Podcasts about deep south texas

*Spring rain is falling in Texas, but most of the state is still struggling with drought.  *Recent rain is improving the overall drought picture in Texas.  *More than 15,000 USDA employees have voluntarily left the agency.*Two Trump administration cabinet members visited a farm in Central Texas last week.  *Texas senators gave farmers an update on the status of the 1944 water treaty with Mexico.  *Today's high cattle prices don't necessarily translate in a windfall of profits.  *Weather in Deep South Texas is hot and dry. *Estrous synchronization can help improve your cow herd.  

*Things are moving fast in Washington D.C.   *Texas wool production was down last year.  *The condition of the Texas wheat crop continues to decline.*Last year was a very dry season for Texas High Plains cotton producers.  *USDA has released a new farm income forecast.  *The San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo is now underway. *Planting time is here for farmers in Deep South Texas.  *Equine imports from Mexico are now allowed into the United States.

*Snowfall is beneficial for Texas pastures and rangeland.  *Many Texans continues to feel the effects of La Nina.  *The Texas wheat crop should benefit from last week's snow and rain. *Texas High Plains corn producers are gearing up to fight the corn leaf hopper.  *EPA is now accepting comments on proposed changes to the registration for an insecticide.  *Bermuda grass plays a huge role in Texas beef production.  *Planting time is just around the corner in Deep South Texas.  *Disease of the suspensory apparatus us common in performance horses.  

*The U.S. has lost agricultural export markets.  *USDA is providing more free electronic identification tags for bison and cattle raisers.  *The Texas Corn Producers Association's virtual annual meeting will be held January 23rd.  *Fed cattle prices have seen a big jump lately.  *Congress has tentatively reached a deal to extend the 2018 Farm Bill and provide economic assistance for farmers.  *Farmers in the Texas Southern Plains have wrapped up the 2024 cotton harvest.  *Cooler weather has finally arrived in Deep South Texas.  *Quality sleep is as important for horses as it is for humans.

*USDA's acreage report released Friday shocked the cotton market by increasing U.S. cotton acreage by nearly one million acres. *Milk production fell in Texas last month.  *Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz took to the House floor last week to shine the spotlight on the Rio Grande Valley water crisis.*It's hot in Texas, and that's tough on cattle.  *Is the Farm Bill at a stalemate? *The July forecast for Texas is hot and dry. *The recent tropical storm brought good rains to Deep South Texas. *A new study indicates horses with Cushing's disease have lower bone density.  

*Wheat producers in Central Texas are struggling to get this year's crop out of the field.  *A new smart phone app designed by Texas A&M AgriLife can help farmers optimize their water use.  *The condition of the Texas corn crop is declining slightly. *The weather is always going to be a challenge for cotton growers in the Texas High Plains.  *Several lawmakers from Texas are asking USDA to make sure ranchers have access to the predator control tools they need. *Chinese tariffs are having a long-term impact on U.S. pecans.  *The tropics are getting active with Tropical Storm Alberto bringing both good and bad news for farmers in Deep South Texas.  *Salmonella Dublin is a bacteria that causes disease in dairy calves. 

*A Texas congressman is asking USDA to allow the use of M-44 predator control devices.  *The chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee says the House version of the Farm Bill uses “magic math.”  *Tio Kleberg of the King Ranch will receive the National Golden Spur award. *There have been some big rains around the Texas High Plains recently.  *The agricultural trade deficit continues to grow.  *It's been a good year for sheep and goat producers in Central Texas.  *Triple digit temperatures have arrived in Deep South Texas.  *Registration is open for the annual Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course.  

MCALLEN, Texas - Adrian Villarreal, president and CEO of IBC Bank-McAllen, says the North American Free Trade Agreement - now known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement - has transformed Deep South Texas. Villarreal spoke about his bank's heavy involvement in NAFTA and USMCA while participating in a bankers panel at the City of McAllen's recent 2024 MxLAN International Economic Summit. The discussion was titled “Future of Banking.” In his remarks, Villarreal pointed out that IBC Bank has been around for about 58 years. “We were organized, founded, born here, as a Deep South Texas institution. And so having that type of profile, it's always been very important for us to be champions of economic development here in this area,” Villarreal said. Villarreal said that when he first started at IBC Bank, in the early 1990s, NAFTA was being born. “I remember that there was this sort of electricity in the bank. There were trips being made to Washington, DC. There were executives from the bank that were participating in think tanks, in business committees and councils to give feedback on that original NAFTA agreement. And we're very much engaged in that.” Villarreal continued: “As we know today, when NAFTA first came around, it really transformed this area. I remember back, growing up and we had double digit unemployment numbers. Today, here in the city of McAllen, I believe it's about four to four and a half percent. Incredible progress.” Villarreal said IBC Bank played a key role in fashioning USMCA, just as it did NAFTA. “Even in this last update, to turn NAFTA into USMCA, we were invited to participate, to be part of the think tanks around that.” Villarreal said he remembers talking to the head of IBC's international department (Gerry Schwebel) about the USMCA negotiations. “At the very beginning of those negotiations, he was saying that the table was kind of pretty much empty. It was him, a bunch of policy makers and politicians involved. And then, as the agreement was coming towards an end, everybody showed up. Big Corporate America, big multinational banks, transportation companies, the automobile industry. Obviously, the table was full.” Villarreal said he remembers Schwebel telling him a particular story about the USMCA negotiations. “I remember him telling me a story that, around the table they were kind of looking at him and saying who are you? And it really wasn't a question about how did you sneak into this table? What it really was about is, how do you know so much? I think the reason why is because we take a deep commitment and being a champion of this area, being involved in this area and promoting economic activities that make a real difference.” He continued: “Now, when you look at us transforming from an agricultural society to a trade society, now becoming a medical hub, and the growth in institutions down here, it really kind of started with NAFTA opening that floodgate.” Villarreal added: “And so we take that responsibility very seriously, of being, just as all my peers here want to be, really good corporate citizens. And I think, overall, that engagement and being able to provide economic opportunity for everybody, I think that's one of the things that I've been the most proud about in terms of IBC Bank.”Editor's Note: Here is an audio recording of the bankers panel at the 20214 MXLAN International Economic Summit. To read the full story go to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service's website.To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.

*Cotton planting is moving forward in Texas.  *The aftermath of the Panhandle wildfires can cause mental health issues that need to be addressed.*Beef on dairy has become a very big deal for dairies and feedyards in the Texas Panhandle.  *EPA recently took action to save drivers money at the pump and help ethanol production.  *A North Texas cattle ranch was named the National Environmental Stewardship Award winner.  *The onion harvest is underway in Deep South Texas.  *Lots of horses develop laminitis in the spring.  

*Texas crawfish are in short supply due to the summer drought.  *Cotton and soybean growers across the country will be able to use existing supplies of over-the-top dicamba formulations this growing season.  *The Texas Panhandle wheat crop is one of the best in the past two decades.*To implant or not to implant?  That can be a big question for Texas cattle producers.*Members of the House Agriculture Committee are questioning the inequality of the latest disaster aid program.  *The beef checkoff continues to boost beef sales and consumption.  *A warm February has corn planters rolling in Deep South Texas.  *Neurological disease can cause lameness in horses.  

The Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show is underway in Orlando. Replacement heifers are a major investment for Texas cattle producers looking to rebuild their herds.   Precision agriculture technology continues to improve.   Winter finally made its way to Deep South Texas.   Horses' eyes are more susceptible to injury than the eyes of many other animals.   Several Texans are questioning the size and purpose of Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance and containment zones.

*Deworming cattle can pay back big returns.*There is a strong potential for wildfires on the Texas High Plains right now.  *We should have the results of the latest Census of Agriculture soon. *2023 was a year of ups and downs in the Rio Grande Valley.*One of the most common causes of infertility in mares is early embryonic loss.  *There will soon be additional wildlife crossings in Deep South Texas.

Host Chris Jennings is joined by Kevin Kraai, waterfowl program leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, to talk about habitat in across the state of Texas. With Texas covering such a vast area, and featuring so many types of waterfowl habitat, Kraai explains that there is good habitat is some areas, but many of the traditional hunting areas are still waiting on rain. Hear more about a wrap up on teal season, and expectations for improved habitat as the season progresses.

