🔥 A rare “Critical Fire Weather” Risk issued for Central #Florida today. 🔥
Be safe everyone!

Critical #fire danger across #Florida today and Mother Nature says… No #Rain for you! Prospects for rain the next 10 days are bleak in most of the sunshine state.
On the other hand much of the Southeast will cash in. They need it too. 100% of the SE is in #drought

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We need to take #ClimateAction by choosing #climate resilient development pathways (2)

Learn more📖 www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/w...

PL RP Thank you!🩷💚💙

graph from: ' #ClimateChange 2022 - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability' @ipcc.bsky.social

#EndFossilFuels #SaveOurPlanet #SaveTheEarth #Klima

See the magenta in the middle of the map? That’s alert level 4 of 5 for bleaching in the #Galapagos. Common in El Niño where cool water upwelling slows/ stops and surface waters significantly warm. The sea surface temp anomaly is +3-4°C (~6°F). That’s why life suffers there every El Niño

This is the drought index. Deeper red equals deeper drought.
The fires on the map are hotspots identified by NASA/NOAA satellite.
#Florida #fire #drought 🔥

🔥 High Fire Danger today and tomorrow in North & Central Florida. So far it’s the worst fire season in at least a decade, with 2.5X the average acreage burned and 1800 individual fires. With humidity as low as 25% and winds gusts 💨 to 30 mph, any sparks will ignite and spread fire rapidly… 1/

The #1 worst spring drought, so far, on record in US history! That’s where we find ourselves today. 100% of the Southeast is in #drought, 70% of the US, and 3/4 of #Florida in “extreme” drought. Lack or rain and the #1 warmest US year on record to date is how we got here…

In many cases 15-20” below normal during the ~6 months. Meanwhile 3/4 of Florida is in extreme drought. Lots of ground to make up to abolish the #drought!

The scope of how dry it’s been in the Southeast is remarkable! Every area in the darker shade of brown is the driest stretch on record. It’s the vast majority of the SE and N #florida. 100% of the SE is in drought… 83% severe or worse… 1/

The heatwave will peak today with multiple record highs expected…
Sure it’s hot, but it’s not “unprecedented” heat for this time of year.
These are the monthly April high temperature records for select cities all around #Florida. In many cases we’ll fall short by a few to several degrees #heatwave

if you are “a wee bit” inland, you’re sweating Saturday! Cooler close to the Atlantic and Gulf Beaches. #heatwave #florida

Sweaty Saturday for Florida!
Peak heat hits Saturday with afternoon feels like temps topping 95° near/ east of I-75 - away from the Gulf. I’m looking at you Tampa, Orlando, Lakeland, Gainesville, Ocala, Villages, North Port, Ft Myers, etc… 1/

Note: there are two different drought indices displayed. Top is US Drought Monitor. Bottom is Palmer Drought Severity Index

Copious rain 🌧️ is what’s needed to stave off a rough fire 🔥 season!
Worth noting, there was only one instance where the drought was worse - it was summer of 1934, near peak of the Dust Bowl.

~80% of the US is in #drought, with 40% in severe or greater. The dryness is due partially to lack of rain, but also the warmest year on record so far for much of the nation. This further evaporates the soil moisture, pushing us deeper into drought… 2/

Just how bad is this spring’s drought?? The worst in US History, going all the way back to the 1890s, even worse than Dust Bowl springs. And #Florida is among the worst in the nation… 1/

Record hot weekend ahead, but then it’s time for a cool change next week!!
The 24-hour temp change from Sunday to Monday is 10-20°, with temps dropping from 90° into the 70s for many from a cool-gusty NE wind. #florida

The core of the #heatwave heads south and hits hardest on Friday & Saturday in Florida. It was 90 in NYC, Philly and DC yesterday. So what can we expect, how does this heatwave measure up to others in April and what’s the hottest it can get in April?
Here’s the scoop… #florida

Upside down day…
New York, Philly and DC were all hotter than Florida today!!
The Big NE cities were in the low 90s, while most of #Florida was chilling in the 80s.
There were dozens of daily high temp records set today in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and New England.

So the rain that Florida and the Southeast had last week is all but forgotten in the soil. As the heat dome bakes us the next few days, on top of double digit rain deficits since fall, the drought will quickly go from bad to worse. This is when fire 🔥 danger really builds as dry fuels expand.

Drought update: What a difference just 1 week makes! Look at how fast the ground drys out in Spring. That’s because the air is dry, the sun is strong and the air is warm… that all equals rapid evaporation!… 1/

I interviewed Dr Samantha Hallam at @AMSTropical
Paper link: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

But an important caveat: their warmer-water experiments kept the surrounding atmosphere basically the same, so this does not mean warmer water automatically translates to that full wind increase in the real world, where factors like wind shear also matter… 4/

In the study, it’s argued that subsurface ocean water is a better gauge than surface water for intensity. The authors estimate ~30mph more peak wind per 1°C of ocean warming… 3/

At the time, Caribbean temperatures were around 1.5°C above average and the study says, without the extra ocean heat, Melissa may have been a Cat 4 instead of a Cat 5… 2/

Hurricane Melissa was about 40 mph stronger because of a warmer Caribbean!?
That’s what a new study in pre-print claims (peer-review not completed yet)… 1/

Well it’s not monthly heat… very few April records will fall. And the heat dome reaches the 99% level, but there have been a stronger heat dome or two on April in the east

It’s a strong, but not unprecedented #heatwave.
A nice cool down follows Sunday-early week.

Hundreds of record highs expected through the weekend! ~50 million people will hit 90°, with mid 90s in mid April for many.
150 record highs in big cities, but hundreds more in smaller cities, and this doesn’t include record warm AM temps… 1/

Well, except you #Florida. It will cool down nicely, but no real “chill” is in your future.