Active Weather Across The U.S. – National Weather Outlook For January 24, 2021

National Weather Forecast

Active weather is expected across the United States as we head into the second half of the weekend. A system pushing through the central U.S. will bring showers, storms, snow, and ice from the Southern Plains and Deep South to the Great Lakes. Another system pushing into the west coast will bring another round of needed precipitation to the region.

Through Monday, areas from the Southern Plains into the Ohio River Valley, as well as portions of Arizona and southern California, could see at least 1-3” of rain. Snow will be heaviest in the mountains out west, though some areas of the upper Midwest could pick up around 6” of snow.

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Great Lakes ice reaches lowest mid-January level on record, part of climate trend

More from the Capital Weather Gang: “It’s late January, and 2.4 percent of the surface area of the Great Lakes is covered with ice. A fifth or more of the lakes would ordinarily be coated in ice, but ice coverage right now is hovering near a record low for this time of year. A record was achieved last week when just 1.8 percent of the lakes were covered in ice. There’s not much to suggest that’s about to change soon, with water temperatures well above average and relatively mild weather likely to stick around at least into February. On Lake Erie, typically the most prone to significant freeze, only about 3 percent of the lake surface is covered by ice. That’s an uptick from the near-zero ice coverage that has persisted virtually the entire season. The end of December featured a bit of ice developing, but it quickly broke up and melted.”

Two Trump appointees are being investigated for posting reports denying climate change

More from the New York Times: “Days before the end of the Trump administration, David Legates, who served as the head of the United States Global Change Research Program, and Ryan Maue, a senior official at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (O.S.T.P.), were reassigned after they posted reports on a climate denialism website. The Commerce Department is conducting the review because the two were on detail from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Commerce Department. The reports were largely discredited theories, including one claiming the sun and not human-caused pollution is responsible for recent warming, and bore the logo of the executive office of the president. It also purported to be the copyrighted work of the O.S.T.P., representing “the current state-of-the-science” on climate change. The head of that agency under Mr. Trump, Kelvin Droegemeier, said in a statement at the time that the postings had been done without his knowledge or consent.”

Lake heatwaves will be ‘hotter and longer’ by the end of the century

More from Carbon Brief: “Climate change is causing “lake heatwaves” to become more frequent, intense and long-lasting, a new study warns. The research, published in Nature, finds that lake heatwaves could become between three and 12 times longer by the end of this century – and between 0.3C and 1.7C hotter. The authors warn that, as lake temperatures increase, heatwaves of the past “will no longer be extreme and will become the new normal”. In some cases, even under a low-emissions scenario, there will be lakes that reach a “permanent heatwave state” by the end of the century. The lead author tells Carbon Brief that he anticipates “catastrophic damage to some lake ecosystems, which may have irreversible impacts on ecological communities, as well as have a dramatic influence on local communities which depend on lakes for survival”.”

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– D.J. Kayser