This Sunday millions of people will come together all over the country to watch the Super Bowl. Whether you watch for the game or the commercials, it’s one of the biggest weekends of the year. This year, the big game heads down to the Big Easy for a rematch between Kansas City and Philadelphia. There
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California, especially Southern California is no stranger to drought. The last winter seasons brought a cascade of winter storms and precipitation to the Southern California region, but the same cannot be said for this winter. It’s late January and we just had our first winter storm of the season. 2024 was a very dry year
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It’s official… 2024 was the hottest in recorded history both here in the US and across the globe. Looking at the graphic below, we can see a sharp and intense increase in average global temperatures between the late 1800s through the modern day. 2024 was the first year whose average temperature exceeded the 1.5°C threshold
Continue ReadingIt’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone. December 2024 was very comfortable, there’s no doubt about that. However, it was an unusually warm month. In fact, nearly every day had a high temperature above the seasonal average. Only two days experienced temperatures equal to the season average and zero days were
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If you thought that we have been having more and more billion-dollar disasters, you’d be right. Through November of 2024, the US saw 24 billion-dollar disasters. This ranks second only to 2023 which saw 28 such disasters. While Hurricanes Helene and Milton are both counted on the list, the total extent of the damages is
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While some of the numbers are still being punched, 2024 is nearly certain to go down as the hottest year on record. This would unseat the current hottest year on record of 2023. Last year’s average temperature anomaly exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average. You may recall that 1.5°C (above the pre-industrial average) is the
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The Atlantic hurricane season formally came to an end on November 30th. Going into the season, the National Hurricane Center was forecasting an above-average season with somewhere between 17 and 25 named storms. They also predicted between 8 and 13 hurricanes and between 4 and 7 major hurricanes. This year saw a total of 18
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November 2024 was a very comfortable and mild month for the Coachella Valley. After several months of predominantly above-average temperatures, we certainly deserved a month like this. More than half the month gave us cooler-than-usual weather. Two days matched the seasonal average. While there were 11 days with warmer-than-usual temperatures, most of those days were
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October 2024 was the warmest October since at least the start of the 21st century. This was largely due to the exceptionally warm start to the month. Oct. 1st had a high of 117. This smashed the all-time high-temperature record for not just the day, but also the month. In total, there were 6 days
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Earlier today, a groundbreaking study was released that officially linked climate change to increased intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin (Nothern Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico). The authors found that all 11 hurricanes this year had intensified by somewhere between 9 and 28 miles per hour. In most cases, this was enough to
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A large and unusually strong storm is impacting much of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. The system is being called a “bomb cyclone”. A bomb cyclone is a classification a storm system earns if its pressure drops rapidly. If a (midlatitude) cyclone’s pressure falls at least 24 millibars in 24 hours, it can be
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On November 14th, the Climate Prediction Center released its latest update on what’s happening with La Nina. As a recap, La Nina is one of three phases in the climate cycle known as ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation). The other two are El Nino and the Neutral phase. La Nina represents cooler-than-usual ocean temperatures in
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Across the nation, winters are getting consistently warmer. Since 1970, winters have warmed by an average of 4° Fahrenheit across more than 230 cities. The most significant warming is being fest east of the Rocky Mountains, with the upper midwest and northeast seeing an average warming of 5.5°F and 5°F respectively. Closer to home, Riverside
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Winds remain fairly strong through this afternoon, prompting a number of advisories. Here in the Valley we have a Dust Advisory from the SCAQMD until 9:15 this evening. There are also Red Flag warnings and Wind Advisories around the region. Cooler than normal conditions will prevail all week long as the Jetstream dips farther to
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The graphic below shows the IR (infrared) satellite imagery from Hurricane Milton, now an extremely strong category 5 storm. The most prominent feature of the storm, as will all mature hurricanes, is the eye in the middle of the storm. The extremely tight eye signifies exceptionally strong winds. This storm has undergone “extreme rapid intensification”
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September is a month of change. It marks the beginning of fall and is a time when temperatures start to cool from their summertime highs, in theory anyway. September 2024 didn’t quite get the memo. The first and last third of the month were marked by hot, above-average temperatures. The middle third of the month
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Fall is a season of change, especially in terms of temperatures and foliage. Unfortunately, the Coachella Valley doesn’t get to witness the phenomenon of changing leaves thanks to our hot climate and lack of deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves in the fall). There are a number of factors that can affect how and
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The First Alert Weather Team is very closely monitoring Hurricane Helene and its imminent impacts on the United States. As of 5 PM Wednesday, Helene is a category 1 hurricane and has entered the Gulf of Mexico. Helene is expected to grow in both size and strength in the coming hours as it moves through
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With all the wet weather across Southern California today, we certainly had a lot of cool clouds to look at throughout the day. Most notably, a funnel cloud that formed over the mountains! There are some clouds that can look like funnel clouds but really aren’t. These choppy, broken clouds are called scud clouds and
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September is a crucial month as it represents the transition from summer into fall. Here in the Coachella Valley, September is one of those months where we see the average high temperature fall relatively rapidly. Summer is definitely sticking around for a bit longer though as we continue to feel excessively hot temperatures this week.
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