What Is the Heat Index? Is it the Heat, the Humidity, or Both?

A heat wave this week is bringing searing conditions to tens of millions of Americans in a sticky, sweaty swath of the country stretching from Texas up through the Midwest and across to the East Coast.

Floating along the cool Comal River in New Braunfels, Tex., on Thursday.

In an effort to keep people safe, the National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning that spans 12 states in the middle of the country, as well as Philadelphia. Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York are under a heat watch. 

But while temperatures are expected to top 100 in several states, forecasters mostly rely on the heat index — not the old-fashioned thermometer reading — to issue warnings. So what does the number mean?

Read the story from The New York Times by  Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs - “What Is the Heat Index? Is it the Heat, the Humidity, or Both?”

Drought bites in the east as ABARES forecasts 12pc cut to grain production

A rough winter for grain growers on the east coast has led the Australian government commodity forecaster, ABARES, to predict a 12 per cent drop in winter grain production from last year's total.

Crops in New South Wales and Queensland have
 wilted through the drought this winter.

Released this morning, the latest crop report is tipping winter production — including wheat, barley, canola, pulses and oats, among others — to yield 33.2 million tonnes.

Overall, the harvest is nine per cent below the 20-year average.

Just two season ago, farmers across Australia's grain growing regions were preparing to reap a record-breaking 59 million tonne harvest.

But this year fortunes will vary wildly depending on what side of the country crops are growing, with drought-sapped crops on the east coast and predictions of a bumper harvest in Western Australia's wheatbelt.

Read ABC Rural story by Clint Jasper - “Drought bites in the east as ABARES forecasts 12pc cut to grain production.”

Costly backup power saved east coast from blackouts, AEMO reports say

The east coast of Australia avoided a blackout last summer because companies cut their power usage at critical times, with the operator of the electricity network now calling for more control over the way large companies use power during future heatwaves.

A heatwave pushed the electricity network to its limits,
with blackout only avoided by triggering the RERT.

Two reports released by the Australian Energy Market Operator on Wednesday show the regulator believes there would have been blackouts last summer in South Australia and Victoria but was saved by triggering backup power mechanism called the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT).

Read Cole Latimer’s story from The Age - “Costly backup power saved east coast from blackouts, AEMO reports say.”

Malcolm Turnbull puts AGL board on notice in power crisis

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is targeting the board of energy giant AGL in his push to keep the Liddell coal-fired power station open, warning the company has a duty to consider a sale and prevent a looming east coast power shortage.

Malcolm Turnbull has stepped up the pressure AGL and its
 boss Andy Vesey to keep the ageing Liddell power station open

But the Prime Minister has signalled a compromise with the directors and their combative chief executive, Andy Vesey, telling Fairfax Media the company could avoid selling the plant to a competitors as long as it kept Liddell running “for a few more years”.

Read David Crowe’s story from The Age - “Malcolm Turnbull puts AGL board on notice in power crisis.”

US weather: 100 million people affected by East Coast deep freeze following 'bomb cyclone’

About 100 million people are facing a new challenge after the whopping east coast snowstorm in the United States: a gusty deep freeze.

Jaw-clenching temperatures are expected over the weekend throughout the north-east.

Jaw-clenching temperatures are expected over the weekend throughout the north-east, having already hit Vermont, Philadelphia, New York and Connecticut.

Winds of more than 144 kilometres per hour swirled New Hampshire's Mount Washington, the north-east's highest peak, at a temperature of -38 degrees Celsius and a wind chill of -69C.

It tied for second place with Armstrong, Ontario, as the coldest spot in the world.

Read the ABC News story - “US weather: 100 million people affected by East Coast deep freeze following 'bomb cyclone’.”

Price still up in the air as gas producers sign supply deal

East coast gas exporters on Tuesday signed a formal agreement with the government to offer enough gas to meet to an expected shortfall for next year and 2019 “and any emerging additional shortfall”.

The agreement signed by east coast gas exporters on Tuesday is not specific on price. 

The agreement, to which Malcolm Turnbull was the government signatory, ties down arrangements reached in talks last week and follows estimates that the east cost market faces a shortfall of 54 petajoules (PJ) in 2018 and 48 PJ for 2019.

