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Bradley McLamb (NC DAQ)

Aug 14, 2014

Air Quality Forecasting: A Case Study

This is the second of two guest posts about air quality forecasting by Bradley McLamb from the NC Division of Air Quality. This post looks at June 29, 2012: a day for the record books in North Carolina that featured extraordinary heat, severe weather, and the worst air quality episode in five years. For many…

Aug 12, 2014

An Introduction to Air Quality Forecasting

This is the first of two guest posts this week about air quality forecasting by Bradley McLamb, a SCO alum and meteorologist with the NC Division of Air Quality. Today’s post looks at the basics behind air pollution and the informative index used for air quality forecasts. Air pollution can harm people’s health and damage…

Mar 27, 2014

Winter 2013-14: Event Recap, Prediction Review, and Spring Outlook

It has been a long and active winter in North Carolina, and it appears it is finally coming to an end. In this blog post, we recap our eventful winter, revisit the seasonal predictions made last fall, and look ahead to the spring. Event Recap In our previous post, we quantified just how variable this…

Jan 22, 2014

Lake Effect Snow in North Carolina? It’s Happening Today!

When you hear the term “lake effect snow”, you probably think of the Great Lakes phenomenon that gives cities like Buffalo, NY, several feet of snow each winter. But this morning, thanks to a quirk of our cold weather, lake effect snow is happening right here in North Carolina! Radar and surface observations from around…

Dec 13, 2013

Winter 2013-14 Outlook for North Carolina

This is the final part of our 2013-14 winter outlook series, which includes our official winter outlook based on clues from global climate patterns. This post is by Bradley McLamb, a State Climate Office alumnus and meteorologist at the North Carolina Division of Air Quality. El Niño/Southern Oscillation Computer model guidance has been very consistent…

Dec 5, 2013

Winter Outlook 2013-14: Anatomy of a Winter Storm

This is the first part in our four-part 2013-14 winter outlook series. The first two posts this year will look back at some memorable major snow and ice storms in North Carolina. When it comes to major weather events, North Carolina is often known most for its hurricanes and springtime thunderstorms. However, our state is…

Jun 18, 2013

Nothing Could Be Finer: A Look Back at our Seasonable Spring

As anyone who spent time outdoors over the past few months can attest, the idyllic spring of 2013 is one for the memory banks, and it turns out that it’s also one for the record books. The preliminary rankings show this spring was the 7th coldest and 50th driest on record for North Carolina. That…

Apr 5, 2013

Winter 2012-13 Recap

Back in December, we released our winter outlook that included our own winter forecast and the predictions of the woolly worm, farmers’ almanacs, and two important global climate patterns. A little over three months later, the winter has now wrapped up, giving us a chance to review the winter and these predictions. ENSO’s Impacts (or…

Feb 27, 2013

Upgrades to Wind Rose Tool

A wind rose is a graphical tool used to show wind speed and wind direction for a particular location over a specified period of time. The wind rose is divided into a number of spokes which represent the frequency of winds blowing from a particular direction. For example, the longest spoke on the wind rose…