It's the podcast many of you have likely been waiting for, the 2023-2024 winter outlook! With fall leaves changing throughout the country and days getting shorter in a hurry, it's time to talk about what winter is looking like. Mostly mild or unusually cold? Mainly dry or extra snowy? And how will it vary across the country? Ken Elliott, Senior Meteorologist at WeatherWorks, Inc in New Jersey, breaks down what to expect in the Northeast (21:28), Southeast (25:23), Midwest (29:55) and West (35:17). Plus, he offers his thoughts on whether parts of the country will see a White Christmas. We want to hear from you! Have a question for the meteorologists? Call 609-272-7099 and leave a message. You might hear your question and get an answer on a future episode! You can also email questions or comments to podcasts@lee.net. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Winter Weather Outlook Across the Sky podcast features the Elite Enterprises national Weather Podcast Joe Martucci: You welcome everybody, to the across the sky podcast. Elite Enterprises national Weather Podcast. We are talking about a very, we'll say, emotional topic today, the 2023 2024 winter outlook. Lots of people love snow. People hate snow. A couple people are indifferent to snow. But I think, you know, everyone has an opinion on this topic. We're gonna talk about temperatures. We're going to talk about how cold. It's going to get. And we're going to have on Ken Elliott, senior Meteorologist for WeatherWorks, based in New Jersey, to talk about the entire country. We're going to break it down region by region. So let's welcome in my weather team here from across the sky, we have Sean Sublette over in Virginia, Matt Holiner in Chicagoland, and Kirsten Lang in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you remember, we talked about our seasons when we talked about our ten things to know about fall. And I said fall is my least favorite. But what I failed to mention was if we included non-snowy winters, that would actually be my least favorite season. So it's really just the snow that's holding me to liking winter more than fall. So I'm going to toss it to Sean. Sean, if there was no snow in Virginia, does that change your opinion of winter or is snow? I don't even know. Are you a snow guy? I think you are. Sean Sublette: Yeah. So, like last year, there was no snow. I mean, there was flat up, almost no snow. We had like one hour's worth of snow one morning and that was it. It coated the ground and it didn't even register a trace on the other side of town. But I, like a good snow. And when I say a good snow, I mean, all right, this is at least five or six inches where it matters. And you can do something with the snow. And we haven't had that in a while, a few years, across the entire statewide and that kind of thing. There's certainly little pockets that have done better than others. But I do like a good snow. And, as I think our guest will discuss, there are reasons for optimism for those, who've been aching for a little bit of snow. So that's where I'll kind of leave that. Matt Holiner: Well, my opinion of winter has recently changed. No. When I was in the up, I grew up in San Antonio, but then I spent three years even farther south in the Rio Grande Valley. McAllen Brownsville, Texas. And winter is wonderful there. In fact, people from up north come to Deep South Texas to enjoy the winter. Joe Martucci: Because you can have a lot of. Matt Holiner: Days where it's in the and you, know, when it freezes, it can happen, but it's a big deal. Well, now I live in Chicago and it's a little bit colder. I like to do the comparison. I always tell people winter in Chicago is like summer in Texas. You spend as much time inside as it is. For me, it's more the cold than the snow. Now, my opinion on snow is I don't like too much of it. I like snow. I would like two big snows for the season, and that would be good for me. One early and maybe one I don't like. It too late again. You get tired of the cold once you get into February especially. It gets very old in the Midwest. So I would say, give me a December snow and late, January snow, and then I'm good. But two big snows, like, get it all out. It gets annoying when you have these, like, here's a couple of inches here and an inch there. Here's another three inch snow, another one inch snow. It's like, give me six, seven, eight inches. Dump it all once. Get it, do that twice a year, and then I'm good with snow. So I like some snow, but not too much. And, I'm definitely not as big of a winter fan now, and I would have to say in Chicago, it is now my least favorite season. Kirsten Lang: We sound like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's like, I want just right. Not a little bit of this, not too much of that. Just right. The problem with Tulsa, in this part of the country is that, unfortunately, what you get more often during the winter is cold rain. And there's nothing I hate more than cold. Matt Holiner: Rain is the worst. Kirsten Lang: Like, when it's like, 39 degrees and it's just raining. Like, what do you do with that? You can't enjoy it. It's not snowing. You can't go out there and just have a good time. It's not my favorite season, but that's okay. Joe Martucci: Was it your least favorite season? Kirsten Lang: No, I said summer was probably, but that's only recent because I have a bunch of little kids now, and I hate sweating, running around, chasing them. Joe Martucci: Right. Kirsten Lang: So winter would probably come second to least favorite. Joe Martucci: Got it. Interesting. I just want to say for the record, I actually matt, to disagree with you a little bit there. I actually like snow late in the like, give me some March. Like, up until St. Patrick's Day, it can snow all at once. But right. As soon as St. Patrick's Day ends boom. It's got to start warming up, like, immediately. Matt Holiner: See, even by beginning of March, for, like, if it's snowing, that means it's still cold. And I'm just so over the cold at the Midwest. By the time we're done with February, it's like, as soon as we hit March, it's like, all right, it's time to warm up. But unfortunately, March is still unpleasantly cold across much of the Midwest. You don't really break out of it until April. So if we can get lucky and have an above normal March as far as temperatures go and less snow, I'm all about it in the know. Joe Martucci: Let's, give a plug here to what we'll be doing this winter. If you're listening, from your favorite local news website, one of us four will be covering your market when it does snow this winter. Whether you're in Oregon, Illinois, or in New York, New Jersey, wherever, keep throwing out the states, any of our Lee Enterprises properties will be covering when there is some decent snow to kind of give you those weather kind of alerts as we go into this winter here. So we'll call it an intro for now, and we'll get you into the meat and potatoes of the winter forecast. Here we'll talk with Ken Elliott from Weather. And now we are welcoming on for the 2023- 2024 winter outlook. Ken Elliott, he is senior meteorologist for WeatherWorks, friend of mine as well. Ken, thanks for being on the Cross Sky podcast. We appreciate it. Ken Elliott: Always a pleasure. Joe, always happy to talk snow, winter, and, especially with somebody gosh, how far do we go back? Too many years to count. Joe Martucci: Yeah, I think we're on double digits at this point. Or we're getting we're I think we're past double digits. Are we better double digits? Ken Elliott: Yeah, I think so. Joe Martucci: So we go way back. We share love for Jose Tejas, but we won't talk about that, in this podcast. You got to be in New Jersey to know. But we'll talk about the winter, ahead. First, you know, tell everybody what WeatherWorks does, and then my next question is what goes into the winter forecast in terms of, like, man hours and people, not so much the weather ingredients, but just the logistics of it. Ken Elliott: WeatherWorks as a whole. We service all sorts of industries. Basically anyone that has a need for weather, we're always interested in helping somebody out at its core. Way back when, Frank Lombardo, founded, the company in 1986 that was just a couple of contractors and road departments and mostly radio stations. We have since morphed to plenty of road departments, large contractors, some national, and property managers. Still, municipalities are kind of the bread and butter of our tons of people that have needs for weather data. We're happy to provide it because obviously, we all know weather data is everywhere. It's how you present it, how you interpret it, how you communicate it. And that's what we try to do to set us aside, aside from all the other apps and other data availability out there. And that's obviously, always, we were colleagues back in the day. Some of the stuff that we do now is almost unrecognizable in, a good way. I mean, the ideas are the same, but how we go about doing it is different. The volume of clients is greater. And it's cool for me because I've now been here for 17 years, knocking on my door number 18. And, just to see how far we've come, it's truly remarkable. And sometimes I forget that. And then when I talk to people that come on board, they're like, oh yeah, what you used to do. Then I go to talk about the stories and it's like, wow. It's not embarrassing, but it just goes to show you how far, we've come as a company, how far the technologies come. And by the way, that's not just like computer models, that's just everything just big data. It's truly amazing. So we try to put the personal touch on weather data for whoever wants it. And that's the thing, we work with our clients to come up with the solutions. The second part of your question about, what goes in the winter forecast, at some level it's kind of ugly. We have a crack staff, led by Jim Sullivan, kyle Leahy and Kevin Winters. Those guys, they are like the crux of the operation. They know more about all of the alphabet soup of teleconnections, and all of their implications, better than anybody I know. Then we supplement that with data folks who say, okay, once our core of long range forecasters, establish what we think the patterns will be in the analogs and that kind of stuff, then we involve our data team. And our data team was probably, years ago, just like a part time operation, comparatively. Now we've got three or four guys that just, you can ask for anything and they'll get it for you and that's great. So data is at the heart of what we do. That's kind of another one of our mantras, because we can have the best idea of the forecast. But what does that mean in terms of what can actually happen? What are the means? What are the extremes? If it's cold and snowy, well, okay, cold and snowy, that's fine. Does that relate to, in what's actually going to happen? How snowy can it get? Obviously in long range forecasting, forecasting extremes is kind of, questionable and you never feel good about doing it, but you want to know what they are. So again, the data people help out. Then we go back and say, okay, where does this make sense? And then the worst part is then we have to revisit it constantly, right? Because we start this process, at least informally in June, ah, very much internally, kind of talking about what we think is going to happen. Largely very big picture stuff like El Nino and La Nina. Then we keep on refining that. And it's kind of this delicate balance of watching things for change, but not want to deviate too far. So we put out our first initial outlook. I think it was, August 15, give or take. We had our core of what the analogues were. And I forget how many we dropped or added along the way, but that set that we start out with on August 15, is not what we finished with a couple of weeks ago. So it's kind of constantly evaluating it just like any forecast. Just like any forecast. Where do you go from it? And then it's also trying to get that down to how can we help our clients with this information? Just because we're saying cold and snowy, doesn't mean that the entire winter will be colder, snowy, or vice versa. What times are we looking at it's cold. What is cold? Right. On a national level, we're going with sneak preview kind of mild in parts of the north, but in the north it's cold. So even when it's mild, if I'm in the mid twenty, s five degrees above normal is well above normal, but that's still pretty darn cold. So it's kind of taking this scientific humble jumble at some level, the very beginning infancy, creating a forecast and then making that forecast helpful to our clients and the public at large. Matt Holiner: And Ken, I think the public is starting to become more aware of the different computer models out there. And they hear the meteorologists talking about the terms of our short range models and our long range models, but they'll still think there's some conclusion in how long range those models are. Because especially the two long range models the public is probably most familiar with, the American GFS model and the European ECMWF model only go out 14 days. So what information, what data are you looking at when you're putting together a winter outlook for multiple months? Because you're not looking at the GFS, or European model that only go out 14 days. So what data are you looking at to make these forecasts? Ken Elliott: Sure. Well, number one is not even model data. One of them is just straight up, what's El Nino doing now? Because that's the one teleconnection we probably have, the best feel for. It's also the most public visibility. So even people that really aren't hardcore into weather, they've probably heard about El Nino, especially I, forget the skit from SNL back in the 90s. So it's got some public awareness, not to mention the, Euro ensembles forecast El Nino. And there's also the IRI out of Columbia University that also has, their model plumes, for El Nino. So that's kind of where we start. Right. And it's very granular. And then we'll start saying, okay, these models say that El Niño or ENSO will do x, Y or Z. It almost doesn't matter what X, Y or Z is, but, okay, let's see where we've been, where we've come from, what the models thought along the way, and then we'll start, okay, good, that's fine to know. and again, still kind of almost acting in a vacuum of that, we'll start saying, all right, well, these prior years, we think, are kind of similar years is kind of a colloquial term internally. We kind of call them analog years. And those are like the bread and butter of the forecast. And then once we kind of get those, hint of what we think the analogs might be and again, like I mentioned before, that can shift with time. It's not all of a sudden going to be whatever we lock in initially is going to kind of make it. Then we say, okay, well, while the European and GFS models only go out two weeks or so, there also are the Euro weeklies and monthlies that we can look at, the canned sips and models along those lines. Again, they can be questionable at times, but it's part of the picture. And you're not necessarily looking to see, what kind of, temperatures it's forecasting. Any particular, certainly not a particular day, but even on a weaker monthly timescale, looking for trends, is it persistently cold? Has it been warm and turning colder? And then you kind of work from that. It's, almost like sausage making at some level. You don't really necessarily want to know how the pieces go together, but it kind of works in the end. And that's the best answer I can give because, man, it can get ugly. And the other thing, too, that we're very, proud of WeatherWorks. It's not just like a one days approach. We lean more heavily on the analogs, than actual forecast models going out because there's just too much variability there. But it's also a team effort. So we talk about like computer model ensembles of various runs of different models. But we kind of use that at a personal level, too. It's not just one person making forecast. So we'll say, okay, I might think it's cold, somebody might say warm. And then we'll kind of talk it out and see, okay, what's most likely why do you say that? And kind of know human ensembles, which in my view, are probably the best ones. Sean Sublette: Yeah, it's Sean here. And that's one of the things that I remember beating into my head as an undergrad, is that consensus is normally the best forecast. When you get all of your heads together, hopefully you get to something that's going to be the right answer or closest to the right answer. And I dabble in this just a little bit, mostly looking at analogs and looking, as we call the alphabet soups out there, things like the QBO, the PDO, all these things that are kind of beyond the scope of this particular podcast. But do you see, aside from ENSO any other kind of dominant influences? I think we all know the El Nino Southern Oscillation is kind of the big one. But when we look at some of these other recurring oscillations and changes and Indian Ocean dipole, all this stuff, are there any others that more recently the science has kind of suggested. This is one that we look at in addition to ENSO that plays a stronger role in how the winter is going to play out. Ken Elliott: I think that probably depends upon who you talk to. And that's a very good question, by the way, because ENSO is not only the most widely known, it's the one that we've kind of been around the longest, we have the longer data sets. Most meteorologists even we've all heard along the way, we've all had it, even in school. Whereas a, lot of the students going through college now are learning a lot more about the alphabet soup than any of us probably ever did going along the way. And by the way, that's a good thing because, beyond El Nino, I didn't really know much. A little bit of NAO and whatnot. But in terms of which ones, can be more helpful, I think it kind of depends upon what kind of winter you're looking at, or any season for that matter. When, the ENSO signals, be it El Nino or La Nina, are particularly strong, usually it's kind of hard for other things to influence that. But when it might be more moderated, or when you're transitioning from one to the other, then that's when some of the, other you, I think you kind of hit on the two that are probably the most impactful the PDO and the QBO. But again, that's kind of in my view, anyway, and I'm sure there's other valid opinions on this, it's more of in the frame of reference as to what else might be going on. And sometimes we're taking fairly educated guesses at that. There's all kinds of data out there, but especially when it comes to a lot of these, indices and alphabet soups, as we all call them, the really good data only goes back like 50 to 70 years, really. