see some very strong winds throughout the day.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/weather-affect-voter-turnout-elections-170606112556717.html

Tornado won't stop Canadian man from mowing his lawn, viral photo shows

A photograph captured a brave Canadian man continuing to mow his lawn in Alberta while a tornado swirled behind him on Friday.

The stunning photograph showed a massive tornado spinning a distance away and a man, appearing unfazed, mowing his lawn.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/06/05/canadian-man-defies-weather-to-mow-lawn-create-viral-moment.html