Lake Effect Snow And Eastern Rain – November 22, 2021

National Weather Forecast

A system in the eastern United States Monday will produce showers from the Gulf Coast to coastal New England, with some areas of rain and snow at higher elevations and areas of New England. Lake effect snow will also be possible in some areas downwind of the Great Lakes. Another system moving into the Northwest will produce rain and snow.

Some of the heaviest rain will occur across portions of southern Florida and Downeast Maine, where some totals of at least 1-3” will be possible. The heaviest snow will occur downwind of the Great Lakes and into the Cascades.

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Cloud seeding gains steam as West faces worsening droughts

More from the Capital Weather Gang: “As the first winter storms rolled through this month, a King Air C90 turboprop aircraft contracted by the hydropower company Idaho Power took to the skies over southern Idaho to make it snow. Flying across the cloud tops, the aircraft dropped flares that burned up as they descended, releasing plumes of silver iodide that caused ice crystals to form and snow to fall over the mountains. In the spring, that snow will melt and run downstream, replenishing reservoirs, irrigating fields and potentially generating hundreds of thousands of additional megawatt hours of carbon-free hydropower for the state. Idaho Power, a private utility serving more than half a million customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, has used cloud seeding to pad its hydroelectric power production for nearly two decades. But over the past few years, the utility has ramped up its snow-making efforts at the behest of state officials concerned about dwindling water supplies.”

This Fall’s Wildfires Claimed 3-5% Of The World’s Giant Sequoias

More from National Parks Traveler: “Wildfires that seared Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks and neighboring Sequoia National Forest this fall claimed between 3 percent and 5 percent of the world’s giant sequoias, according to the National Park Service. In simple numbers, the losses fall between 2,261 and 3,637 mature sequoias with a diameter of at least four feet. The losses came from the KNP Complex, which burned mostly within the two national parks, and the Windy Fire, which burned mostly on the Sequoia National Forest, the Park Service announced Friday.”

Warmer soil stores less carbon

More from the University of Exeter: “Scientists used data on more than 9,000 soil samples from around the world, and found that carbon storage “declines strongly” as average temperatures increase. This is an example of a “positive feedback”, where global warming causes more carbon to be released into the atmosphere, further accelerating climate change. Importantly, the amount of carbon that could be released depends on the soil type, with coarse-textured (low-clay) soils losing three times as much carbon as fine-textured (clay-rich) soils. The researchers, from the University of Exeter and Stockholm University, say their findings help to identify vulnerable carbon stocks and provide an opportunity to improve Earth System Models (ESMs) that simulate future climate change.”

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– D.J. Kayser