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that many, especially since we're kind of, in general, this kind of like, warming climate. I'll kind of stay out of the political aspects of that. But in general, it's just not as cold as it was ten or 20 years ago, whatever the reasons are, if it's short term, long term, or recurring, or going to go back, whatever. So looking at comparing something from like 1970 isn't even all that helpful in 2023. So I think depends upon where we're going, and what the overall idea is this year particularly. I think ENSO is kind of, the big game. I don't think there's really anything that's going to overcome it, at least on a seasonal scale. Maybe on a couple of weeks here or there. Maybe the PDO does something to over influence it. But overall, I'll put my money in ENSO for the time being. Kirsten Lang: And Ken, could you kind of give us maybe just a little? It's a very broad general question, but just a little recap kind of on what last year's forecast was and then how it actually played out. How things went with that. Ken Elliott: Yeah, sure. Last year's forecast was basically cold north central United States. So we'll say from the northern mountains of like Wyoming and Montana across into the Great Lakes and northernmost New England. A ah, fairly mild southern tier of the United States. Up into the east coast. The idea there was that the warmth would be dominant especially mid and late season. Which by and large was true, especially from an east coast perspective. And that the cold air would kind of spill over at times out of the upper plains and Great Lakes. From the snowfall kind of went in lockstep with that. The areas that were cold would do very well snowfall wise. So basically the Upper Plains, Upper Great Lakes, northern New England and even snow. Again, the forecast was for it to go pretty much down to the I-70 corridor pretty much across the country. But especially say Midwest Ohioish out towards Denver in terms of what actually almost the idea was great, but just a little bit off on the location. We would put like a place like Chicago for example, in the above normal snowfall. Well it didn't quite work out so well. It was further up into Wisconsin and Minnesota. They snowed plenty up there. Maiden was a little further north than we would have anticipated from a more east coast standpoint. We were kind of thinking it would be tough to get a lot of meaningful snow mid late year and that turned out to be true. But we thought December was going to do better than it did and we came pretty close. We got a nice cold shot deep trough just before Christmas. But it was transient. There was really no, I mean there was rain with it and a brief end of snow in places. It ended up being like a very large refreeze in certain cases in the mountains, like a flash freeze. But it didn't really pan out with the snow, especially in that December aspect. So we had the idea pretty good. Just some of the finer details were off by a little bit in terms of their specific location. Joe Martucci: And a lot of the mid Atlantic even saw like near record low snow like here along the Jersey shore. We had near record low, actually record low down towards Cape May. But you're right, as it went later, it definitely was on the milder side here across the area. So good stuff so far. Ken Elliott: Ken. Joe Martucci: We're going to take a brief break and then the other side probably the time everybody listening here has been waiting for what Ken and WeatherWorks is thinking for the winter outlook for 2023 and 2024. You're listening to the across the sky podcast. Welcome back, everybody, to the across the sky podcast. The Enterprises National Weather Podcast. New episodes come out every Monday wherever you get your podcast and on your favorite local news website. We are back again with Ken Elliott, senior meteorologist at WeatherWorks in New Jersey, and we are talking about the winter outlook here and now is the mean, listen me as just a person in the public always gets excited about winter forecasts, let alone as someone as a meteorologist. So it's always a big moment when we get into winter forecast season. And Ken, what we're going to do is we're going to break this down region by region here for our listening audience here. So let's start off with maybe the area of the country that gets most emotional about snow. We'll say the I-95 corridor in the Northeast. I'll let you have at it, Ken. Ken Elliott: Sure. And I say it's also usually the most interesting too, m a lot of variability year to year other parts of the country. A lot of times, especially in areas that snow frequently, the variability is less like in the Midwest and Plains, the snow floor and the snow ceiling are generally fairly accepted and you end up in fairly typical ranges on a lot. From a statistical standpoint, standard deviations of average snowfall are relatively low on the east coast, however, you either get it or you don't. And the extremes can be pretty extreme. This year, I think the folks that you go further south be the most interested because especially, and you alluded to it, know, Atlantic City, Cape May, and even going out towards know, DC, Baltimore. It was a struggle to snow and El Nino years, and I think this will be a good one, will keep a big subtropical jet stream a powerful one and a more important dominant one in play. So even if temperatures aren't all that cold at points, I do think that subtropical jet stream gets us at least a lot of players on the field. Will all those become snowstorms? Probably not, statistics would say otherwise. Even when it snows a lot in Baltimore and DC and Virginia probably have a good number of rain events in there too. But I think that subtropical jet will mean business at points. I think early season M might be a little touch and go, not looking for like a shutout completely, but it'll be tough, especially the further south again, where you'd expect it's just hard for Baltimore to snow in December, no matter how favorable the pattern is. I think you go through the later weeks of January into February. I think that's where the temperatures and the busy jet streaming are most favored to get you bigger storms there. A lot of our analog years had a lot of snow, varying degrees, but I hate to mention this too, but one of the analog was nine in 2010, and that was snowmageddon. So, again, I wouldn't dare forecast that. But I think that kind of gives you an idea that the upper end is in play here. In fact, in the Mid Atlantic, the firmer analogs, there's twice the likelihood of six inch plus events this year, compared to a regular year. So just that doesn't only takes one or two events in the Mid Atlantic to get you up to normal. Further north. Again, it's closer to average. Again, remember, averages get significantly higher once you start getting, up into New York City and beyond. So I think the storm track might end up being a little bit more mid Atlantic based than New England based, but New England will get it on it too. They're even going to try here a little bit in early to mid-November to get a little bit of snow. So we'll see how that goes, especially in the mountains. But again, not a shutout here by any stretch, even early in the season. I do think the best matching for cold and snow still does favor mid and late season, but more in line with what you'd ordinarily expect maybe a little bit below. Again, nothing too crazy, but certainly a lot more snow. What was had last year, because Boston was even below normal last year, i, think just a hair over 20 inches, we'll get a little more better distribution because it was only not too far away from Boston in those hills where there was like 80 plus. So there was really tight gradients up there. Hopefully a lot of that eases out and we'll see a lot more consistent snowfall this season. Joe Martucci: Could we talk about March real quick, too? I think you alluded to it, but we're talking March always that wild card month anyway, right? Just what are your thoughts then? Ken Elliott: Yeah, I think there's a decent chance for a little bit of a hangover early on, but I don't think it's one of these years where winter just refuses to yield. El Ninos, they just don't support a whole lot of, late season snow. So, especially once you start getting into areas that you would expect to have a hard time snowing in March. I think once you get to March 10 to 15th, it'll be tough not to say that it'll be easy in New England either, but it's easier there. But I wouldn't expect to be one of the seasons where we're sitting here March 27, worrying about a coastal snowstorm. Sean Sublette: All right, so let's go down to the Middle Atlantic. And I'm thinking Virginia, and especially because we have ten different, organizations or properties here in Virginia, and I'm looking at moderate to strong and so years. And for most places there's less snow. But you see this little ribbon when you plot up the data of near or above normal snowfall, of all places, Virginia. So when you. Talk about the nine and ten analog. I'm like, yes, I hear exactly what you're talking about. So I'm kind of of that mindset where I've been telling people there'll be more than last year. But are you also of the mindset? And let's talk about the area from Virginia all the way to Texas as the Southeast. Because we know in a positive, so subtropical jet dominates here. So there's the possibility of more than average snow, in Virginia. But then how do you think that plays out in locations farther southward? I'm imagining snow really isn't an issue here, but do you still think it's cooler or wetter in these places from the Carolina down to Florida and westward toward, let's say, Oklahoma and Texas? Ken Elliott: Indeed, cooler and wetter for sure. And that's basically a feedback on each other cooler because of the busier patterns, so it doesn't get to warm up as much. However, I don't dislike snow into places further into the south. I mean, I could see this being a decent year in the interior carolinas, ah, even down in the know, they will snow on occasion. They did a little bit one storm last year. I don't see why they couldn't do that again this year, again, very busy jet stream. It's not going to be a frequent occurrence by any stretch. But if there's a year to go above normal there, I kind of like, know we also kind of forget, that places like Arkansas, upper Mississippi, northern Alabama, they have sneaky elevations there. So it's not just like Gulf Coast Mobile, where maybe if they see a flake, that's like a big deal. But I could see some places that might average five to ten inches in the Deep South meeting or exceeding those numbers this year, just because there's going to be an above normal number of storms. And even if it's not cold, cold below normal in January is pretty cold. And that can get it done on one or two occasions. And I think it can kind of translate that further west too, out, towards Texas, Oklahoma, and even southern Kansas might not be quite as, with quite as much, confidence, I would say, in places like Virginia and maybe western Carolinas, but still, busy jet stream. I'll take the jet stream any day because unlike La Nina, where the northern jet stream is a little more dominant, le Neil is with that subtropical, jet stream, across the southern US. That comes north a little bit. A couple of times. That's all it takes. Especially in January and February. Sean Sublette: Yeah, that's in my mind, too. Before I turn this over to Matt in the Midwest, one other question I've been wanting to ask you. I've been talking to a couple other people out there about this, but the idea that I kind of have in my head is that this is a kind of pattern developing for this winter that lends itself to one or maybe two blockbusters and that's kind of it. I'm not saying that's a done deal by any stretch, but do you think that this pattern also kind of lends itself to that situation, let's say from a Raleigh to a Richmond to a DC and to South Jersey? Do you think a little better than average odds of something like do? Ken Elliott: You know, the analogs are the analogs and there's no perfect one. Obviously a perfect analog doesn't exist. It's the unicorn of the long range forecasting world. But a lot of the analogues did have like one to two. Further north would be more like three. But again, just one or two big storms that produces a snowfall. And especially when you start getting the areas we're talking about, average snowfall is not that high. So one storm can easily get you to normal. And anything above that, all of a sudden you're way above. So that's kind of also why normal snowfall bothers me. Just because in the mid-Atlantic and south it's just exactly just an average of extremes where you have four years out of 20 that it snowed. But you got like a 25 spot in there and all of a sudden it just kind of skews the average a little bit. So yeah, I do like the idea of one or two big storms most favored especially for the south, february is a little bit harder because you got better sun angle starts to warm up a little bit more. But later January 1, half of February, maybe we can go more into later February up into Virginia. But yeah, a lot of signs for one or two bigger storms and maybe more rainier kind of mixy events otherwise. Matt Holiner: And Ken, I want to focus on the Midwest next and just looking back to last winter, it was an interesting winter in the Midwest because boy did we have a lot of systems. I mean there was a period where it was on a weekly basis, we had a low pressure system tracking across the Midwest, but it was also very interesting how these low pressure systems often took a very similar path. And while there were lots of places that definitely got in on the clouds and the wind and the ups and downs and the temperatures because of this similar path, there were places that definitely. Joe Martucci: Got a lot of snow. Matt Holiner: But then there was a sharp cutoff. And if you go from Chicago down to the south, a lot of people were wondering where is the snow? Because being in Chicago, it was not a particularly cold or snowy winter for us. But you go up into Wisconsin, even southern Wisconsin, it got way more snow. Ken Elliott: Really. Matt Holiner: There was almost a cut off on the Wisconsin Illinois border where there was just snow, rain, that good old snow rain line. So tons of snow in Minnesota as well, and Wisconsin, and even northern Iowa and northern Nebraska seeing more snow than southern Nebraska and southern Iowa. Of course, historically, that's the way it works, but it just seemed like it was even exaggerated, more so last year, where these systems kept taking a very similar path. but again, also because there were so many systems, it was also interesting, while there were lots of days with below normal high temperatures because of all the cloud cover at night, there were actually a lot of warm nights. So if you look at just the average temperature of the winter, it wasn't particularly cold in the Midwest because of all the cloud cover, there were a lot of nights that weren't as cold as normal. And above normal low temperatures was pretty common in the Midwest. So with all that said to kind of recap the Midwest, what are we looking at this year? Kind of looking at. We'll include North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, on over across Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Just the Midwest. What are we looking at this one? Ken Elliott: Sure. Overall, I would say temperature wise, normal to slightly above normal. I kind of alluded to that earlier, where normal in some of these places is just darn cold. So it's not to know, even if you're well above normal, you can't snow. You can and you will snow at some point, when your temperatures are that cold. Actually looking, I believe it was, fargo, the average high bottoms out at 23 degrees, in mid to late January. So even being ten above normal for a high still gets you into the low 30s, where obviously it easily can snow. As we found out last year, we snowed a lot above freezing on the east coast. So, with that said, I think that the StormTrack will be different this year. Whereas last year was kind of more one of those cutter kind of situations where it was putting the better snows. Like you said, it kind of happens a lot anyway, but more west based, maybe northern parts of the Rockies on into Minnesota, I think that'll be a little bit more shifted south this time, so the gradient probably reverses. We talked about this a little bit, a second ago with Sean, where it was more like the south that would have the busier subtropical jet, I think southern parts, the Midwest, that's kind of like the wild card area. Anywhere south of I-70, I think you can get in on those bigger storms. And again, might not be a whole heck of a lot of them, because they get a lot of suppression south, but you get these bigger storms and you can quickly add up. So places maybe like, maybe even Tulsa, but I'd feel even better St. Louis, Cincinnati, even if you want to include out into parts of, the, central and eastern great Lakes, like Pittsburgh, places like that. I could see a lot of variability where there's sharp cutoffs between a good amount of snow and more normal snow further north. And you kind of alluded to this last year and I could see this kind of the forecast kind of repeating itself. A lot of systems go by. The polar jet stream is not dominant, but it's not dead. And we looked at the analog years. Almost every one of them had greater than 20 or in most cases even 25 measurable snowfall days, which isn't that far below normal. Anyway, again, a lot, it's not going to be like it's quiet, but a lot of lighter, more nuisance y kind of snows. Snow showers. Maybe you get one or two better clippers in there too. But again, it's not going to be from a lack of frequency that the Midwest, doesn't get above normal snowfall. It'll be basically because lighter systems outnumber the wetter systems that will be more favored towards the south. What does all that mean? I could see a place, know, Chicago having similar to snow to Cincinnati, which ordinarily kind know, wouldn't see. I could see stuff like that happening this year. But again, frequency, I don't think that's going away. I could see this northern jet stream giving plenty of systems, not a lot of moisture with them, granted, but a lot of quarter, half inch, inch type systems instead of like three to sixes and that sort of thing. and to that end, I talked about it earlier, the Midwest snowfall variability is generally less anyway, Chicago getting and I forget what the exact number is, you probably know off the top of your head, but