Heavy Areas Of Rain Expected – National Weather Outlook For August 4, 2023

by | Aug 4, 2023 | Weather

National Weather Forecast

Oppressive heat continues on Friday across the desert Southwest and the Southern Plains. Both areas will see highs of at least 100F, and heat index values in the Southern Plains could top 110F. Scattered showers and storms are possible from the Northern Rockies across the Plains and to the East Coast. The highest chance of severe weather will be in the Northeast.

Very heavy pockets of rain will be possible across the Northern Plains and in the mid-Mississippi Valley to the Southeast through the first half of the weekend, with the potential of 3”+ falling. These heavy rain amounts could lead to flash flooding.

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Baseball-Size Hail Makes Insuring Solar and Wind Farms Pricier

More from Bloomberg: “The Scottsbluff solar farm in western Nebraska was built to withstand most hailstones. But the icy pellets that rained down in late June were bigger than baseballs. The hail — part of a larger pattern of severe storms, heat and other extreme weather fueled by climate change — smashed the bulk of Scottsbluff’s glass panels. Designed to power more than 650 local homes, the facility remains out of commission over a month later. Its owner, private developer Arevon Energy Inc., is still tallying the cost. Solar plants and wind farms are crucial weapons in the battle against greenhouse gas emissions. So it’s a cruel irony that their effectiveness is often hobbled by damage from storms, floods, wildfires and other disasters amplified by global warming. That’s making them harder to insure. Property insurance premiums for US solar facilities have soared as much as 50% over the past year, threatening to slow their rollout and derail global efforts to cut carbon emissions.”

Scientists dig into wildfire predictions, long-term impacts

More from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory: “Wildfires are an ancient force shaping the environment, but they have grown in frequency, range and intensity in response to a changing climate. At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists are working on several fronts to better understand and predict these events and what they mean for the carbon cycle and biodiversity. Two months into the 2023 peak summer fire season from June through August, Canadian wildfires had burned more than 25 million acres, disrupted the lives of millions and spread beyond the traditional confines of western Canada east to Nova Scotia. The phenomenon attracted renewed attention as smoke drifted to heavily populated regions, turning the New York City skyline orange and drifting across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe by late June.”

Humanity will use 1.7 Earths’ worth of resources this year

More from electrek: “The globe marked Earth Overshoot Day on August 2, calculated as the day when humanity has used up more than the total amount of resources made available by the Earth over the course of the year. And the day has been getting earlier and earlier every year. Earth Overshoot Day is a calculation that defines the total amount of ecological services available from natural processes, then compares that to how quickly humanity uses up those processes. These services include clean air and water, forest products, fertile soil, pollination, fisheries, land use, and so on. But humanity, since the 1970s, has not been content simply to use up the services available to us, but rather to overuse them – thus creating long-term effects that result in fewer of the same resources being available in the future, compounding these problems.”

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– D.J. Kayser