Climate Change? Nahhh ...

It’s 95 here in Flyoverstan. With the wind chill, it’s 109.

 

Today it was mis-er-a-dang-bul. The temp hit 89-89, but the heat index was 104. I think the humidity was about a gajillion percent.

 

We had a wave of severe storms move through overnight, including several tornados. Fortunately the area is exurban bordering on rural, so damage was limited and nobody was injured. Someone we know had restored an old barn on his multigenerational family farm, and a tornado smashed it to kindling. So they're pretty shook.

One thing that impressed me, though -- the TV weatherman warned viewers seven hours in advance that conditions were likely to get dangerous. The weather radar at that time showed nothing going on. That's some skillful and valuable forecasting ability. A lot of people may have stayed up a little late so they could respond appropriately when the tornado warning was sounded at 1 a.m.

 

90s all day. I'm tired, I'm lazy, I'm hungry. Don't know what to do. Too hot to sleep. Too tired to eat.

 

The supercomputer modeling is so good now -- and continuing to improve. There's a YouTuber named Ryan Hall who uses the Global Forecast System (GFS) and High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) for his modeling.

To think forecasts before satellites and computers were mostly guesswork, reports from ships/stations to the west, and watching barometric pressures.

 

When the models agree the forecast is a lead-pipe lock. But I've had it described to me like forecasting is today on the second level of a setup where there are 7 or 8 levels. Think how much more accurate it will be.

 

Obviously, this is completely anecdotal, but we had what - fortunately - was just a minor problem with our home AC last week (we're in NC south of Raleigh). Turns out it was a busted capacitor, or something. Anyway, our heating and air tech lets me know, and I ask if there's a remedy to that kind of thing happening again and again. His response? "Not really. I've probably changed 50 of them this last month. They can't keep up anymore." He goes on. "I've been doing this 25 years, and all I can say is climate change is real. Feels like every year we're hotter for longer stretches - not just during the week or month, but during the day and night - than ever. These parts just aren't made for it."

He also hasn't had a day off since the afternoon of Memorial Day. And he had worked that morning.

Sigh.

 

We installed our new AC unit in 2013, I think, and we've had to replace the capacitor three times. It's happened often enough that I can troubleshoot exactly what it is when it happens now. If the fan in the outside unit sounds like it's trying to kick on but never does, so that you hear a loud buzzing rather than the unit running, it's probably a capacitor.

 

And a lot of that was still being done as recently as 50 years ago. IIRC, the April 1974 Super Outbreak is considered the birth of modern tornado forecasting and warning.
That's part of why you have to take with a grain of salt whenever they say something like, "This is the most active tornado season on record." It's not necessarily that we have more tornadoes now, it's just that we're so much better at finding them. Before the late 1970s/early 80s there were likely dozens if not hundreds of tornadoes each year that went undetected in rural areas or as quick spin-ups in severe thunderstorms. Now we can detect them as they're forming and measure their strength from a radar signature.
Same deal with hurricanes. There's no telling how many storms went undetected at sea or were mislabeled as simply rainy, windy days, or hit unpopulated areas in the Caribbean and were not accurately recorded prior to the mid-1950s. We could have had 30-plus named storms in 1702, just like we had in 2020, but the technology didn't exist to accurately record it.

 

They’re right, capacitors will eventually burn out, but they’re not expensive to replace and of the things that could go wrong, it’s honestly the best. To help them last longer, make sure you regularly replace your air filter. Not any more than usual, but if you let it go too long, it causes the unit to over work. I’ve had to replace my capacitor twice in seven years and the second time was definitely because of the air filter.