Dec 26-30, 2022 Weather & Climate News

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Dec 26, 2022, 6:17:48 AM12/26/22
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(Source:  AMS, 12/26/22)

WEEKLY WEATHER AND CLIMATE NEWS 26-30 December 2022

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Items of Interest:
  • A word of caution when using the NCEI "Climate at a Glance" website -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently telling potential users of its Climate at a Glance website that NCEI is aware that this site is currently experiencing degraded functionality. They expect full capability to be restored in early 2023 and have apologized for any inconvenience. Therefore, check the data that you access from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/ to make sure that no obvious inconsistencies are present. [NOAA NCEI]
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  • Watching for high ocean tides along nation's coasts continues into early this week -- According to the NOAA National Ocean Service's High Tide Bulletin for Winter 2022, higher than average astronomical tides should continue along the U.S. Pacific Coast (California northward to Washington state and in Alaska) this Monday, the 26th, for Alaska and Wednesday the 28th along the California-Washington coasts). These higher tides started last Tuesday (20 December). Higher than average tides should be expected for the U.S. Atlantic Coasts (Maine southward to South Florida) along with the coasts of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands (Guam, American Samoa, Midway, Kwajalein and Wake Island) should also running through this Monday. Some minor coastal flooding could result along any of these coasts. In addition to tides that are higher than normal high astronomical tides during this week, lower than normal low tides can be encountered each day. The nation's Gulf of Mexico coast should not be significantly impacted by high ocean tides this month.
    These above- and below-average tides are known as a perigean spring tides, caused by the occurrence of lunar perigee (when the Moon is closest to Earth) and a new or full moon. Lunar perigee occurred early Saturday morning (24 December at 08:34 Z), which is only 22 hours after passage of new moon (10:18 Z on 23 December). [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
  • No additional "leap second" will lengthen 2022 -- The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) has determined that a "leap second" will not be inserted to lengthen the calendar year of 2022. Since January 1972, as many as 27 "leap seconds" have been inserted on the last day of December (16 times) and the last day of June (11 times). The most recent insertion has been on 31 December 2016, when the IERS atomic clocks were stopped for one second just before midnight (2359Z, or 6:59 PM EST, 5:59 PM CST, etc.) to readjust the time scale based on the atomic clock to the time scale based upon the rotation of the Earth with respect to the sun. However, based upon current calculations, no correction is contemplated this year. Tidal friction and other natural phenomena have slowed the Earth's rotation rate by approximately two milliseconds per day. [IERS Bulletin C]
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  • NOAA Research’s top five stories in 2022 are reviewed -- The five biggest research stories appearing on the NOAA Research website during this past year have been reviewed recently. These stories were: 1.) Preparing the nation for the impacts of climate change.  NOAA Research continued its work enhancing the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), a multi-agency partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, forecasting, planning, and information. Work was also continued on the collaborative, interagency National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) that launched the Heat.gov website that provides the public and decision makers with clear, timely and science-based information to understand and reduce the health risks of extreme heat. 2.) Greenhouse gas emissions on the rise, ozone hole on the mend. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that was measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory during 2022 peaking at a monthly average of 421 parts per million (ppm)m which is a record in the 64-year Mauna Loa period of record. On the other hand, the amount of ozone-depleting chemical chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in the atmosphere decreased this year in response to the sharp drop in emissions of CFC-11. 3.) Learning more about hurricane intensification through new technology and research. In 2022, NOAA and its partner Saildrone Inc, launched seven hurricane-tracking Saildrones, which are uncrewed systems that collect pertinent atmospheric and oceanic data from areas that are too dangerous for humans. In addition, underwater hurricane gliders, drifters, ARGO Floats, eXpendable BathyThermographs and the Altius-600 drone were also deployed in the vicinity of tropical cyclones. 4.) How wildfire research improves fire and smoke predictions. NOAA scientists used a version of NOAA’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) short–term weather mode identified as the HRRR Smoke model to produce forecasts of near-surface smoke and smoke aloft.   5.) Exploring the deep leads to new discoveries, and new questions. NOAA Ocean Exploration scientists explored areas nearly four miles beneath the ocean’s surface during their Voyage to the Ridge 2022 expedition. They observed an investigated sets of mysterious sublinear holes along the seafloor. NOAA Ocean Exploration and partners discovered the wreck of a 207 year old whaling ship, called Industry, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. [NOAA Research News]
