I'm Back

Every year became busier as I progressed through my career. Maybe you noticed the same in your career. Each year I would vow to reduce my workload and enjoy life a little more, but to no avail. Finally it came to the point that I had to prioritize tasks and some had to be dropped. That was the case with my blog.

The blog went on hiatus after my visit to the White House for the release of the 3rd National Climate Assessment. I simply had too many projects to do all of them well. Some of these projects exceeded my wildest expectations and will be the topic of future posts.

Now that I have retired from television I am released from the daily grind of having to make the most accurate forecast. I did not think I would ever tire of this early in my career, but after 44 years it was time to step away.

It has been a little over six years since I last posted on this blog and much has happened in that time. The most time consuming project began in 2013 and it became Gandy’s Garden. At times I combined it with Climate Matters as it was an offshoot from that program. This will be the focus of my next post.

The weather acted up as there were a number of record events like the South Carolina Flood of 2015. The hottest month on record occurred in July, 2016 and in the fall another flood ravaged the eastern part of the state. In 2018 another flood occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina from Hurricane Florence. The town of Nichols, South Carolina was inundated for the second time in two years. There has been much to talk about, but little time to analyze much less talk. Thus, there is plenty of material for the blog over the next few months.

During this time I won awards for specific work and for a lifetime of work. I was awarded an EMMA and an Emmy from the southeast chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2016 for the South Carolina Flood of 2015. Later that year I was a Silver Circle awardee for lifelong work as a broadcast meteorologist by the same organization. Upon retiring from broadcasting (not meteorology) I was given a Service Award from the National Weather Service and Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives (Rep. Joe Wilson). In addition I was given the Key of the City from Columbia (Major Steve Benjamin), and resolutions from Richland County and the SC State Senate.

Receiving a service award from the National Weather Service in Columbia, SC.

Special Recognition from US Representative Joe Wilson.

Receiving the Key to the City from Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

Two rare honors came my way. In 2018 I was elected as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. I sometimes have to pinch myself over that one. It was a privilege to be elected in the same year as my friend and colleague Paul Gross.

New Fellows of AMS 2018. President Roger Wakamoto is between me and Paul Gross.

I was given the Order of the Palmetto by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster for service to South Carolina over the past 34 years upon retirement. This is the highest civilian award given by the state of South Carolina. It means a lot to be recognized by the community in that way.

Receiving the Order of the Palmetto.

It has been humbling to receive so much recognition. Those who know me know that I never expected this. My goal was to do the best job I could for the community by producing the best and most reliable forecast. Our records and those of independent observers rated our forecasts as the best.

Going forward the blog will cover the topics of weather and climate as it has in the past. However, it will sometime delve into topics not directly related to meteorology such as a pandemic. There is so much misinformation on social media that needs to be exposed and corrected. I will try to do that at times with science that is peer-reviewed and not just opinion. My social media presence will continue on Facebook (Jim Gandy WX) and Twitter (@JimGandyWX)

My Day at the White House

Background:

On April 23^rd my news director, Marybeth Jacoby, received an email from NASA stating that the 3^rd National Climate Assessment would be released on Tuesday, May 6^th.  She forwarded the email with a note “How can we make this BIG?”  I started thinking about how I would approach it.

I received a call from the White House just after our 7 p.m. newscast on Thursday, May 2^nd.  It was Keith Maley, Regional Communications Director, and he was inviting me to the White House for the release of the 3^rd National Climate Assessment.  I was being invited because of my work in educating viewers about how climate change was already affecting their lives and how it would impact them in the future.  WLTX-TV partnered with the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University and Climate Central to develop a program called Climate Matters.

The segments began airing in August 2010 and were highly focused topics used within the weathercasts.  Typically these segments ran from 30 to 60 seconds not including anchor interaction.

I was delighted to be able to accept their invitation.  What an honor!  As you can imagine there was a lot a planning to do at the last minute.  There was a scramble to book flights and hotel for an event taking place on Tuesday, May 6^th.  I also responded to Marybeth’s email “It doesn’t get much bigger than a presidential interview. Mission Accomplished!"

