Buresh

"Buresh Blog": Dry pattern & wildfires to continue - May 10th

May 10, 2017 — Our dry weather pattern appears to look like it will persist through most of the rest of May.  It's not unusual to be dry this time of year -- see graph below -- but the problem is we've been dry for the better part of each month going back to hurricane "Matthew" the first week of Oct.(!).

So if we go purely by averages, our "wet season" (50%+ of annual rainfall is June - Sept.) is just around the corner. Our wet season is not generally driven by storm systems & fronts but rather the daily sea breeze that pushes across the area from the ocean (Atlantic & Gulf depending on surface winds) helping to trigger afternoon showers & t'storms.  It looks like we'll get at least some hints of this afternoon t'storm activity the last week or so of May but probably not anything persistent or widespread.  Longer days, hotter temps. & low rainfall add up to a third of an inch or so of evaporation every day through May into June.

So the local area of Jacksonville/NE Fl. & SE Ga. will continue to be plagued by a very high wildfire threat & areas of smoke - most notably from the W. Mims Fire - the biggest wildfire to affect the Okefenokee Swamp in Ga. since the great Bugaboo fire in 2007 which was not thoroughly extinguished until tropical storm "Barry" swamped the tremendous fire (500,000+ acres!) the first week of June.  If only we could be so lucky this year.

Our dry weather pattern appears to look like it will persist through most of the rest of May.  It's not unusual to be dry this time of year -- see graph below -- but the problem is we've been dry for the better part of each month going back to hurricane "Matthew" the first week of Oct.(!).

So if we go purely by averages, our "wet season" (50%+ of annual rainfall is June - Sept.) is just around the corner. Our wet season is not generally driven by storm systems & fronts but rather the daily sea breeze that pushes across the area from the ocean (Atlantic & Gulf depending on surface winds) helping to trigger afternoon showers & t'storms.  It looks like we'll get at least some hints of this afternoon t'storm activity the last week or so of May but probably not anything persistent or widespread.  Longer days, hotter temps. & low rainfall add up to a third of an inch or so of evaporation every day through May into June.

So the local area of Jacksonville/NE Fl. & SE Ga. will continue to be plagued by a very high wildfire threat & areas of smoke - most notably from the W. Mims Fire - the biggest wildfire to affect the Okefenokee Swamp in Ga. since the great Bugaboo fire in 2007 which was not thoroughly extinguished until tropical storm "Barry" swamped the tremendous fire (500,000+ acres!) the first week of June.  If only we could be so lucky this year.

Our dry weather pattern appears to look like it will persist through most of the rest of May.  It's not unusual to be dry this time of year -- see graph below -- but the problem is we've been dry for the better part of each month going back to hurricane "Matthew" the first week of Oct.(!).

So if we go purely by averages, our "wet season" (50%+ of annual rainfall is June - Sept.) is just around the corner. Our wet season is not generally driven by storm systems & fronts but rather the daily sea breeze that pushes across the area from the ocean (Atlantic & Gulf depending on surface winds) helping to trigger afternoon showers & t'storms.  It looks like we'll get at least some hints of this afternoon t'storm activity the last week or so of May but probably not anything persistent or widespread.  Longer days, hotter temps. & low rainfall add up to a third of an inch or so of evaporation every day through May into June.

So the local area of Jacksonville/NE Fl. & SE Ga. will continue to be plagued by a very high wildfire threat & areas of smoke - most notably from the W. Mims Fire - the biggest wildfire to affect the Okefenokee Swamp in Ga. since the great Bugaboo fire in 2007 which was not thoroughly extinguished until tropical storm "Barry" swamped the tremendous fire (500,000+ acres!) the first week of June.  If only we could be so lucky this year.

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Our dry weather pattern appears to look like it will persist through most of the rest of May.  It's not unusual to be dry this time of year -- see graph below -- but the problem is we've been dry for the better part of each month going back to hurricane "Matthew" the first week of Oct.(!).

So if we go purely by averages, our "wet season" (50%+ of annual rainfall is June - Sept.) is just around the corner. Our wet season is not generally driven by storm systems & fronts but rather the daily sea breeze that pushes across the area from the ocean (Atlantic & Gulf depending on surface winds) helping to trigger afternoon showers & t'storms.  It looks like we'll get at least some hints of this afternoon t'storm activity the last week or so of May but probably not anything persistent or widespread.  Longer days, hotter temps. & low rainfall add up to a third of an inch or so of evaporation every day through May into June.

So the local area of Jacksonville/NE Fl. & SE Ga. will continue to be plagued by a very high wildfire threat & areas of smoke - most notably from the W. Mims Fire - the biggest wildfire to affect the Okefenokee Swamp in Ga. since the great Bugaboo fire in 2007 which was not thoroughly extinguished until tropical storm "Barry" swamped the tremendous fire (500,000+ acres!) the first week of June.  If only we could be so lucky this year.

** New **:  Satellite images of Earth at night — often referred to as "night lights" — have been a gee-whiz curiosity for the public and a tool for fundamental research for nearly 25 years - click here. They have provided a broad, beautiful picture, showing how humans have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness. Produced every decade or so, such maps have spawned hundreds of pop-culture uses and dozens of economic, social science and environmental research projects. Image below: 
Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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