like low twenty s, I think in Chicago that's about as low as it can go. So I think you do better than that. Anyway, this year I think the east coast method applies. I think you get more how much more I think, depends upon can you cash in and get some three to six inch clippers versus the more disorganized snow showery ones. Kirsten Lang: And Ken, can we talk a little too about the West Coast just kind of rounding this all out then and finishing up on that side of the country. What are they looking at this year? Ken Elliott: Sure, West Coast will be a tail, will be a tale of two wests. Basically. This west to east gradient we're kind of looking at across most of the country kind of goes all the way out to the West Coast. So a lot of times we're looking at for the heavier snows to be up in the northwest. Well, since the southern jet stream will be the dominant one this year, I think places like the Southwest four, corners, sierra Nevada, Southern Rockies too, I think Denver, Colorado Springs somewhere. There's going to be a tight gradient between where it snows quite extensively. Then we start going a little bit lighter as we go, further north. And I also wouldn't be surprised if they do better earlier and middle this season. While other parts of the country probably are just starting to cool off a little bit more. And they might make trend a little bit warmer and less snowy with time. So I could see season more kind of front to middle loaded there with still plenty of moisture in that subtropical jet stream. So some of the Sierra Nevadas, which is actually good because they still need to replenish some of the water supplies out there. This will be a very busy jet stream. So plenty of mountain snow places even like Flagstaff, Arizona, could have sneaky high snowfall this year. You think of them as kind of being desertish, but less moisture. It's still cold, it's still a snow, and it can pile up pretty well further north. I think places like Spokane in the Northwest, Idaho. That's kind of the most interesting question to me because you can get snow there in less than ideal ways. And there's many times when that mean northern injection might be even a little bit too far north. So if that's the case, I could see them going, maybe a week or two at a time without a whole heck of a lot of any kind of precipitation. But I still think at times that's going to buckle. And I'd favor more December or January than February. I think it'll buckle at times. And they'll still get some snows as well. Maybe not quite as much as the ski resorts might want. But, I don't think, I think this could apply anywhere. I don't think there's really a shutout there either. Might be a little bit less frequent, might have some longer dry spells. but the Northwest, they'll see their snow either by hook or crook, just when the pattern relaxes a little bit, where that subtropical jet stream maybe goes more, say, in Northern and Central California than say, Southern California and going on in towards, the rest of the south, towards Texas. Matt Holiner: And Ken, looking back again at last winter, and we talked about the epic snow that California got, do you think then there's kind of been a little bit of buz about could that happen again? What are your thoughts about a repeat of the epic snow season that they saw last season happening back to back years? Ken Elliott: It very well could, and I think would be a tight gradient. There'll be some place that might be more very Northern California and Oregon that get into that gradient. But, the Central and Southern California mountains, I think this is a very good year for them, because there's almost no way that it can't snow a lot. You got a subtropical jet stream that's it's going to move at times. Yeah. But it's going to be close enough by for a pretty long stretch. And it's hard for them not to be cold. The temperature anomalies down there. And this goes even all the way on to Texas. A lot of these times, these months were below normal. And all of them like 70, 80% of the time in the analog. So even when it's, quote unquote, mild or seasonable, with that subtropical jet stream not really going anywhere, this could be another battery year for those. Joe Martucci: And Ken, let me ask you guys, do you guys do Alaska and Hawaii winter forecasting? And if you do, I mean, obviously Hawaii is not going to get much, but could you, like, maybe in 30 seconds talk to us about just rounding out the rest of the country there? Ken Elliott: Yeah, we don't really do, Hawaii, but again, usually they'll find a way on those top peaks. They'll get snow at some point that'll. Joe Martucci: Get a little bit. Kirsten Lang: Sure. Ken Elliott: Yep. Now, the subtropical jet stream might end up I didn't look at it closely enough to see how far south of Hawaii, goes at points, but that could be close enough that they do better than you would think. And again, I wouldn't expect, if you're going on a Maui vacation, to have any issues with snow. But I'm sure the peaks will come up up in Alaska, kind of like the northwest, I think it'll be touch and go. They've already had, several events already up in the north. I was just talking to some of our guys doing some snowfall analysis up there a little while ago. But up in Alaska, I could see it being, some longer bouts where that jet stream, is more north and there's too far away from the subtropical jet to get on that. So I could see some longer spells, especially central and southern, Alaska that just kind of struggle for a while. Again, subtropical jet stream not dead, but certainly not as active. So frequency probably goes down a little bit in Alaska. The other thing is, sometimes there's like ridging out there. When we snow on the East Coast, it's hard for the entire country to snow simultaneously, including Alaska at times. So there will likely be times where it's really not doing a whole heck of a lot, especially outside of Barrow or something. When it's warm and dry, it's still 27 degrees. And with light snow, just because it's just getting every condensing, every possible moisture particle, out of the atmosphere. Right. I could see it being kind of like touch and go where there might be some spells where not a whole lot happens. But I never sleep on Alaska because they can just take the quietest time and just all of a sudden, the jet stream departs for a week or two. And while that might be the transition on the southern eastern United States that transitions when they get wrecked for a couple of days. Right. Joe Martucci: Alaska. Ah, it'll always snow in Alaska. Ken Elliott: Exactly. Joe Martucci: And then, a question that I know is always a popular one when it comes to the winter, a white Christmas. Do you guys talk anything about just for fun with your clients about white Christmas? How does it look compared to average? More likely in some spots, less likely in others. Obviously, that would parlay into your December forecast as well. Ken Elliott: Sure. I like it in the interior south. So central and Southern Appalachians, I like it a lot. Central and Southern Rockies? Absolutely. Mountains of California? Absolutely. It's tougher east. I still think there's some mild there that we're going to have to try to get rid of in December. There will be a couple of snow events in December. We'll just have to see how they time out. I do kind of like the idea that and not just climatologically speaking, I could see how it's just more conducive to snow later in December than earlier in December. Just because of some relaxation maybe, and some of that warmth from very late November and early December. So I like the odds of snow at December relative to early the month. But it might be hard on Christmas. If we do have a white Christmas on the 95 Corridor, it will take some very conducive timing and Santa's. Joe Martucci: Little magic twinkle, in his eye to make it happen. Ken Elliott: St. Nick never let you down. Joe Martucci: That is true. I think that's all we have, for the questions here on our part. Is there anything you want to wrap up here when we take a look at the winter outlook? Ken Elliott: No, I really don't think so. I mean, we pretty covered a whole lot of ground here. I think the one thing to take away here is just because the pattern is so different than it was last year, whatever you had last year is unlikely to repeat itself, at least in terms of how you got there. The end result could be kind of similar in terms of snowfall. And again, especially, in the Midwest now, I think that's probably the most likely area that snowfall is kind of, m more touch and go in that. But like, the way we get there is be vastly different. So bigger storms, you can take that to the bank when exactly they are who they hit, certainly that's certainly up in the air at this point. But the pattern is so much different that whatever happened last year, it will be completely different. At least how we got there, storm attack wise types of storms. Even if the end result is kind of similar, if you kind of average out the numbers at the end of the year. Joe Martucci: Got it? Ken Elliott: Yep. Joe Martucci: And that, that's what happens. We have our El Media winter that we are expecting here. Well, Ken, listen, we really appreciate it. And I'm, sure all of our listening audience appreciates all your insight that you have, from WeatherWorks here. We hope you guys have a good winter. And personally, I want some snow. I don't need record breaking, but more than last year, for me, please, where we had next to nothing, I. Ken Elliott: Think that is entirely doable. It's got to snow way more. I mean, the subtropical jet stream by itself gets you ten times what you. Joe Martucci: Got last year, right? We shall see. Well, thanks again, ked. We really appreciate and thanks for coming on the pod. Ken Elliott: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks all. Joe Martucci: A, big thank you to Ken for really doing a fantastic job. I hope you all really enjoyed it, because what he did well not only give the forecast right, which is great, but also breaking it down very nicely and very easy to understand way for you, whether you're in the northeast, southeast, great Lakes, west, wherever, even Alaska, he did a really nice job. So what do you guys think? Sean Sublette: His clothes, I think, was very good. It's like whatever you had last year probably is not going to be this year. So the idea of continuity, it's going to be kind of the same, is probably not going to play out the weather pattern and all that stuff. It's fundamentally different going into this winter. So do not expect, the same type of weather pattern that we were locked into for a lot of last winter, no matter where you are. Matt Holiner: And I think the one thing to stress know, sometimes people do get carried away. They talk about a warm winter. It doesn't mean it's going to be warm, it's still going to be cold, especially in the Midwest, when you're talking about above normal temperatures, yes, warmer than normal, but that doesn't mean that it's not going to be cold in the Midwest. Now, I would say that for places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, the place that got some really big snows last year because of the combination of it probably being warmer and drier, a repeat of the heavy snow that we saw in those locations that looks like that's going down. But it'll be interesting in the southern part of the Midwest. That's what intrigued me, how he said Cincinnati could end up seeing the same amount of snow as Chicago. And I actually spent a couple years forecasting for Cincinnati, and that would not be normal. Cincinnati is typically a warmer place that sees less snow than Chicago, and it. Seems like there could be a repeat. In some parts of the Midwest, but. The area to watch might be the. Southern tier of the Midwest where they got the systems last year. But many times they were on the. Joe Martucci: Warm side of it. Matt Holiner: It was just, an all rain thing. I think that it's going to be, again, all about the timing. Can we get the moisture to line up with the cold. And I think we're definitely going to have the moisture in the southern part of the Midwest, maybe even more so than last year across the southern tier of the Midwest. Can that cold air reach down there for it to be snow instead of rain? So we'll have to watch for places like St. Louis yeah. The Cincinnati's and then Chicago in the transition zone. We'll have to see if we can get a little bit more snow because last year to Chicago was more on the rain side. But we'll end up being a little bit more on the stow side this year. I think it may end up being a kind of a wash here in Chicago because of the warmer air that's expected. It's probably going to be a little. Bit warmer than normal again. So Chicago may be a repeat, but watch maybe a little bit more snow in the southern part. Kirsten Lang: And if we could just get some snow here in Tulsa too, and not the cold rain that I hate so much, I'll be happy. Matt Holiner: Yeah, no cold rain. Joe Martucci: When I think about Tulsa and Dallas, Wichita, I think about a lot of ice. Would I be true? Kirsten Lang: We had some pretty significant icing events. One of them was back in 2007, I believe. I mean, it shut the city down for like a week or two. It was a big deal. Thankfully, I wasn't living here. But of course there are many, many people that were. So they get real nervous when they hear ice because that was kind of a traumatizing event. Joe Martucci: Yeah, ice is definitely the worst because, it's not fun. It doesn't look nice. It just kind of looks like rain. And it turns everything into an ice rink. Kirsten Lang: You can't do anything. Yeah. Joe Martucci: And you can't do anything. Matt Holiner: Overall, though, my takeaway was though, that we're probably going to be pretty busy as we talked about the beginning of the podcast. Updating everyone. Because though it might be a little bit quieter on the snow side in the northern part of the country, there's going to be an uptick in the southern part of the country with all these systems that are going to go by. And again, it just seems hard for places like the Northeast, like Richmond and New Jersey for y'all to have a repeat of last winter where there was all, the snubby snow. It seems pretty unlikely to happen in back to back years. So I would say overall that as a country, if you look at the big national picture, a busier winter, it was certainly busy for some last winter, but I think it's going to more even out. It might be quieter in some places, but some places gain a boost. And so I think more places are probably going to have a boost in. How active the winter is. So I think there'll be plenty to talk about this winter in various places at various times. Joe Martucci: Absolutely. All right, well, let us know what you guys thought about, the winter forecast episode. You can tell us your thoughts on winter as well. Podcast@lee.net. That's plural. Podcast. Podcasts@lee.net. You can also call our hotline. We have a Lee Weather team across the sky podcast hotline. That number is 609-272-7099. Again, 609-272-7099. And we have to give a shoutout to Teresa Hodges, who asked a question she called in. She asked a question. She wanted to know about the solar, eclipse that we had a couple of Saturdays ago. She wanted to know what would happen if you flew through totality on a plane. What would it look like here? And I actually feel like it would be pretty similar to being on the ground. That was my initial thought. I don't know if you guys have. Anything different to add to that. Definitely be darker, but I think you'd still be able to see kind of maybe the sky around you a little. Matt Holiner: Bit better because you can have a. Joe Martucci: Better field of vision. Sean, looks like you might have something cooking on it. Sean Sublette: There was a picture going round the interwebs after the 2017 eclipse where somebody took a picture of the eclipse from an airplane. And it looked pretty cool. But it kind of looks very similar. Just big black circle up in the sky. Matt Holiner: Yeah. Because in the plane, you are still flying into the shadow. It's being cast on the Earth. So it would be a similar effect. It would get darker. If you're flying, even you're not on the ground, you're going to be flying in the shadow. So it would get darker around. But I think the other key thing that people, I think, got a little Cherried away on with the annular eclipse versus the total eclipse, that 10% 90% of the sun being covered versus 100% makes a big difference. So, again, I think it would have been a little bit underwhelming if you were in the and or if it might gotten a little bit darker. But if you want the dramatic change, it's the total eclipse. And that's why I'm so excited for April. And that's the one to get real excited about, folks, and get in the path of totality. It is so worth it. I saw it in 2017, and I'm doing it again this year. I cannot wait. Joe Martucci: I'm just reading an article by, I believe this is KXAN, that is in Austin, Texas. They actually composed a list of flights that will be in the air in totality on the eclipse day on April. Eigth ah, 2024. So if you're interested, you can buy your Southwest flights now. I won't read them all, but I'll read how about three of them here? There's a Dallas Love to Pittsburgh at 12:45 p.m. Central time. That's when it leaves Dallas. Then we have a St. Louis at. 01:20 p.m. Central time. Going to Houston? Hobby Airport. And then, there's also one from Milwaukee at 100 and 05:00 p.m. Central going to Dallas that afternoon. So book your flights now if you want to hop on. Or you can also go on. In 2017, they had a cruise ship, a boat that went through Totality. And somebody have to remind me who sang Total Eclipse of the Heart. Sean Sublette: It would be Bonnie Tyler. Joe Martucci: Thank you, Sean. I figured Sean would know who it was. Bonnie Tyler. Yeah. So maybe she, I wonder if. Matt Holiner: She's going redo that. Joe Martucci: Hopefully she will redo that. We'll, see. Matt Holiner: Maybe we can get on that one. Joe Martucci: Maybe we'll have her on the podcast. That would be cool. That would be really cool. Actually. Bonnie, if you're listening, let us know. We would love to have you talk about that. Hope you guys have a great week. We'll be back with you next Monday, and we're going to talk about tips to prepare older loved ones in cases of natural disasters or extreme weather with Dr. Lauren Sutherland from the Ohio State University. We have plenty of more episodes to come after that. You can check that out on your favorite news website or wherever you get your podcast. Take care. Bye.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