My producer, Sharranda Neal, and I flew out of Columbia, SC, Monday morning and arrived in Washington, D.C., mid-afternoon.  We hit the ground running trying to shoot stand-ups for the evening shows and the morning show the next day.  There were a host of technical issues we had to overcome, but we managed to get the job done.

We returned to the hotel quite tired and prepared for the next day that we knew would be hectic.  We were not disappointed.

For Entertainment Purposes Only

For almost a week there has been a persistent rumor that another snowstorm is on the way.  I traced this back to radio spreading the rumor that Farmers’ Almanac had predicted the past two snowstorms and was predicting a third.  I was frequently asked if there was another snowstorm on the way, for which I answered no.  The response was almost always “Well, Farmers’ Almanac is predicting another snowstorm and it predicted the last two.” What?

So I investigated this claim.  First let me point out that there is a Farmers’ Almanac (dating back to 1818) and an Old Farmer’s Almanac (dating back to 1792).  It was Old Farmer’s Almanac that was predicting snow.  Second the forecasts are so vague as to be of little value.  Neither ever forecasted sleet or freezing rain and thus the ice that was so devastating.

Yet there were a few that were adamant that Old Farmer’s Almanac got it right.  If that is the case, then why ever watch the media.  Let’s explore the claim.

I do not have the forecast breakdown for January, but I did get it for February.  For the period of February 7-14, the forecast is for “periods rain and snow, then sunny, cold”.  It was during this period that the snowstorm occurred (11-13).  But, wait!  The forecast is for the entire region from south Georgia to southeast Virginia.  It also includes the Piedmont as well as coastal areas.

Does this forecast apply equally to all locations?  Are we to apply this with rain in the south and snow in the north?  If so, where is the rain/snow line?  Where is there any mention of ice?  Where does it even say snowstorm?  Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines snowstorm as a disturbance of the atmosphere marked by a heavy amount of precipitation in the form of small white ice crystals.  In their forecast how much snow will fall?

Remembering #WinterMess 2

Little did we know that the winter storm at the end of January would be the prelude to a bigger storm two weeks later (February 11-13).  A complex storm system came through South Carolina in two waves.  The first occurred on Tuesday with snow over the northern Midlands and rain/sleet elsewhere.  This was followed by the main batch of precipitation on Wednesday ending Thursday morning.

Most of the snow occurred over the northern half of the Midlands.  It was mainly sleet with some snow in Columbia, but the precipitation became more snow farther north.  The northern most counties of the Midlands saw a considerable snowfall.

Total snowfall as of 7 a.m. Thursday, February 13, 2014.  This is based on observations from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Columbia, SC.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

South of Columbia it will a sleet/freezing rain mix.  The farther south you went the more freezing rain occurred.  The southern Midlands saw the greatest accumulation of ice as shown on the map below.

Total ice accumulation as of 7 a.m. Thursday, February 13, 2014.  This is based on observations from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Columbia, SC.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

The Midlands ended up on the dividing line between snow and ice.  The northern half saw a snowstorm while for the southern half saw an ice storm.  Travel became difficult if not impossible through some sections.  The worst of the storm occurred over the southern Midlands with the accumulation of ice.  An estimated 350,000 people lost power at the end of the storm.  Some were without power for over a week.  Schools remained closed for Wednesday through Friday with some of the northern counties closing schools on Tuesday.

A Look Back at the #WinterMess

The snow that everyone graved finally came to the Midlands.  The same storm system that affected Birmingham and Atlanta also affected Columbia, SC.  Rain and sleet began to fall before noon on Tuesday, but it wasn’t enough to measure and didn’t cause any problems.  The lower atmosphere was quite dry so that it would take hours of light precipitation to moisten the atmosphere enough to allow for any significant precipitation.

Finally a band of rain/freezing rain moved across the southern half of the Midlands just before dark.  This was followed by snow in the northern part of the Midlands.  It eventually reached Columbia in the form of freezing rain.  At WLTX we pick up an ice accumulation of 1/10 of an inch before the precipitation changed over to snow.  The southern third of the Midlands saw ice accumulations of a ¼ to ½ inch.

