System Responsible For Blizzard Conditions Moves East – Weather Outlook For March 15, 2021

National Weather Forecast

The system responsible for the heavy snow and blizzard conditions out toward the Front Range this weekend will continue to work east on Monday, bringing rain, snow, and ice chances from the Upper Midwest to around D.C. On the warm side of the system, showers and storms will be possible from Kansas to the Southeast. Another system out west will bring widespread chances of rain and snow.

A few areas of heavy rain will be possible across the nation heading through the middle of the week. One will be across the central United States on the warm side of the system hitting the region, with the potential of 1-3” of rain. 1-3” of rain will also be possible in the Deep South and in portions of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California. The heaviest snow will have fallen in portions of the Front Range where snow from the weekend into early in the week will be measured in feet. This system will also produce an area of 6”+ of snow in southeastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota, and northern Iowa. A foot or two of snow will be possible in the Sierra.

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A Single Chemical Plant in Louisville Emits a Super-Pollutant That Does More Climate Damage Than Every Car in the City

More from Inside Climate News: “A chemical plant here that makes a raw material for everything from Teflon to lubricants used on the International Space Station also appears to do more damage to the climate than all of this city’s passenger vehicles. The Chemours Louisville Works along the banks of the Ohio river is the nation’s largest emitter of a climate super-pollutant known as hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23). As a greenhouse gas, the chemical is 12,400 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the primary chemical compound responsible for warming the planet, and could be eliminated with low cost, existing technology.”

Farm-level study shows rising temperatures hurt rice yields

More from Science Daily: “A study of the relationship between temperature and yields of various rice varieties, based on 50 years of weather and rice-yield data from farms in the Philippines, suggests that warming temperatures negatively affect rice yields. Recent varieties of rice, bred for environmental stresses like heat, showed better yields than both traditional rice varieties and modern varieties of rice that were not specifically bred to withstand warmer temperatures. But the study found that warming adversely affected crop yields even for those varieties best suited to the heat. Overall, the advantage of varieties bred to withstand increased heat was too small to be statistically significant.”

‘Kern runs on oil’: as California confronts climate crisis, one county is ready to drill

More from The Guardian: “Kern county, which sprawls more than 8,000 square miles, connecting the Sierra Nevada slopes and the Mojave Desert to the counties on the Central Coast, is the oil capital of California. The county produces about 70% of the state’s oil and more than 90% of its natural gas – and it has plans to ramp up production. This week the county approved an ordinance that would allow thousands of new wells to be drilled over the next 15 years. The decision comes despite deep opposition from local farmers and environmental groups, and it puts the county directly at odds with a state that has branded itself as a trailblazer on climate and set ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

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– D.J. Kayser