*The heat continues and drought returns to Texas.   *There is a new guide to help landowners understand carbon contracts.  *Texas farm groups endorse a bill that supports checkoff programs.  *There are some very full playa lakes in the Texas High Plains right now.  *This has been a very good year for agriculture here in Texas, especially when compared the last year.  *The heat is on in Deep South Texas, with water in high demand. *Blister beetles are common in some alfalfa fields.  *An owl found in parts of South Texas has been listed as threatened.  

*There is still some Texas wheat left to harvest.  *There is a new way to access and analyze prices from livestock auctions.  *A big hurdle has been jumped in the Farm Bill debate.  *The rising cost of feeder cattle is putting pressure on Texas High Plains feedyards.  *The Texas rural land market is cooling off a bit.  *Deep South Texas is hot and dry.  *Cattle need a lot of water in this Texas summer heat and humidity.  *Several Texas lakes have been ranked among the best in the nation for bass fishing.  

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season doesn't begin until June 1, but we're already getting some early indications of what to expect. The first hurricane forecasts of the year are coming out.  In our hurricane season preview, the meteorologists discuss the factors that will impact the number of storms that form this year, including El Nino, La Nina, Saharan dust, and water temperatures. Wonder what names the storms will be given? The team reveals those as well, plus what happens when the initial list of 21 names gets exhausted. They also discuss how to better warn people as the storms approach the coast and share their most memorable hurricane stories.  Related episodes In the sky with a hurricane hunter: Part 1 In the sky with a hurricane hunter: Part 2 Hear from the man who's been on 70-plus hurricane hunting flights Uncovering the mysteries of ancient hurricanes Hurricane Sandy: Looking back at the superstorm 10 years later What went right and wrong with Hurricane Ian: forecasts and communication About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Across the Sky, our Lee Enterprises Weather podcast. I'm Matt Holliner, covering weather for all of Lee's Midwest websites, apps and social media accounts. And I'm joined by my fellow meteorologist Joe Martucci with a press of Atlantic City in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Sean Sublette with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Virginia. And for this episode, guess it's just April. Hurricane season does not begin until June 1st, but we're starting to get some indications, some early signs of what we might expect this hurricane season of course, we've got to get through severe weather season first, but we know there's lots of interest once we get to this time of year and we start to get warmer temperatures, even in the Midwest where I am, my goodness, 80 degree weather. But then you start thinking, wait a minute, with warmer weather, so comes warmer sea surface temperatures and you start looking to the Atlantic. And when we get an early season surprise this year and then what about the peak of Atlantic hurricane season? So we're going to start to share some of our thoughts. What's going to help this season, what's going to hinder it, and what are we ultimately going to get? So, guys, what are some of your initial thoughts as we look ahead to hurricane season? Of course, with you guys being closer to the coast, the impacts a little bit higher as well. Yeah, I mean, you know, we are the press of Atlantic City. Atlantic City is smack dab on the Jersey Shore here. Many of us, you know, very, very cognizant of Superstorm Sandy, which I just can't believe. But it was 11 years ago here, you know, looking at the Colorado State University forecast, they're kind of like the gold standard, along with the National Hurricane Center for these forecasts fairly average for this compared to climatology. So, you know, 13 named storms averages 14.46 hurricanes. The average is 7.2 major hurricanes. That's category three. Four or five hurricanes is a to average is three. I think we can certainly take, you know, a little bit of a sigh of relief that we're not being forecasted to be above average, especially over the past couple of years. You know, I think El Nino is really the player for this. You know, after three winters in a row with a La Nina and we talked about that in our winter forecast episode back in November, you know, we're transitioning into an El Nino that's warmer than average waters along the equatorial Pacific, basically to tell people to go off the coast of Peru. And your temperatures are above average. That should stifle some tropical development. You know, at the same time, waters generally in the North Atlantic are above average. That's been the trend for the past couple of decades. We don't see that going away any time soon. So that can really help to fuel some storms. You know, to be honest, not you know, for us at the Jersey Shore, I think, you know, Sean would say something similar. We never let our guard down. That being said, you know, it could definitely be in a more impactful area like the Gulf Coast or Florida. Yeah. I mean, to that point, you know, anywhere in the Middle Atlantic and southeast coast always needs to be mindful during hurricane season. And, you know, these exercises and the folks at Colorado State have been doing this for 40 years now. These exercises in seasonal hurricane forecasting are very important so that we get a better understanding of how the ocean and the atmosphere kind of react in this way and what kind of seasons do they produce. You know, I, I don't know if you guys get this, but I still get a lot of like, well, why bother doing this if it only takes one? Why do you care? Well, one thing we need to understand the ocean and atmosphere better, too. Insurance companies are really interested in this kind of stuff, you know, even if just an individual homeowner or an individual business owner may not care that much or this might not change their preparation to beginning of the season, it's still important in the longer term understanding and ultimately for business impacts as well. Right now we like to tell people no matter what the outlook is, if one hits your backyard or you get flooded out or whatever, then it's been a bad season for you. I think the classic example of this is Hurricane Andrew in 1992, when that was during a very otherwise relatively quiet season. But obviously, Andrew, the impacts of Andrew in South Florida are still being felt today, which is, you know, 30 years later. So that's I think the key here is that this is important. It shouldn't change preparation, I think, for anybody. But it is nice to see, you know, for me, I'm really curious because as you said, you were coming off of three consecutive La Ninas. Now we're all the numerical guides is just screw seeming like we're going to get an El Nino. And that tends to inhibit hurricane development, doesn't prevent it, but of course, it backs it off a fair bit. But at the same time, we've got very high temperatures with respect to normal of the water and the Atlantic. So there's also this kind of academic idea in my head. So which one of these things is going to win out? You know, and I think to make sure that we're clear for people who aren't familiar, you know, when we're talking about El Nino, we're talking about above normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific. But we're also seeing above normal season temperatures in the Atlantic. But what the thing is, the Pacific being a larger body of water, when you get those above normal sea surface temperatures and I'm sitting right now, we're in a neutral phase, to be clear. We've come out of landing and we're in a neutral phase. But already we're seeing a warming trend like the Pacific is getting ready to transition to El Nino. I think that's the question is how quickly does that occur? Because when you get above normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, what happens is there's increased wind shear across the Atlantic. And when there's more wind shear across the Atlantic, higher level winds that tears up these storms and makes it harder for them to form. So typically when you have El Nino, you see reduced tropical activity in the Atlantic and it's the opposite. La Nina and the Pacific causes enhanced tropical activity in the Atlantic because of the reduced wind shear across the Atlantic. So it's an opposite effect. LA Nina enhances Atlantic hurricane season. El Nino causes it to typically be lower. But the catch this year is we're seeing above normal sea surface temperatures in Atlantic. So you're absolutely right, Sean, Which one of these is going to win out? And I think what it's also going to come down to is how quickly does El Nino form, if it holds off a little bit and doesn't get going? You know, we don't really see a true El Nino set up and that increased wind shear until September or October. You know, watch out for July and August. I think, because the water is definitely going to be warming up and there's not much wind shear and then we could get some activity. No, it was remarkable how quiet August was last year. I would be surprised if we had the same results again this year. So, you know, for people who are or who are going to continue to monitor this in the months and weeks ahead, and it's how quickly do we get El Nino to actually set up in the Pacific, the sooner the better, because that will increase the wind shear and make it less likely that hurricanes will form. But if it takes longer, then I think we have to watch out. You reminded me mad about how quiet we were for a while here with our tropical systems. I believe we went and here we go again. Now, from July 2nd to September 1st, we had not one storm. And typically August is when you really ramp it up. We had nothing. We ended up calling on the second. Then we had Danielle in September. I believe at that time I believe I believe maybe you guys know, was it the only time we in Tropical history we were without a named storm in August? They remember that. I feel like that was a nugget that seems to stick in in my head, at least in the modern era, at least in the satellite era. I think that's the case. Again, like you said, I'd have to go back and look it up. My sense and see if you all remember this. The way I do it was that there was a little more Saharan dust in August, the window and or we were in a phase of the Mad Julian oscillation, which also did not favor tropical development. And that's just off the top of my head. I can't remember that for certain, but I think those two things kind of put a little squashing on the activity in August of last year in a time that would otherwise be fairly act. No, you're 100% right on the dust, Shawn. And I remember that not only for the reason you said, but Florida. There was a lot of there was a haze in the sky from Florida, from some of that dust as well. And I'm actually looking at the it's called the United States Drought Monitor. And you'll look at Florida. I do believe some of the reason why Florida is in drought right now is because of that dust last summer, which really helped to dry things out. And they didn't get a lot of rain starting back to last year. And I'm looking at now a year ago, 21% at this time Florida was in drought, now it's 66%. And there was that increase throughout the summer and fall of last year, which got them to that point. So, yeah, I mean, and again, you know, that that was good, that we were that we were quiet, you know, relatively quiet through August. But then we went to September, got to made up for that really quickly because we had Danielle, Earl, Earl, Fiona Gaston in her mean, we even had a tropical depression in there. And Ian of course that that's that that's pretty close to the Mount Rushmore of most significant hurricane impacts you'll see And what is it with the ice storms, by the way? I mean, we've noticed this, right? For some reason, the ice storms tend to be the have whether it's just a statistical freak or whatever. But the ice storms, I think, have been more retired than any other storm. You know, when we go through it alphabetically, you know, we have we have these lists of storms. You know, it's repeated every six years or these six list because people like where do they name these things anyway? Well, there are six main lists for the Atlantic hurricanes. So they're you know, they're repeated every six years. And every once in a while when a storm is especially bad, causes a big loss of property and or there are fatalities. The name is retired because it's such an impactful event. The name doesn't want to be repeated. And that's done by the World Meteorological Organization. And Ian was retired from last year. And do y'all remember what was the other one that was retired last year? Yeah, that was Fiona. Diana. Yes. Yeah. Which was just like two weeks before Ian did a lot of damage in the Canadian Maritimes of all places. Yeah, Yeah. I think it was the most costly storm to hit Canada. If I recall. Right, and that's a big reason why I was being retired. It was also damaging in the Caribbean, not really an impact to the U.S., but they don't get you. Typically the cold water kicks in and these things dissipate before they actually make landfall in Canada. But that one did not happen. It was moving fast and came in, I think only as a category one, but a category one in Canada is a big deal. And so I I'm pretty sure I read that it was the most costly storm. Yeah. And to your point, we always have to be careful about saying only quote unquote category one, because there's still so much water with these things as well. You know, this goes back to the we could speak for like three or 4 hours about the surfer Simpson scale, right. About impact. And don't don't get so locked in with the category when it comes to impacts because they can rain like like crazy and be quote unquote only a cat one and they could do massive amount of flooding, even though it's only a cat one. I mean, Sandy was a cat one transitioning to an extra tropical cyclone as it came onshore, the Jersey Shore. And you know, all this I mean, Joe, you know about this way more than I do, buddy. But yeah, yeah. These things, no matter what their category, they do damage. You know, Sandy, of course, was well, it wasn't technically a cat one at landfall as opposed tropical cyclone. Just to speak on behalf of my New Jersey brethren, our last landfalling hurricane was back in the 19 tens. We have not had a landfalling hurricane since then. Going back to that, I though, Sean, we've had 13 ice storms retired. That is the most and we had three this decade in Aida, which was the year before. And then Iota. Oh, yeah. Do you want to. Yeah, I don't think we should count that though. Because of what? Because it wasn't the ninth one. Because that whole weird Greek alphabet thing. Wow. Yeah. I mean, do we want to go down that rabbit hole? Well. Well, the other thing is that we don't, you know, we don't do the Greek alphabet anymore. If we run out of names, there's a new. There's a second debris list. So if we run out of the primary list, we don't do this alpha, beta gamma stuff anymore. Yeah. Which I think is probably much better, but I think people got a little too attached to the Greek letter, like, Oh, we're going Greek, you know. You know, all the fraternity memes come out on Twitter with with the hurricanes and all that good stuff. And then a serious point, You know, what do you do when you have a Greek alphabet storm that was tremendously impactful and, you know, it gets brought up for a vote to be retired because there's no other Greek letter. I think that was part of the impetus for doing it. If it was. Yeah. Why do you suppose the original impetus, the impetus that's a good that's a good vocab word for it for our Across the Sky podcast listeners, I think with that that was such a great word, Sean. I think, well, we'll take it. That also starts with I know, yes it does it also, but I will retire for a little bit after that. I and we'll come back in just a minute. Everybody here, thank you for listening. And we've got to in just a second on the across the Sky bond. And welcome back, everyone, to the Across the Sky podcast. Come out with new episodes every Monday. And we do thank you for listening. You know, we have seen our audience steadily grow. We just had a meeting about how things are going with the big bosses and they were happy with the podcast, so we do appreciate it. If people weren't listening, we would have been canceled. We have not been canceled. We are continuing and if you enjoy the podcast, also give us a wherever you listen to your podcast, give us a review, give us a rating that helps as well. So do thank you for tuning in and this week's episode all about hurricanes. And the main reason we decided to do a hurricane themed episode, even though it's April and kind of get into the peak of severe weather season, is because Colorado State usually comes out with the first forecasts for the Atlantic hurricane season every year. And they just came out with the one for 2023 and we mentioned it at the top of the episode. But to recap their forecasts for this Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1st, 2023, and going through November 30th, they're calling for 13 named storms. And of those 13 named storms, that includes tropical storms and hurricanes. Of those 13 named storms, six becoming hurricanes and two becoming major hurricanes. And compare that to a normal year, we typically see 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. So they're basically going one number below the average. And in their reasoning for it, they're conflicting issues with the forecast. So we do expect El Nino to form and wind shear, more wind shear than usual across the Atlantic. So that should hold down activity. But the problem is we're seeing above average sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic. So which one wins out? And because we're thinking maybe El Nino could end up setting up actually this summer, even before the fall, where they're leaning with El Nino running out just slightly. Just slightly. So basically a near-normal season. But I guess that is better compared to what we dealt with in 2020 and 2021. Now, 2022 was actually near normal, but it was looking like it was going to be above normal season. I think everybody definitely had some PTSD after 2020 and 21 to blockbuster years, so we kind of caught a break a little bit. But I tell you what, people in Florida, I don't think they caught a break last year with Ian coming through. So again, that was another example of how, you know, it was especially we went through that quiet August and nothing was going on and then, boy, did things change. So that's why you can't let your guard down, even though it's technically being forecast right now. And there are other forecasters come and we'll see how this all plays out with still, when you're talking about a near average hurricane season, that does not mean you need to go through the motions of not preparing for a hurricane, because we could absolutely have multiple landfalls in the US, you know, and that's the thing we can't forecast is where these things are going to occur. Are they just going to be out in the middle of the ocean or are they going to make landfall and we can't say that this far out. So, guys, what else are you thinking about this upcoming hurricane season? I'm thinking about some of the the changes that the Hurricane Center has put out every year. They put out this this memo that says what's new and what's updated for the season. And, you know, in terms of the forecast cone, I think that's always the the the sexy one. That's the one that that we think about the most here. Not much of a change with that forecast cone. There's been a little bit of an adjustment towards a narrower cone 60 and 72 hours out. But we're really talking like a matter of like miles. And then at 96 and 120 actually expands like three miles at 96 hours, five miles at 120 hours. And that cone and I love to talk about this because I feel like it's time that we need to change the definition of the cone. Right now. It's where the center of the storm is with 66% confidence. And I just think we're so good at forecasting the track and even the intensity of hurricanes, we can make that 75% or something higher. You know, I, I think people believe that that forecast cone is 100% certainty and it's not. So I always like to get on on that. I think we do such a good job. I think it's time to become a little more confident and expand it. I think there's a lot of merit to that argument. Joe. I think know, after last year and what happened with the end, there was a lot of people revisiting the cone and what the cone really meant. And we realized, I think we always realize this to a point that people misunderstand the cone. They just don't understand it the way we think they understand it. There's certainly a lot of value in there, but I try to tell people it's an important thing but is not the only thing. I mean, if you think about the last ten or 15 years since the cone has really been very highly visible in forecasting your public facing forecast, I mean, we push the cone out all the time and we haven't done a good enough job. I mean, not three of us, but I think the community