The air was chilled by the rain/sleet/snow mix and temperatures fell below freezing over all of the Midlands shortly after sunset.  The precipitation changed to snow which fell mainly from 7:30 p.m. to about 2 a.m. across the Midlands.  Snow ended from west to east and the amounts didn’t vary a great deal across the Midlands.

A map of the midlands of South Carolina showing total snow depth as of Wednesday morning January 29, 2014.  This is from preliminary data.  Click on the image for a larger view.  Image Credit: NOAA/NWS/CAE.

Amounts were generally 2 to 3 inches across much of the area.  It was a wet snow which made for great snowmen and snowball fights.  Here is a view of the region from the satellite the next day:

A Cold End to January 2014

A weather pattern we have seen many times since late October, 2013, has reappeared in its amplified form.  The ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere has been building since late last week along the Pacific Coast, stretching from northwest Mexico to Alaska.  This has pushed the jet stream far to the north into Alaska and the Yukon. 

The 500 mb pattern for North American at 00z January 21, 2014.  Click on the image for a larger view.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

The result has been unseasonably warm temperatures for this time of year.  It is still cold, but in Fairbanks the temperature averaged 24° F above normal on Monday.  There have been wild swings in Fairbanks, AK, this month with its coldest temperature of -41° F on January 12^th & 13^th, and its warmest temperature at 34° F on January 17^th.  On that day the temperature averaged 32° F above normal.

Alaskan temperatures at midnight January 21, 2014.  These are warm readings for central Alaska in January.  Click on the image for a larger view.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

Energy And Climate

The 2013 annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society took place this past January in Austin, Texas.  One of the topics was that of energy and climate.  Billionaire T. Boone Pickens spoke on Sunday evening before the annual meeting began.  It was an enjoyable evening and interesting to hear was he had to say.

T. Boone Pickens

First, he holds a degree in geology from Oklahoma State University.  Pickens said “I’m one of the few (petroleum) geologists that agree that global warming is happening.”  He agrees that we need to do something to mitigate the effects of the warming.  It is smarter to do something to avoid the problem rather than waiting until it happens to do anything.

However, he went on to say that hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) would be with us for the next 50 years.  Pickens said that wind and solar represent just 2% of the energy generation and he didn’t think that it would become substantial until it became economically more competitive with fossil fuels.  That means a price of about $6 for natural gas (it is just under $4 today).

Pickens is against the idea of a carbon tax or cap & trade.  However, he did not say whether he agreed with the idea of ending fossil fuel subsidies.  Tom Friedman of the New York Times has an interesting article on attacking carbon emissions and the fiscal debt.

Bad Place For Science

Two recent editorials in Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) are examples of why you don’t want to get your science from the editorial page.  The paper touts its views as conservative, but these examples are either meant to mislead or are out of ignorance.  They deserve to be put to rest once and for all.  You can read them here and here.

The first editorial attacks the notion that there is no consensus on climate change.  It uses a study published in November and can be read here.  The first red flag in the editorial is that they never mention where the study is published.  However, it did not take long for me to track down the paper.

It seems that the editorial originated with James Taylor, managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate News, with a post he wrote on the Forbes website.  The original post on Forbes and thus the editorial in IBD have been thoroughly debunked here, here, and here.

Brian Angliss of Scholars and Rogues writes:

“The reality is that, contrary to claims made by Taylor and others at Heartland, every serious attempt to measure the degree of consensus among scientists and climate experts has concluded that the overwhelming majority of experts agree that climate is changing rapidly, that humans are the dominant drivers of the changes, and that model projections indicate that the changes will be highly disruptive if they’re not planned for. And every attempt to disprove the reported consensus has been disproved or shown to be based on distortions. Just like this attempt by Taylor has been.”