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Weather and Climate News Items:
  • Eye on the tropics -- Two tropical cyclones were reported to be traveling across the South Indian Ocean basin last week:
    • In the South Indian Ocean basin (that includes the South-West Indian Ocean south of the Equator from Africa's east coast to the 90-degrees East meridian and the Australian region from 90 degrees East to Australia --    
      • The tropical storm identified as Darian strengthened to a category 1 tropical cyclone (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) last Monday as it traveled across the waters in the Australian region of the eastern South Indian Ocean to the west of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a remote territory of Australia. west of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a remote territory of Australia. During the remainder of Monday and into Tuesday, Darian continued to intensify, becoming a category 3 tropical cyclone with 125-mph sustained near-surface winds. After heading generally toward the south, Darian took a turn toward the west and west-northwest. By Wednesday, Darian became a category 4 tropical cyclone. Darian reached peak intensity late Friday when sustained winds reached an estimated 155 mph. After reaching this peak intensity, Darian began weakening as it made a turn toward the south on Saturday, nearly 2000 miles to the east of Reunion Island. As of early Monday, Tropical Cyclone Darian was traveling toward the south and was approximately 1075 miles southeast of Diego Garcia. At the time Darian was a category 3 tropical cyclone. Darian was forecast to curve toward the southwest and continue weakening as it heads across the South Indian Ocean, passing well to the east and south of island of Rodrigues and the island nation of Mauritius. Eventually, this tropical cyclone should dissipate near the end of this week.
      • A tropical low developed last Tuesday over the waters of the Timor Sea between the island of Timor and the coasts of Northern and Western Australia. After heading toward the southeast and then the south, this low became a tropical storm on Thursday that was called Ellie with maximum sustained near-surface winds of 40 mph. Within six hours, Tropical Storm Ellie reached peak intensity with sustained winds of 45 mph as it crossed the Timor Sea and approached Australia's Northern Territory coast. As it approached the coast, torrential rain and gale-force winds spread across the coasts of Western Australia and Northern Territory. By late Thursday night, Ellie made landfall along a sparsely populated section of coast southwest of Daly River, in the Northern Territory of Australia. After making landfall, Ellie became a weak tropical low as it continued inland, where it eventually dissipated.
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  • More areas of the nation received a "White Christmas" than in recent years-- According to the National Weather Service's National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC), 53.5% of the area of the 48 contiguous United States was covered with snow on Christmas Day, 25 December 2022. The average snow depth was 4.4 inches. (NOTE: Since these preliminary NOHRSC data are based upon a variety of datasets, they are not considered to represent the official White Christmas reports of at least one inch of snow at 12:00 Z on Christmas morning that are maintained by NOAA's National Weather Service Offices and that can be accessed from their NOWData pages. EJH) The NOHRSC coverage reported this Christmas is in marked contrast with the last several years when NOHRSC reported 26.6% of the area of the "Lower 48" last Christmas Day (in 2021), with an average depth of 2.6 inches, and 26.5% coverage in 2020 (with an average depth of 1.6 inches). Five years ago in 2017, nearly half (49%) of the "Lower 48 States" had a "White Christmas" with an average depth of 2.7 inches. [NWS NOHRSC National Snow Analyses]
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  • Annual Arctic Report Card for 2022 released -- Earlier this month, NOAA's Climate Program Office released its seventeenth annual update of the agency's "Arctic Report Card" for 2022, a peer-reviewed report of the state of the air, ocean and ice in the Arctic basin. This report, which has been issued annually since 2006, was prepared by an international team of 147 experts from 11 different countries, including scientists from NOAA. A team that includes Native Alaskan scientists, authored [NOAA Arctic Report Card]
    Highlights from the 2022 update to NOAA's Arctic Report Card can be found in maps and charts that appear on NOAA's Climate.gov Media website at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/2022-arctic-report-card-image-highlights :
    • Additional detailed information along with a 3:39-minute narrated YouTube video entitled " NOAA Arctic Report Card 2022" is available in this report.    
