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Category Archives: Climate
Why are cities hotter than the surrounding rural areas?
On average, the city is warmer than the countryside. This difference in temperature is referred to as the urban heat island effect. A number of factors contribute to the relative warmth of cities, such as heat from industrial activity, the thermal properties of buildings and the evaporation of water.
For example, the heat produced by heating and cooling city buildings, and running planes, trains, buses and automobiles contributes to the warmer city temperatures. Heat generated by these objects eventually makes its way into the atmosphere, adding as much as one-third of the heat received from solar energy. Continue reading
Category: Climate, Meteorology, Seasons
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Were May and June unusually dry in Madison?
While we all contended with the remarkable and dangerous smoke in the sky this past week, we also wrapped up a record dry spell in Madison’s history.
The 61 days of May and June 2023 were the driest May and June ever, with a paltry 2.01 inches of total precipitation falling. The next closest rival on this ignominious list occurred in May and June 1992, when only 2.65 inches of rain fell during the two months. Individually, May and June were the sixth-driest May and June in Madison’s history, suggesting how rare it is for both of them to be so void of precipitation. Continue reading
Category: Climate, History, Meteorology, Seasons
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Are we seeing more ozone advisories in southcentral Wisconsin?
Ozone (O3) is a molecule formed by three oxygen atoms.
Ozone that resides in the stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet rays of the sun, protecting life on Earth’s surface from these high-energy electromagnetic waves. O3 also can occur near the ground, where it is considered a pollutant, as it is a chemically reactive gas that can cause respiratory problems when breathed. Continue reading
Category: Climate, Phenomena, Weather Dangers
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Was May abnormal this year?
The just completed month of May was quite unusual in southern Wisconsin this year.
First, it was a bit cooler than normal, with the average temperature ending up 0.6 degrees below normal. Dryness over central and western Canada brought large wildfires to those areas much earlier than normal this year, and the smoke from those fires gave us a number of orangey sunrises and sunsets this past month, which are more normal in July and August. Continue reading
Are the number of thunderstorms in Wisconsin decreasing?
This question comes from one of our readers, based on casual observation. It is always good to get data and analyze such a generalization to find the best answer. So, we turned to the Wisconsin State Climatology Office.
The National Weather Service records the number of thunderstorm days at several sites across the U.S. A thunderstorm day is when thunder or lightning is detected at least once during the day. Since the mid-1990s, the nation’s primary surface weather observation network is the Automated Surface Observing Systems, or ASOS program, which has essentially replaced human observers. Continue reading
Category: Climate, Meteorology, Severe Weather
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