Denial Amongst TV Weathercasters

I was surprised this past week by an article in Rolling Stone magazine.  The article covered the issue of the denial of human-caused climate change among the nation’s television weathercasters.  It is an issue that has puzzled me given the science and the consensus among climate scientists.  One has to question why so many TV weathercasters seem to know more than climate scientists.  The article highlights a rather vocal group of communicators and can be seen here.

Screen grab of the Rolling Stone website.  Image Credit: Rolling Stone

There is one statement that I disagree with in the article.  It states that “Yet the cause of much of the meteorological mayhem – global warming – was rarely mentioned on air.”  The author implies that Sandy was caused by global warming.  I do not believe that this is accurate.  Sandy and other “meteorological mayhem” was enhanced in it destructiveness by global warming and climate change as I have written previously.

Sandy: A Story of Survival

There have been a number of stories in the media of surviving Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.  Tragically more than 200 people have lost their lives from the Caribbean to the Northeast.  Sandy was a hurricane as it moved through the Caribbean toward Cuba.  A number of lives were lost in Haiti due to the excessive rains.  The country was still trying to recover from the devastating earthquake in January, 2010.  Sandy has been a setback for the nation.

We have seen the images and heard the stories of Sandy from those affected in the Northeast.  There have been two stories that have jumped out at me in the past week.  The first was published here in the New York Times.  Stories like this remind me of the same stories told by hurricane survivors along the Southeast & Gulf coasts.  Why would anyone stay after seeing the devastation brought by Sandy?

Oblique aerial photographs of Mantoloking, NJ. View looking west along the New Jersey shore. Storm waves and surge cut across the barrier island at Mantoloking, NJ, eroding a wide beach, destroying houses and roads, and depositing sand onto the island and into the back-bay. Construction crews with heavy machinery are seen clearing sand from roads and pushing sand seaward to build a wider beach and protective berm just days after the storm. The yellow arrow in each image points to the same feature.  Image Credit: USGS.

Then there is this story of survival by Steve Hartmann of CBS.  His is a story of a son who decided to stay to protect the house.  I encourage everyone to see this.  It is one of the best examples of why you should never stay to protect property.  Fortunately no one was killed in this example.

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There are many lessons to be learned from Sandy.  CBS This Morning briefly mentioned a few thoughts as they interviewed a reporter from Time magazine.

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It will take time to recover from Sandy.  However, this is the time to think about the next storm.  Many will get money from FEMA or some other source to rebuild.  But why build in a vulnerable spot when the next storm will simply inflict the same result?

Andy Revkin of Dot Earth wrote an article explaining how so much was at risk in Sandy.  Simply rebuilding as before is a waste of money in my view.  Keep in mind that much of this is funded by taxpayers.  I do not mind helping victims with their loss, but to simply put the money back in harm’s way is a waste.

Local and state governments are reluctant to restrict rebuilding in vulnerable areas, because of the loss of revenue.  To declare land off limit to rebuilding is to reduce the revenue base.  Yet the cost to taxpayers is increasing.  Many of the same issues are happening in South Carolina and the result will likely be the same as in Sandy.

Furthermore, we need to rethink the infrastructure.  Areas need to be fortified and the electrical grid upgraded to weather future storms.  Of course the entire national grid needs to be upgraded to the 21^st century.  The frequency and severity of storms is increasing.  If we are to adapt to a changing climate, then this must be done.

Last night Nova aired a special program on PBS called Inside the Megastorm.  It is a look at the forecasts for Sandy, surviving the storm, and a look at the future.  If you missed the program, here it is:

Watch Inside the Megastorm on PBS. See more from NOVA.

The forecast for Sandy was excellent.  I first wrote about the potential eight days before landfall here.  There was plenty of warning that the storm was coming and that it would be bad.  Yet, there could have been better communication and preparation for the storm.

Still Sandy was an unusual hurricane.  I will address this in a latter post.

The Public Supports Action

The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University released their survey of the public (as of September 2012) in a bi-annual report.  A staggering 92% of Americans say the President and Congress should make developing sources of clean energy a priority.  The full report can be seen here.