  • A global climate review is released for November 2022 and September-November 2022 season -- Scientists at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently posted their analyses of preliminary weather data collected worldwide during the month of November. [NOAA November 2022 Global Climate Report] They reported:
    • For November --
      • The worldwide combined ocean and land surface temperature for November 2022 was the ninth highest global November surface temperature since a sufficiently dense and reliable network began in 1880. This combined global November temperature was 0.76 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century (1901-2000) average November temperature of 55.2 degrees Fahrenheit; the record highest November temperature departure from average was in November 2015 with a reading of 1.80 Fahrenheit degrees. When treated separately, the global ocean surface temperature departure for November 2022 was the fifth highest for any November since 1880, with a temperature anomaly (departure) of 1.22 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average for a November temperature over the ocean, while the global land surface temperature departure for last month was the seventeenth highest temperature reading for any November on record, with a temperature anomaly of 1.73 Fahrenheit degrees. The largest ocean-only November temperature departure was +1.53 in November 2015, while the record highest land-only temperature departure was +3.10 Fahrenheit degrees in 2020.
      • A global "Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events: November 2022" map of is available from NCEI.
      • According to satellite data collected by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the sea ice over the Arctic Ocean during November 2022 was the eighth smallest areal extent of sea ice cover for any November since satellite-derived ice records began in 1979; the smallest November ice extent in the Arctic was in November 2016. Last month's sea ice around Antarctica was the fifth smallest November ice extent in the 44-year period of record, trailing the November 2016, which had the smallest extent.
      • The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent according to Rutgers Global Snow Lab was the fourth largest November snow cover in the 57-year period of record that began in 1966. The extent of snow cover across North America was the third largest on record. [NOAA/NCEI Global Snow & Ice]
    • For September-November --
      • The seasonal global land and ocean temperature for the three-months of September through November 2022 (Northern Hemisphere autumn and Southern Hemisphere spring) was approximately 1.51 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average, placing this three-month average in a three-way tie with 2016 and 2018 for fifth highest temperature departure from average for those three months on record; The September-November 2005 global combined land and ocean temperature anomaly of 1.78 Fahrenheit degrees above average was the highest. The September-November 2022 average ocean-only temperature departure was the fifth highest at +1.28 Fahrenheit degrees, behind the record anomaly in September-November 2015, while the three-month temperature anomaly over land was the sixth highest on record, falling 0.47 Fahrenheit degrees below the record highest set two years ago (2020).
    • For January-November --
      •    When considering the global temperature for the first eleven months of 2022, the year-to-date has been the sixth highest in 143 years, with a global combined ocean-land temperature that is 1.55 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th-century average, which is 0.27 Fahrenheit degrees below the record high anomaly set in the January through November 2016 interval.
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  • UK Met Office global average temperature forecast made for 2023 -- During the last week, scientists at the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office (UK Met Office) released their annual global temperature forecast for the upcoming year of 2023. They anticipate that this upcoming year would be one of the warmest since global temperature records began in 1850. Their estimated global average temperature in 2023 would be 1.20 Celsius degrees (2.16 Fahrenheit degrees) above the pre-industrial average period from 1850 to 1900, with a range of uncertainty extending from 0.12 Celsius degrees (0.22 Fahrenheit degrees) above and below this central estimate. Although their forecast for 2023 is for a global temperature that would be one of the six highest on record (all occurring since 2015), it is slightly lower than their forecasted temperatures made for several of the preceding years because of the influence of the current La Niña event that has lowered sea surface temperatures across a wide swath of the tropical Pacific Ocean. In verifying the Met Office forecast issued in late December 2021, their projected 2022 global mean temperature at that time had a central estimate of 1.09 Celsius degrees above the 1850-1900 average (with a range of 0.97 to 1.21 Celsius degrees). This projected 2022 temperature agrees closely with the latest observations of a global mean temperature from January to October 2022 (inclusive) that is approximately 1.16 Celsius degrees above pre-industrial levels. [UK Met Office News]
  • An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
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