According to the estimates, there could be an extra shortfall of 53 PJ in 2018 and 54 PJ the following year.

The agreement is not specific on price, referring to “the good faith offering of gas to the domestic market on reasonable terms”.

It says that uncontracted gas won’t be offered to the international market unless equivalent amounts have first been offered to the local market “on competitive market terms”.

Read the piece by a Professorial Fellow at the University of Canberra, Michelle Grattan, on The Conversation - “Price still up in the air as gas producers sign supply deal.”

Australia’s east coast sweats under unusual spring heat wave

The east coast of Australia is sweltering through a spring heat wave, with parts of New South Wales reaching 40 degrees and more than 75 bushfires burning across the state and Queensland.

A man enters the sea next to the Bronte ocean pool in
Sydney on Saturday. New South Wales recorded temperatures
of 40 degrees in some areas.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Wilcannia in the far west of NSW reached 40.5 degrees about 3pm, a September record for the state.

And an out of control grass fire east of Goulburn has forced authorities to close the Hume Highway in both directions.

The fire is at “emergency” level, according to the Rural Fire Service, and is moving in an easterly direction towards the town of Hanging Rock.

Firefighters and aircraft including the Large Air Tanker are working to slow the spread of the fire.

Read Michael McGowan’s story on The Guardian - “Australia’s east coast sweats under unusual spring heat wave.”

Australian gas: between a fracked rock and a socially hard place

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s response to the looming east coast gas shortage has been to secure a promise from gas producers to increase domestic supply.

Protesters rally against coal seam gas
in Melbourne, February 2016. 

In a televised press conference last month, he said:

We must continue the pressure on state and territory governments to revisit the restrictions on gas development and exploration.

But if an onshore gas boom is indeed in the offing, my research suggests that gas companies should tread carefully and take more seriously the social context of their operations.

Shell chief executive Erik van Beurden, one of the big players in the Australian gas industry, recently admitted that “social acceptance [for our industry] is just disappearing”, while Shell Australia’s chairman Andrew Smith last year urged the industry to be less hubristic and more willing to collaborate.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Lecturer in Anthropology at The University of Queensland, Kim de Rijke - “Australian gas: between a fracked rock and a socially hard place.”

Dilemmas for climate change skeptics

Recent storms along Australia’s east coast posed some dilemmas for climate change skeptics as this letter in today's Melbourne Age asks:

Hurricane Joaquin exhibiting signs of intensifying further

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urricane Joaquin remained a 130 mile-per-hour Category 4 storm as of the National Hurricane Center's 5 p.m. ET update, though it is exhibiting signs of intensifying further.

Mashable Australia.

Importantly, the forecast track has shifted about 150 miles further offshore, lowering the probability of a direct hit along the East Coast and raising the risk of a direct hit for the Canadian Maritimes, and possibly even Bermuda as well.

"We are becoming optimistic that the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic states will avoid the direct effects from Joaquin," the NHC wrote in its 5 p.m. forecast discussion. "However, we cannot yet completely rule out direct impacts along on the east coast, and residents there should continue to follow the progress of Joaquin over the next couple of days."

While the more offshore track will bring a sense of relief to millions along the East Coast, dangerous, high-impact weather is still on tap for this region as a plume of tropical moisture converges along a frontal zone to potentially deliver more than a foot of rain across portions of the Carolinas. South Carolina in particular appears likely to see potentially record-shattering rains through the weekend.

Read the Mashable story - “Hurricane Joaquin: What you should know about the high-stakes forecast”.

Our disconnect with nature is the key to global warming

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lobal Warming is attributed to many things, but writing his column on truthdig, Chris Hedges sees this dilemma as arising from our disconnect from nature.

He writes: “The wind on the peak of Mount Washington—the East Coast’s highest point, where some of the most erratic and treacherous weather in the world occurs—reached 60 miles an hour the day I was there with my family. Backpackers huddled in the biting chill next to large boulders or congregated in the lobby of a snack bar and gift shop that extract money from the thousands of tourists who ride the cog railroad or drive up the auto road from the base of the mountain each summer.”

Read more - “Evoking the Wrath of Nature”.