The cover for the new report.

The Rise Of Extreme Weather

Extreme weather has always been with us, but the trend over the past few decades has been for it to increase in number.  The Climate Extremes Index (CEI) was developed by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and goes back to 1910.  It looks at the number of events that occur.  The graph below compares the period of January through October so that data from this year can be included.

The CEI for the period of January - October 1910 - 2012.  Image Credit: NOAA/NCDC.

The CEI with the experimental tropical cyclone indicator included.  Image Credit: NOAA/NCDC.

A new report recently released (before Hurricane Sandy) by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, re-enforces this observation.  The report is about the increase in extreme weather over North America.  The report states:

An Updated View Of Climate Change

The American Meteorological Society updated their statement on climate change last week while much of the country was preoccupied with Hurricane Isaac.  Research has greatly increased our understanding of the climate system and the body of research continues to expand at a rapid pace.  It overwhelmingly supports the consensus that the earth is warming and it is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

The full statement can be found here.  This newer version is a better read and accessible to the general public.  It is a conservative document and I am sure does not go far enough for some.  However, it is an important one as it represents the position of the society.  It is based on the science and not someone’s ideology or political orientation.  The previous statement on climate change can be found here.

An important point is summarized at the end in the final remarks:

Isaac Is A Difficult Call

Tropical Storm Isaac moved into the eastern Caribbean Tuesday afternoon and was moving westward during the evening.  The storm was getting better organized late in the evening, but the winds were not much different from earlier in the day.  It is only a matter of time before the winds respond to the drop in pressure.

Tropical Storm Isaac at 0215z August 23, 2012.  This is an enhanced infrared picture of the storm.  The dark areas represent the colder cloud tops meaning that they are higher in the atmosphere.  Image Credit: NESDIS.

There has been considerable concern about the future of this storm due to the impact it could have on Florida and the Republican National Convention in Tampa next week.  Any evacuation would greatly alter the plans for the convention.  A general idea of where the storm is going can be gleaned from the models.  However, the devil is in the details.  It is far too uncertain at this time frame to pin down where the storm will strike land.

Climate Change Attributions

Extreme Heat: The Odds Are Increasing, was published just before the American Meteorological Society (AMS) released their annual climate report this past week. 

The 2011 State of the Climate report is peer-reviewed and published annually as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report is part of a suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions. It was edited by Jessica Blunden, Ph.D., and Deke Arndt of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The full report can be viewed online. The report highlights are available online.

The map above shows where in the United States June 2012 temperatures were different from the 1981–2010 average. Shades of red indicate temperatures up to 8° Fahrenheit warmer than average, and shades of blue indicate temperatures up to 5° Fahrenheit cooler than average—the darker the color, the larger the temperature difference.  Image Credit: NOAA Climate.

Additionally, for the first time a complementary article was published by the AMS examining the linkages between climate change and extreme events of 2011. The paper looked at six global extreme weather and climate events from last year.

Extreme Heat: The Odds Are Increasing

A number of people have been asking me during this exceptional heat wave if it was being caused by global warming.  My response has been that “global warming doesn’t cause the heat wave; it causes the heat wave to be hotter.”  Privately I had been telling people that we would likely break the all-time record high temperature in Columbia in the next 20 years.  That was two years before it happened.

The fact that so many record high temperatures are being broken is no surprise.  A 2009 study published in the Geophysical Research Letters showed that daily record-high temperatures were outpacing daily record lows by a 2:1 ratio in the first decade of this century.  If the climate were not warming the ratio would be 1:1.  The study showed that on a business as usual scenario the ratio would expand to 20:1 by 2050 and 50:1 by 2100.

The ratio of high to low temperature records from the 2009 study listed above.  Click on the graphic for a high-definition view of the graph.  Image Credit: Climate Central.

However, this year the ratio has expanded to 7:1 for the nation since the beginning of the year.  Almost 8,000 high temperature records have been set in just the past month.  Some of these records recently have been all-time record highs breaking records from the Dust Bowl Era.  Keep in mind that there have been two record heat events already this year.  The first was the record warm spell in March and now the exceptional heat wave this past month.

