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From Top to Bottom, Global Conditions May Shape Winter’s Polar Jet Stream

Bradley McLamb (NC DAQ)

A photo of the sun behind the clouds in Surry County

Nov 10, 2022

Heat and Air Quality in 2022: Temperatures, Ozone Peaked in June

The foliage reaching its final form and the first freeze of the season – not to mention the calendar showing it’s now November – are all sure signs that the summer is finished. This summer in North Carolina got off to a hot start but wrapped up right on time, at least by astronomical accounting.…
A screenshot of the Air Quality Portal dashboard containing air quality and weather forecasts

Mar 24, 2022

Air Quality Updates: What to Watch for in 2022

That feeling of spring in the air will soon be joined by powdery puffs of pollen, some sniffs of smoke, and potentially even occasional unhealthy air pollution as the weather continues to warm up. March marks not only the start of meteorological spring, but also the beginning of ozone season, which runs from March 1…
A screenshot of the AIR tool showing hourly PM2.5 concentrations, winds, and a satellite-derived smoke analysis at 3 pm on July 21, 2021

Aug 16, 2021

AIR Tool Offers Air Quality and Weather Data, in Detail

The State Climate Office and the North Carolina Division of Air Quality (NCDAQ) have partnered to build a new monitoring tool for those times when there’s something in the air, whether that’s a simmering summer afternoon, a gray and hazy evening, or even the hours after a holiday celebration. (Don’t worry, we’ll explain that one!)…

Oct 30, 2018

Clearing the Air: A Discussion with Air Quality Forecasters

Today, our look at the state of air quality in North Carolina concludes with the third guest post by the meteorologists from the NC Division of Air Quality. Our final post in this year’s air quality series features a roundtable discussion about how we forecast air quality, the challenges we faced during the 2018 ozone…

Oct 25, 2018

Beyond a Number: Making and Verifying an Air Quality Forecast

Today, our look at the state of air quality in North Carolina continues with the second guest post by the meteorologists from the NC Division of Air Quality. Previously, we discussed the significant improvements in North Carolina’s air quality over the past ten years and how this has actually made air quality forecasting more challenging.…

Oct 23, 2018

Improving Air Quality Comes with a Forecasting Twist

It’s been more than four years since we checked in with our partners at the NC Division of Air Quality about the state of air quality in North Carolina. Over the next two weeks, the NC DAQ team of air quality forecasters will offer some updates in a series of guest blog posts. North Carolina’s…

Nov 17, 2015

Polar Patterns Could Open the Gates for Cold, Wintry Weather

As our Winter Outlook series continues, we turn our attention to the polar jet stream, which will largely determine how much of this winter’s precipitation will fall in a frozen form and how cold our temperatures might get. In many ways, the polar jet stream — controlled by the now-infamous polar vortex — can be…

Nov 12, 2015

Strong El Niño Drives Pacific Patterns, Jet Stream Impacts

The second post in our 2015-16 Winter Outlook series turns to the Pacific Ocean for an update on El Niño and its possible impacts to North Carolina this winter. Over the past nine months, the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean have been warming and one of the strongest El Niño events on record has…

Nov 21, 2014

From Top to Bottom, Global Conditions May Shape Winter’s Polar Jet Stream

This is the third part of our 2014-15 winter outlook series. Following our discussion of ENSO and its possible impacts, today we cover two other global climate patterns with connections to our winter weather. The Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation (AO and NAO, respectively) are two of the most important large-scale climate patterns that…