needs to do a better job at saying impacts are not limited to the cone. Sing along if you know the words, the impacts are not limited to the cone. All right. This is our best guess of where the center is going to be. And yeah, near the center, that's where the wind is going to be. The most ferocious. But impacts extend far away from the cone, especially storm surge. Especially storm surge. I think this is kind of what we need to to drive home even more. You know, we keep working. It's a work in progress. Right. But back to your point about the historical probabilities, Joe, I think we have reached a point where we can do something that's a lot more dynamic. But this is where we feel with 75% confidence or whatever percent confidence, this is where it's going to be in this timeframe. You know, the other thing I'd like to see this is tougher, but start when we were Hurricane center puts these things out. And of course we've got a new hurricane director, Hurricane Center director from Virginia, which is, you know, cool for out here guy from from Cape Spring, which is where I used to work many moons ago anyway, to to put some place on a map that is clear. Like we know it's not going here. You plop a big map of the Gulf Coast and you put like, I don't know, let's say New Orleans to Brownsville. That's green. We know absolutely it's not going there. We know that or incorporate something like that. Because one of the things I think a lot of the social science is teaching us as people want to know when they can start paying attention. They want to know when it's safe, not just they want to know when the threat ends. They want to know when they're safe. And I don't know the best way to do that. That's again, that's a social science question, but I think there is some value in that. If we can do it the right way. Now, John, I think you're absolutely right about letting people know when you don't have to worry anymore, because oftentimes, you know, we start watching these things. You know, when they come off of Africa as a little tropical wave. And basically we have to tell everybody, look, this has the potential to develop, but we really do not know if this was just going to curve out in the Atlantic, if it's going to make its way in the Caribbean, maybe the Gulf. And so basically have to tell everybody, like the whole East Coast, it has to be on standby for this one. But that's very early on. And so people and of course, that gets lots of buzz on social media. And then, you know, especially once you do get a story, it looks like it's going to go into the Gulf. Then we have to say the whole Gulf Coast has to be on alert because there's still a lot of uncertainty where this is going to go. And so then everybody in the Gulf Coast gets all worked up and it's on social media and starts to get nervous. But inevitably, that's why you have to keep following the updates. Don't see one forecast, especially when it's five days out and think, Oh, that's it, it's going to change. They're going to be adjustments. There's going to be greater confidence in where that storm is going to go and wherever is the most likely past five days out, four days out. That is likely going to change. Unfortunately, That's why we give you a range of possibilities. But I think you're very right, John. At some point, as you get closer and closer to the landfall, the folks that are going to be feeling the impacts, the number does get smaller. And so letting people clearly know like this area, like Louisiana on West does not have to worry about this storm, like making that very clear, because sometimes I do think that gets lost because then people stop hearing about their location and but they're still concerned because they were never given the all clear. And until somebody hears that all clear, then you get an unnecessary number of people that are overly worked up anxious. They making unnecessary preparations. So yeah, I do think that just as important as messaging, who needs to prepare and who is going to feel the worst impacts, letting people know who is not going to be impacted. And you're absolutely right, that needs to happen as well. Yeah, and there's been a couple of options out there to change. You know how the cone looks. I've seen some like things where like the cone is like really dark in the where the best forecast is and then, you know, gets a little lighter as you spread out to show some more ideas of the impacts, you know, because anywhere in the cone is at the same you know, has the same you should be concerned anyone within that cone, even if you're not in the middle in the hurricane center, did a good job a couple of years ago. Maybe you guys remember what year it is. But removing that line, you know, that connects those dots. Now there's the dots sometimes like in my forecast, I don't even show the dots. I just show the cone. But but that was a good call. You know, it's a lot of social science stuff that we keep getting better at and really was triggered a lot by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 year. You know, just just looking at some other updates to the Hurricane Center. And I just had it and then I lost it. Hold on. Give me one second, everybody. We're going to do this in real time. So for that, Joe, I think you know what's worthwhile and a big question that a lot of people get, you know, is this is our outlook episode for the upcoming hurricane season. One of the big questions that always comes up is what names are on the list? Oh, yeah, because remember, there are there are six lists that rotate. So if your name is does come up one year, you're going to have to wait six years for it to come up again. But we do have this year's list, so I'm just going to run down from a through W what the names are and see if your name is on the list number A And I know the problem is if you have a name low in the way down the alphabet, sometimes we never get to that name unless it's a really active hurricane season. So maybe especially if you have a w the W we don't want to get to the W storm, but we do have it on the list, so let's just run through it real quick. Most likely we will get an Arlene that is Storm one, number one. And also by the way, remember these these names alternate between female and male. So it's a female name then a male name, a female name, then a male name, and then next year and we'll start with a male name and go to a female name. So Arlene is number one, and then it's Brett. The sea storm is Cindy. Then we have Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harold, I believe it's e Dalia. I've got the pronunciation guide up here to the ice storm. So a little bit tricky one e dahlia Jose at Tia, I believe it's Katia is how it's pronounced. Lea Margot The end storm is Nigel. Then we have Ophelia, Phillipe, Rena, Sean We've got a Sean on this year's list. I hope we don't make it to the storm, but John as a possibility might use your name this year. Hammy events. And the storm is Whitney. You know, I actually like this this list this year because most of these are pretty easy to pronounce. There's some years where there are some that are real tough and there's lots of discussion. Exactly how do you say this? And I'm glad the Hurricane Center comes out the pronunciation, guys, because some years their names are a little bit tougher than usual. And this is an international list of names. It's the World Meteorological Organization. It puts together these names. So that's why it's not just us names. It is names from around the world. And that's why you sometimes hear some unusual odd names, and especially when it comes to the ice storms, because so many have been retired, sometimes have to go and find some rather unique names. But that is the list for 2023. If either one of you had your names retired, I don't think so. I think I haven't even looked at Hurricane Matthew. Yeah, Yeah. Hurricane Matthew was retired. Okay, That's right. So let's say currently Matt is not on. They probably haven't added Matt to the list. They probably like that die with Matthew. Yeah, but I don't know. There's been a similar Hurricane Joseph because I've got the list of all six years. I don't see Joseph up here. There's a Josephine Josephine. Yeah. And Jose. Yes. Very close which is going to be Jose's on the list this year is on a list for this year. So I was going to ask you, though, Matt, to have you guys covered those storms with your name and your career like Sean, have you had? No, because Sean came up because there was another storm that was retired and that name and I forget what storm, but there was an S storm that was retired, I want to say, six or 12 years ago. And then CNN was added to the list. I'd have to go back and look to see what names retire, but that hasn't been on the list that long. Would it be kind of odd to cover a storm with your name? I'm going to go. Yeah, I remember doing it with a hurricane, Matt. Now, to be clear, I was in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the time. I was working at the Fox station out there because this this storm occurred in late September, early October of 2016. And so I was in Cincinnati at the time. So I was not being directly impacted by it, but when you have a storm that's impacting the US, every meteorologist in the country is going to talk about it. So I was certainly talking about it. And I think what helped me is though, my my legal name is Matthew. Everybody calls me Matt. So it didn't seem that odd that say, Hurricane Matthew wasn't like I was directly repeating my name. And everybody was like, Oh, hey, Matt, what's the situation with Matthew? And so it sounded a little bit different. I think that that helped making that statement as as odd because of it being Matthew instead of Matt. And everybody called me Matt. So it wasn't wasn't too hot. And especially because I didn't have to talk about all the times, it hasn't directly impacted me. And I just looked up Hurricane Stan in 2005 was retired and then my name went into there, Sean. And so Stan knew it was Rick. Sandy was retired the Oh, you're asking and you said Stan was 2005. Sandy, of course, was retired too, but that was 12 was 2012. Yeah, right. So that 423 that doesn't cycle in. So it had to be Stan in oh five. Gosh. And I guess before we we wrap up this episode kind of go around the horn and talk about our most memorable hurricane experience. I know from again, they start to wind together after a while, you know, and I know some people that were, you know, directly impacted by storms. And I've covered, you know, so many, but most of them indirectly. But I would have to say my most memorable experience is one that actually I was covering blow by blow and actually experienced at the same time. And that was Hurricane Hanna in 2020 that moved over Deep South Texas. And again, that was a great example of it was just a Category one. But my goodness, were there some tremendous impacts now where it actually made landfall? Hurricane Hanna You know, I was in the Rio Grande Valley at the time, which is Deep South Texas, Brownsville, McAllen are by the most notable cities down there. Now. It made landfall north of there. Technically, the eye came in just north of the four counties in the valley. But what this storm did is after it made landfall, I took a dive to the south and west. So it did move over our viewing area and the Rio Grande Valley and the winds were incredible, even though we were technically again, it was already inland, but the winds of this thing was cranking and we weren't even in the most populated part of the valley. It wasn't even in the area with the worst winds. But how much wind damage there was from this was impressive. So I can't you know, it was hard to imagine, like if this had been a category four, Category five, I mean, it was already just tremendously windy. But I think ultimately, despite the wind damage, the amount of tree damage was done in roof damage. My apartment had shingles removed. There was actually a leak that developed in my apartment. You know, all these things that end up happening. But ultimately, again, it wasn't It it wasn't the wind that was the worst part. As bad as it was, it was the amount of rain, because what happened is the storm just slowed down and it basically almost stalled out just to the southwest down in Mexico and just kept rotating, though. And these rounds of rain kept coming in. And even in these rain bands, there were some embedded tornadoes like technically the hurricane itself that passed with these rain bands on the backside of it had some little weak circulations. Well, weak tornadoes popped up on the backside of it. And just the rounds of rain, the flooding that we saw, you know, until you go through a hurricane, you've actually lived through it. You realize how long they last oftentimes. And just all the different impacts and all the different things. I mean, that's why it's just the most fascinating weather out there, because you can have tornadoes within the hurricane and the flooding in the wind. It was truly an incredible experience. But one was enough. I hope I'm okay not covering with being through another hurricane. That was that was good. Good for me. Yeah. So for me, it goes back the first time I was in was a first verse incarnation of Hurricane Charley in August of 1986. We were scheduled to go on vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and and we knew it was coming. Of course, this is 86. All you had was television and radio, and we didn't even have the Weather Channel at my house in Richmond. So I remember this very well because we decided to go anyway, even though the hurricane was was coming in. And as we were going out the back door to get in the car to drive from Richmond into North Carolina, my mom's like, Should we still go? She looks at me. I'm six years old, weather geek. She looks at me. Should we still go? I'm like, Well, it's too late to decide now. Let's go. And we went. It was we made it. I mean, we rode it out. We got down there before. Before we had the biggest impacts that actually pushed back off shore. But that was a windy day for sure. We didn't go anywhere that day. And then the rest of the week, the weather was just kind of air, but that was the first when I was legit in in terms of a legit tropical system. And ironically, because I covered a lot doing through my TV days, I didn't go down to the shore. We always sent somebody else to go cover them at the coastline. I was doing most of the anchoring from the studio, so I haven't been in that many of them. But in terms of other impacts, Isabel is is also one of the the top ones here recently in Virginia. But, you know, all of our big flooding events here in Virginia are tropical systems. If you go back to Agnes Haight and Hazel, Hazel was big in the fifties, but Agnes Camille left over from one in 85. It's all about the water here now. Yeah. And for me, there's not one weather event I can think of that puts sometimes tears in my eyes. Then Superstorm Sandy. In 2012, we were without power for without a week. We knew some people who had power loss for more than two weeks. It was a storm, you know, famous for its left turn right into Brigantine, just north of Atlantic City here. And the destruction you saw on our barrier islands was tremendous. And I think the one part that separates New Jersey from other coastal states is that our whole shore is a barrier island and it juts out into the water. I shouldn't say the whole shore of a 90% of the shore. And the memories in the economy and all the good times you had were laying there in shambles. And that included where I went to a lot every year growing up, which was Seaside, which in many ways was ground zero for the storm. And you know, leading up to it, you knew for days it was going to come. And, you know, the weather geek society is really excited. You're like, wow, this is a once in a lifetime storm. It is coming right for me. And, you know, you balance that out with, well, jeez, people are going to die. There's going to be damage and there's going to be tremendous devastation. I was at Rutgers at the time. I was a senior then and I was in charge of our weather TV weather department weather watcher program at the time and, you know, planning coverage for that. And then I think I said this when we talked about our Superstorm Sandy ten year anniversary episode, I ended up getting into a bicycle accident where I ended up with a concussion and I lost teeth, banged up my nose a little bit, and I was literally, you know, just home was if you ever had a concussion with a very empty feeling and you really couldn't you know, I really was just kind of out for the count during the storm. It was one way I was actually pretty good because classes were canceled for a week and I wasn't going to school anyway. I was concussed. But, you know, when you see the roller coaster that you've been on in the water and you know, you see the places that you used to go, go with with your family and friends, you know, be destroyed. And there was such a sense of unity among everybody in New Jersey to get this right and to pick things back up and to get us back in action. And, you know, I was I our Rutgers group, we went to Midway Beach, just south of Seaside Heights to participate in the cleanup effort. That's actually how in or in a small way, I'm married to my now wife. That was like our first kind of like really talked to each other event that we did with that cleanup. So a lot of memories from Sandy. And we talk about it to this day. And, you know, it was the biggest storm on record in terms of size and it's not the worst storm we could have had at the Jersey Shore. You know, we you know, in our circles here in Jersey, you know, our realistic worst case scenario is a Cat three three that really runs up the coast and provides a you know, it might not be as long lasting as Sandy, but a more powerful strike to the shore. So that's it for me. That's Sandy without a doubt. Yeah, that's quite the story. Joe, you know, I love hearing you just tell it because, I mean, you can hear the emotion in your voice. You know how impactful that storm was. I did realize that while you were up with that story, there's probably something that we should have mentioned at the beginning of the show that I think we were overlooked. Our fellow co-host, Kirsten, not with us. And I didn't even mention why at the beginning, but it's kind of a big reason because we also need to mention it because she's not going to be around for a while because as of just yesterday, April 12th, she delivered a baby boy. So she is this is her her third child. And so she's going to be on maternity leave and flexible leave late June. So she's going to be out for a while. But everything went fine. The baby is healthy. She is doing well. So all is good. We're so happy with that. Is that is in the books for every now and then. She also has some time off to enjoy, enjoy the baby. And she shared a picture and it does look like a cute baby. I'm going to be honest. I don't think all babies are cute. I most. Wow, you're fired. I think most babies are cute. But be honest. Not not all. Not all are. But but this one is. Sure. Since Baby Maxx, you know, obvious thing. So. But I'm just saying, not all babies are bad. I think that gets exaggerate a little bit now. You know, you can't say that to anybody. You have to tell everybody the baby's cute. But as honestly say, the Kirsten's babies get they get cuter the day after for sure. There you go. Yeah. No, congratulations to her. We were really happy for her and core part of this podcast. You know, without her, we wouldn't be doing this in a way in which we are. So she'll be back at the end of June, and I believe it's the end of June. And we're going to we're going to miss our next couple of months. We'll still chat with her, you know, three of us, but we'll have her back here and I'm sure with some some really good stories when we come back. But, you know, certainly congratulations to her. You can follow her on Facebook, Kirsten Lange and on Instagram as well. I believe it's Kirsten Lang one, if I'm correct with that, I think we're going to wrap, right? That. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But just wanted to be clear, if you don't hear it. Curious to know she was not fired. She went make it very clear she's just on maternity leave enjoying some time with the family. But on that note, I hope you enjoyed this early look at hurricane season 2023. And of course, we will have other hurricane related episodes to come as we get closer to the season starting and of course covering all other topics. Weather related. And one other reminder, if you ever want, there's something you would like to hear us discuss. Contact us on social media. We're always looking for ideas we want to hear discussed. Email, contacts for social media and maybe a topic for next week's episode. But on that note for Sean Sublette in Richmond, Joe Martucci in Atlantic City. I'm Matt Holliner in Chicago. Thanks for listening, everyone, and we'll catch you next time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Farm groups are not happy with the new Waters of the U.S. rule. This could be a challenging year for farmers on the Texas High Plains. The sorghum industry received a grant to encourage climate smart sorghum. Deep South Texas farmers received some bad news regarding the Lake Amistad Dam. We'll have those stories and more on this episode of Texas Ag Today.

