Weather

A new report from the Farm Journal Foundation finds that increased U.S. investments in agricultural development and innovation are needed to make global food systems more resilient.  While climate change impacts agriculture worldwide, its effects are "substantially more severe" in warm regions, including Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  The rep...

Ask Brad Rippey, and he’ll tell you that it’s abnormally dry for this time of year.  According to the USDA meteorologist, the November 1st U.S. drought monitor, which shows drought coverage across the lower 48 states.   “Is 62.8%, a ten-percentage point incre...

"Presently, we do have drought in all three of the nation's major where we production areas.  The white winter wheat in the Northwest the hard red winter wheat across the Great Plains and the soft red winter wheat it's grown from the mid-South into the lower Midwest.” ...

Research by Penn State University published in ScienceDaily shows food insecurity increases when rainfall is below normal.  The researchers focused on food insecurity in Tanzania, and found moving from a year with typical rainfall to a particularly dry year was associated with a 13-percentage-point increase in the risk of being food insecure.  Tanzani...

The 2023 water year started October 1st, but unfortunately persistent drought remains for much of Oregon.  Pacific Northwest forecaster Washington State University’s Joe Boomgard-Zagrodnik said it’ll be tough for some of the driest areas to recover.   "The areas w...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, recently released its U.S. Winter Outlook.  Beginning in December and running through February 2023, NOAA predicts drier-than-average conditions in the South with wetter-than-average conditions in the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, northern Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest.   ...

With the wet and cooler weather, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources is planning a prescribed burn for 240 acres of state land located about seven miles north of Deer Park.  DNR hopes to start that burn Monday.   The prescribed fires will help control the amount of fuel available for wildfires, improve the health of older trees and support new and current wildlife habitats.  A rec

The Environmental Defense Fund says extreme heat, changing rainfall, and other climate change impacts will make it harder to grow U.S. staple crops as soon as 2030.   The group said future food supplies and farmer livelihoods will be at stake without adaptation efforts getting underway immediately.  Th...

On Tuesday, ERS reported the ongoing Western drought is the most extreme drought in the region since 2000.  As of Monday, September 19th, the U.S. Drought Monitor classified more than 18% of land in the Western States as experiencing extreme or exceptional drought.  In July...

Temperatures may be dropping across the region, and there’s even a possibility we’ll see a few rain showers this weekend across the Pacific Northwest.  But that does not mean the risk of wildfires has gone away.  At last report, over two dozen fires of size are burning across the PNW.   And if you plan to enj...