The ratio of high to low temperature records for June and the first half of 2012.  Click on the graphic for a larger view.  Image Credit: Climate Central.

An Unprecedented Heat Wave

Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

Columbia, South Carolina markets itself as being “Famously Hot” and this weekend it lived up to that billing in ways never imagined.  The heat wave that hit the area was unprecedented in speed and intensity.  Fortunately everyone knew it was coming, but it was still under forecast.

It took only one day to be in the heat wave.  The high temperature on Wednesday was 89 F, but it reached 100 F on Thursday, the start of the heat wave.  However, the peak of the heat wave intensity was on Friday when the temperature soared to an all-time record high of 109 F at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport and 110 F at Hamilton-Owens Field, just south of downtown Columbia.  The temperature at the airport had never been above 107 F.

High temperatures for Friday, June 29, 2012, in South Carolina.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

In addition, it was not until Saturday when the co-op reports came into the National Weather Service that it was discovered that the all-time record high for the state of South Carolina was broken.  The previous all-time high was 111 F set at Calhoun Falls and Blackville in 1925 and in Camden in 1954.  It reached 113 F in Johnston and the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, Friday afternoon.  This still has to be confirmed by the state climatology office, but it is very likely that one or both will stand as the new all-time record high for the state of South Carolina.

Cherrypicking & Misleading

I am frequently disappointed when I read articles or editorials claiming that human-caused warming of the planet is not happening or that climate science is wrong.  Such disappointment occurred recently as I read an editorial from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD).

The national newspaper covers international business, finance, and the global economy.  Its editorials are by its own admission conservative.  I use the paper for the detailed information on companies and have used it for over two decades.  It is a good source for financial information, but a poor source for science information.

An online editorial entitled “Facts Get In The Way-Again-Of A Good Global Warming Story” can be viewed here.  The editorial is meant to criticize a recent trip by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  The editorial begins “Hillary Clinton made a well-publicized trip last week to the Arctic to see for herself the impact of global warming. Less well known, however, are two reports that contradict the climate-change alarmists.”

Image Credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

“First, polar ice is now the heaviest "in more than a decade," reports the Los Angeles Times.” Later it refers to another report “Second, photos taken in the 1930s by Danish explorers "show glaciers in Greenland retreating faster than they are today, according to researchers," tech publication The Register reported.

I long ago learned to be highly skeptical of any claim by IBD.  The first red flag is that they are quoting other media sources and not the science research itself.  Fortunately I was able to track down both reports.  It turns out that the information is cherrypicked and misleading.

Living on a Planet with a Fever

You may have missed this over the weekend.  It was a commentary on CBS News by science and environment contributor M. Sanjayan.  If you don't want to read about climate change, this sums up the situation well.  This is a must see video:



Note: Those on IPads and IPhone may have to go to the following link to see the video .

M. Sanjayan is the lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy, where he specializes in human well-being and conservation, Africa, wildlife ecology and media outreach and public speaking on conservation issues.  In addition to being the Conservancy’s lead scientist, Sanjayan holds a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz and has a research faculty appointment with the Wildlife Program at the University of Montana.  His scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology, and he co-edited the book Connectivity Conservation (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Dr. Sanjayan is correct in saying that this is our sink or swim moment.  The next 25 years are already baked into the cake.  If we want to affect the rate of climate change beyond that, we have to start now.  Many of the projections you see are for 2100, but the change will not stop there.  Change is already occurring and the changes will likely accelerate in the near future.

Recently the Heartland Institute in Chicago aroused the anger of many with a billboard trying to tie belief in climate change to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.  It was a poor attempt to associate such belief with murderers, tyrants, and madmen.


Peter Sinclair, the originator of the Climate Crock of the Week series, has put together an interesting rebuttal entitled "This is not Cool: Murderers, Tyrants, and Madmen.  It is part of the Yale forum on Climate Change and the Media series "This is not Cool".  I highly recommend watching the video.