Tornadoes have swept through Holly, Colorado today, described as “massive,” with all the reportable carnage. I am reminded of the news last week when Clovis, New Mexico was ripped up and the little side-bar.
Tornadoes are common in eastern New Mexico but they might have hit early this year, said Tim Shy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
“We normally would get the first one no later than the middle of April — tax day,” he said.
[Dateline: March 24]
And that “earliness” is the important part of this news.
Last week, inspectors in Tokyo saw what everyone was waiting for — at least six cherry blossoms on one of the talismanic trees on the grounds of sacred Yasukuni Shrine. They proclaimed “sakura season” officially under way.
Early again. As usual.
The beginning of sakura has been creeping up on the Japanese in recent years. This year’s start was eight days earlier than the average in Tokyo over the last half-century, part of a pattern that many scientists here attribute to global warming.
Climate change “would contribute to the speeding up of the flowering,” said Hiroshi Nagata, professor emeritus of Mie University who has been studying trees for 40 years and says the season is undeniably starting earlier.
Warmer temperatures are also changing the distribution of the species, he says, noting that the habitat of the somei yoshino species that is identified with cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto may be retreating northward, to the colder climate it needs to blossom.
While in the Sierra Nevada the timing was so far off the water content missed the wind train.
The water content in the Sierra snowpack is at its lowest level in nearly two decades, leading to concern that California may not be able to fulfill its water obligations to cities and farms if dry conditions persist for another year. …
The water content in the snowpack along the 400-mile-long range averaged 46 percent of normal. That’s the lowest level since 1990, when it was 40 percent of normal.
Water Content Down