Hello everyone, and welcome back for another episode of the Outdoor Adventure Series Podcast. The Outdoor Adventure Series celebrates individuals & families, businesses, and organizations that seek out and promote the exploration of the great outdoors. Our guest today is Ruth Hoyt.Ruth is a Naturalist, an Award-winning Nature Photographer, and Owner of Photo Bound Tours. She is based in Deep South Texas, and specializes in teaching bird and nature photography. She works with Texas photo ranches as a guide, workshop leader, and consultant. Ruth has led tours and workshops for various companies such as Kodak and agencies such as the National Parks system. She also has many Exhibitions, Photo Credits, and Photo Competitions to her credit.Ruth is a long-time active member of OWAA (Outdoor Writers Association of America) and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Her Committee work includes support for the Photography and Excellence In Craft competition sections. She also maintains memberships in Texas and the United States with various nature, conservation and photography organizations.InSight2GoConsider your sense of ethics whenever you photograph.Never stop asking questions and always seek answers.The more you look, the more you see.To learn more about Ruth and her work, you can visit her website at https://ruthhoyt.com/You can also follow Ruth on these social sites:Instagram YouTube Click here to learn more about the Outdoor Writers Association of America.The Outdoor Adventure Series is a podcast production of Fox Coaching, Inc.

Hello everyone, and welcome back for another episode of the Outdoor Adventure Series Podcast. The Outdoor Adventure Series celebrates individuals & families, businesses, and organizations that seek out and promote the exploration of the great outdoors. Our guest today is Ruth Hoyt.Ruth is a Naturalist, an Award-winning Nature Photographer, and Owner of Photo Bound Tours. She is based in Deep South Texas, and specializes in teaching bird and nature photography. She works with Texas photo ranches as a guide, workshop leader, and consultant. Ruth has led tours and workshops for various companies such as Kodak and agencies such as the National Parks system. She also has many Exhibitions, Photo Credits, and Photo Competitions to her credit.Ruth is a long-time active member of OWAA (Outdoor Writers Association of America) and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Her Committee work includes support for the Photography and Excellence In Craft competition sections. She also maintains memberships in Texas and the United States with various nature, conservation and photography organizations.InSight2GoConsider your sense of ethics whenever you photograph.Never stop asking questions and always seek answers.The more you look, the more you see.To learn more about Ruth and her work, you can visit her website at https://ruthhoyt.com/You can also follow Ruth on these social sites:Instagram YouTube Click here to learn more about the Outdoor Writers Association of America.The Outdoor Adventure Series is a podcast production of Fox Coaching, Inc.

