You may have read in the news earlier in May that NOAA has updated their “normals” for temperature and precipitation at stations around the country. In climatology, normals are the calculated averages over a specified time period. Usually, we use a 30-year period to capture what the average weather is like in a time period … Continue reading When normal isn’t normal
In this blog I’ve talked several times about El Niño and La Niña and how they affect climate across the Northern Hemisphere as well as their impacts on the rest of the world. We are currently in a strong El Niño with sea surface temperatures in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) that are much warmer … Continue reading The Times They Are A-Changin’—What the new La Niña Watch means for the NH growing season
Excitement spread across social media recently with the announcement that a genetically engineered tomato, creatively named “The Purple Tomato” is now available for home gardeners. Gardeners, plant scientists, and others rejoiced at the news that a purple tomato engineered with genes from a snapdragon to boost the plant pigment anthocyanin is now available for home … Continue reading Unpacking a Peck of Purple Genetically Engineered Tomatoes
This year is almost certain to be the warmest on record for the earth as a whole, although there are still a few days in December that could slightly affect the final numbers. As we close out 2023 I want to spend a few minutes reviewing the weather and climate of the past year, both … Continue reading The warmest year on record ends–will 2024 be hotter?
Over the last several months, I’ve covered plant disease basics and discussed plant diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, and viruses. In this fifth and final installment, I’m going to talk about diseases caused by anything but those three different agents. There are a few diseases caused by pathogens that fall outside of those well-known classifications. … Continue reading Plant Disease Primer Part 5: Malicious Misfits
This month has been an exciting one for climatologists around the United States with the November 14 release of the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), a massive project that is undertaken every four years to capture our current understanding of climate change based on recent research. I was a chapter author for the Southeast and … Continue reading 5th National Climate Assessment and an Update on the Plant Hardiness Zone Map
Earlier this spring, I posted an article about seasonal climate forecasting and noted that we expected to see the development of an El Niño after three years of La Niña conditions ended in March 2023. And sure enough, an El Niño was declared in August 2023 and has been strengthening ever since. It has a … Continue reading What a strong El Niño means for winter weather and our gardens
You may have seen it on the odd flower or plant here and there or you may be intentionally growing plants that show this unique and uncommon phenomenon. Fasciation (not fascination- though it certainly is pretty fascinating) is a malformation or abnormal pattern of growth in the apical meristem (growing tip) of plants. The apical … Continue reading The Fascinating Phenomenon of Fasciation
This past week I was out of town at a conference, and since the week was supposed to be a scorcher I made sure my husband was going to water the container plants daily. And indeed, temperatures were in the 90s, dropping to the mid-60s at night. But the container plants looked great when I … Continue reading Diagnosing Disasters: The Case of the Mopey Mophead
My news feed has been filled in recent weeks with many stories about the unusual heat that has affected many parts of North America, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean. High temperature records are being broken at an amazing rate, and while we don’t expect every day or season to break a new heat record, the … Continue reading It’s the heat (and the humidity!)
