Key Facts Of The Day 3/11

Storms and Flooding

• A late-season winter storm was forecast to dump a mixed bag of precipitation across a wide swath of the United States through Saturday.
  • About 70 million people from Arizona to Tennessee and up through Maine were under some sort of winter weather alert.
  • Light snow will fall from the Southern Plains to Wisconsin on Friday on the backside of a cold front crossing the central United States.
  • The Northeast was most likely to see the greatest snow accumulations, forecasters said. 
    • Areas around Albany, N.Y., could see up to four inches of snow. 
    • Towns farther north could see as much as 12 inches. 
    • In Vermont, between seven and 14 inches was forecast for much of the state.
  • This weekend’s storm follows a pattern of active winter weather throughout much of the South and East Coast this year.
• Developing storm to bring heavy rain, strong winds to South Florida this weekend.
  • The biggest risk for severe weather will be located across north and central Florida,

Wildfires

• As of Feb. 25, there are currently 6 large active wildfires that have burned 12,214 acres across CA, FL, MS, and OK. As of Friday, 7,087 wildfires have burned 149,774 acres across the country.
• As of Wednesday evening, three sweeping wildfires that started last week in the Florida Panhandle have burned more than 34,000 acres and are threatening surrounding communities amid dry and windy weather.
  • The Florida National Guard sent helicopter crews to help assist with stopping the spread of wildfires burning in Bay County, Florida.

Extreme Heat

• Climate change poses a potentially devastating economic threat to low-income cattle farmers in poor countries due to increasing heat stress on the animals.
  • By the end of this century, those producers may face financial loss between $15 and $40 billion annually.
• More than 61% of the contiguous US is in some classification of drought,  the largest percentage of drought classification since 2012.
• Texas is feeling the effects of a worsening dry spell, following record-setting winter heat waves and abysmal precipitation.
  • Dallas County and the eastern part of Tarrant County are under extreme drought conditions. 
  • About 96% of the state is experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions.
  • About 68% of the state is under severe drought. 
  • More than one-third is experiencing extreme drought. 
  • Roughly 6% of the state is suffering exceptional drought.
  • A warm December and cooler-than-normal February, coupled with the lack of rainfall, contributed to the widespread worsening drought.
  • Water reservoirs in North and Central Texas are operating at about 88% capacity.
  •  The dry conditions, coupled with strong winds and warm temperatures, will elevate the risk for fire danger on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.
• The West’s megadrought is leaving one Arizona neighborhood with no water at all.
  • The residents of Rio Verde Foothills, an unincorporated expanse of dirt roads and horse farms on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, rely on private “water haulers” to bring them water from nearby Scottsdale. 
  • Scottsdale decided to stop allowing haulers to bring water to customers who live outside the city limits, including the hundreds of people in Rio Verde Foothills because of the water shortage in the Colorado River. 
  • Arizona and other states across the West have built millions of new homes over the past few decades on the assumption that they could find enough water to support them. 
    • Now both surface water and groundwater sources are proving less reliable than earlier generations had assumed, and this longtime growth spurt may be faltering in its tracks.

New Reports And Data

• A March 2022 study found that Hawaiian corals show surprising resilience to warming oceans.
• A March 2022 study found that heat stress for cattle may cost billions by the century’s end.

A March 2022 study found that relocating farmland could turn back the clock twenty years on carbon emissions.