Pastor Bruce Stewart is originally from Australia.  He likes to say "Deep South Texas." Bruce is a pastor, he was the lead pastor and founder of a Church in Spring, Texas.  He left there to become the first Director of the Stronger Alliance. He is the pastor for reflective life Ministries, and he serves on the advisory board for Care Force, an organization that provides crisis training, response, and organizational development for the community and first responder organizations. He has quite a few hats that he has to wear. He used to work at HPD,  and now he works also with a precinct of three constables. He is a chaplain there, and then he also helps veterans with PTSD,  teen suicide, and then helping with veterans for child rescue and just a bunch of things. Things He loves, all-volunteer, so he loves it. He is part of the We are Stronger film that's just really grown and taken off. Yeah, that's been fantastic, he says. “You know, you've obviously seen the film and, and we had such an amazing response to them. So for those listeners who haven't seen it, it's basically a movie about a veteran coming home, who has PTSD and finds healing through Christ. And with the film, we realized that this is going to open a lot of wounds for a lot of people, not just for veterans, but for their families and how that will affect them. And so we wanted to provide services that would allow them to get help after seeing the movie. And so that's what the stronger alliance is and we provide Christ-centered organizations to hopefully, give them hope and give them joy and find a new way forward through difficult times, and most of us know the needs of that during COVID and, and everything that's going on in the world the desire need for hope. And, and obviously, we find that in Christ also” It just breaks your heart and to see that people that have signed on the line to serve our country feel that they have reached a point of darkness that that's their only option out. Yeah, and unfortunately that's a lie. Veterans. It's also a lot of first responders. You know, as I started working in the first responder community, particularly in law enforcement, I've come to realize, in fact, something that a lot of people may not know, we actually have more first responders die, by suicide than we do in the line of duty. . And so that in itself should be enough to be a wake-up call to our community. And so, I saw the need, I saw that just a real hunger for, for hope, as I said, just a desire for something more, you know, you train these men, you train these first responders to be warriors to go out onto the frontlines and to do the things that most of us can't do, or unwilling to do. And then they come back, and of course, you know, they're looking for that purpose again.  We have to learn to be that person we would want at our darkest time. What can we do as Pastors? More than 90% of Pastors have not been trained in suicide prevention. Where do Pastors go when we need help. For more information or to connect with Pastor Bruce, contact him at:  bruce@strongeralliance.com For more on the resilient heart podcast, www.theresilientheartpodcast.com Follow us on FB https://www.facebook.com/heartsofresilience    

In this brief bonus episode, we take a look at a lesser-known book. The book details the atrocities that Mexicans faced at the hands of the Texas Rangers in Deep South Texas during the first half of the 20th century.

Potential for Severe Storms and Heavy Rain Continues in the South - A slow moving front will focus hazardous weather across the South over the next few days, with a broad threat for flash flooding, and renewed chances of river flooding across the Southeast. Severe thunderstorms are possible each day, progressing from parts of Texas eastward across the Gulf Coast. Critical fire weather concerns are forecast across Deep South Texas and Central High Plains. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/xtremeweather/support

The Librarian Influencer of the Week is Alma D. Salinas, who is from La Joya ISD in Deep South Texas. She currently oversees 46 librarians and their clerks, instructional materials, and the district print shop. Show notes: https://www.laurasheneman.com/post/time-is-precious-and-we-need-to-make-it-count-with-alma-salinas  Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I'll be adding some bonus episodes and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes or subscribe through your favorite podcast provider.   I’d be very grateful if you left me a review, too. They will help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read.   Just click here to review in iTunes or in your podcast provider and select “Ratings and Reviews” then“Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is.   Thank you and visit www.laurasheneman.com to learn more about becoming a Librarian Influencer!

We are celebrating influential women in music, you should too! Today we interview Madelyn Victoria, a talented vocalist and songwriter from Deep South Texas, who has made a career in the Country Music industry, charting a #1 hit single on AM/FM boards. When asked what she most enjoys about her career, she says, "My vision is just being out on the road and enjoying the good parts of touring - taking in the scenery, my band, the live music scene. That's my favorite thing to do."  We follow her story and learn how she began performing at a very young age and how her love for music and stage progressed. How did she accomplish so much by age 28? She mentions, "I actually speak out and write down goals every day. Whether the actual goal comes true or not, I know my destination." "You just have to do what what you feel is right in your heart. And that's exactly what I'm doing when I'm on the road and when I'm being inspired with my band." Not everything in life is easy or runs smoothly, exactly how we predicted. We all struggle at times, but what gets us through? Madelyn has some great words of wisdom, "Sometimes I get down due to negative negativity around me, but for the majority of the time, you have to have a "bulletproof mindset". You have to choose to ignore the negativity around you, the negative people, and just stay true to who you are."   Learn more about Madelyn and her rise to success here: madelyn@madelyn-victoria.com http://www.madelyn-victoria.com Facebook: @madelynvictoria See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dedication:  To the Memory of all of the men and women who fought for our United States of America from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror, today.  God Bless Them All! Donica Knight is an Alabama country rocker, who just put out a military tribute, "Blood On my Boots." She does alot of work with the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation. Ed Roman is an Award-winning singer/songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist from Shelburne, Ontario, Canada.  Blurring the lines between pop, rock, folk, and country music genres, Ed's uniquely crafted songs have received regular rotation on more than 100 terrestrial radio stations across North America. “Country music hits the heart, and feeds the soul; it's the story of all our lives in one way or another.” That's Madelyn Victoria's perspective on the depth of Country music and just one of many reasons why this talented young vocalist and songwriter from Deep South Texas decided to pursue a career in the Country Music industry. Based in Waynesville Ohio, Richard Lynch is an American Country music artist, who has released a long list of chart topping hits in the world of traditional country music.

Dedication:  To the Memory of all of the men and women who fought for our United States of America from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror, today.  God Bless Them All!Donica Knight is an Alabama country rocker, who just put out a military tribute, "Blood On my Boots." She does alot of work with the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation.Ed Roman is an Award-winning singer/songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist from Shelburne, Ontario, Canada.  Blurring the lines between pop, rock, folk, and country music genres, Ed’s uniquely crafted songs have received regular rotation on more than 100 terrestrial radio stations across North America.“Country music hits the heart, and feeds the soul; it’s the story of all our lives in one way or another.” That’s Madelyn Victoria’s perspective on the depth of Country music and just one of many reasons why this talented young vocalist and songwriter from Deep South Texas decided to pursue a career in the Country Music industry.Based in Waynesville Ohio, Richard Lynch is an American Country music artist, who has released a long list of chart topping hits in the world of traditional country music.

  “Country music hits the heart, and feeds the soul; it’s the story of all our lives in one way or another.” That’s Madelyn Victoria’s perspective on the depth of Country music and just one of many reasons why this talented young vocalist and songwriter from Deep South Texas decided to pursue a career in the Country Music industry.

Today's Morning Commute is not from the mobile studio. It is from the home office in Deep South Texas. I am simulcasting on Blog Talk Radio and Talkshoe. Discussing yesterday's Season Finale of Heroes.