Heavy Central/Southern Plains Rain – National Weather Outlook For July 7, 2023

by | Jul 7, 2023 | Weather

Rain

National Weather Forecast

More showers and thunderstorms are expected across the eastern two-thirds of the United States on Friday, due to several areas of low pressure and frontal boundaries that are in place. The highest potential of severe storms will be from the Front Range into portions of the Central and Southern Plains. Record highs will be possible in southern Florida.

Very heavy rain is expected across Kansas and Oklahoma through the first half of the weekend, with the potential of at least 3-5” of rain.

_______________________________________________

Earth sees third straight hottest day on record, though it’s unofficial: “Brutally hot”

More from CBS News: “Earth’s average temperature remained at a record high Wednesday after two days in which the planet reached unofficial records. It’s the latest marker in a series of climate-change-driven extremes. The average global temperature was 62.9 degrees, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. That matched a record set Tuesday and came after a previous record of 62.6 degrees was set Monday. Not only that but last month was the world’s hottest June since records have been kept, the European Union’s climate monitoring service said, according to Agence France-Presse. “The month was the warmest June globally … exceeding June 2019 — the previous record — by a substantial margin,” the EU monitor said in a statement from its C3S climate unit.”

Wildfires that burn buildings and vehicles may produce more toxic smoke than those in the wilderness

More from SmartCitiesDive: “It’s no secret that wildfires produce stifling smoke and hazardous pollutants. The emissions may be more toxic when blazes reach communities, incinerating buildings and vehicles, rather than remain in the wilderness, according to a new study by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency researchers. Because they burn manufactured materials, the smoke from these wildfires may contain significantly higher levels of “acutely toxic and carcinogenic” chemicals, such as volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and hydrogen chloride, the study says. “There’s a lot more chlorine in the built environment than there is in the natural environment,” said Amara Holder, an EPA research mechanical engineer who led the study. The emissions pose a “unique threat to public health,” the study warns, since these fires may burn close to populated areas.”

The overlooked climate consequences of AI

More from Grist: ““Something’s fishy,” declared a March newsletter from the right-wing, fossil fuel-funded think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation. The caption looms under an imposing image of a stranded whale on a beach, with three huge offshore wind turbines in the background. Something truly was fishy about that image. It’s not because offshore wind causes whale deaths, a groundless conspiracy pushed by fossil fuel interests that the image attempts to bolster. It’s because, as Gizmodo writer Molly Taft reported, the photo was fabricated using artificial intelligence. Along with eerily pixelated sand, oddly curved beach debris, and mistakenly fused together wind turbine blades, the picture also retains a tell-tale rainbow watermark from the artificially intelligent image generator DALL-E. DALL-E is one of countless AI models that have risen to otherworldly levels of popularity, particularly in the last year. But as hundreds of millions of users marvel at AI’s ability to produce novel images and believable text, the current wave of hype has concealed how AI could be hindering our ability to make progress on climate change.”

_______________________________________________

Follow me on:

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

– D.J. Kayser