The change of the year is upon us, and 2012 will go in the books as a year of superlatives. In many places in the U.S., it was the warmest year on record. It was a year of extremes, from fires in the Rockies to (Hurricane/Superstorm) Sandy. It was among the quietest years for tornadoes on record, and yet we still saw the largest outbreak on Christmas Day in the records.
What will 2013 bring? Will we get a quiet year after such extremes, or will those patterns continue into another year?
Well, one thing 2013 will bring is more from me, thanks to my New Year’s resolution to practice daily writing.
When I go to work tonight, I’ll look at the records for 2012 in Omaha, Lincoln, and Norfolk (all in Nebraska). My job will be to untangle all the records and see if we set records for the warmest year ever in Omaha and Norfolk (Lincoln will be somewhere in the top 10, too.) At the other National Weather Service offices around the country, climate weenies like me will be doing the same thing, combing through the records for the end of year summaries. Watch for those links here and on the Wilder Weather facebook page!
Writing for 15-30 minutes every day will allow me to push out everything from academic journal articles to book chapters to blog posts here. I’m sure I’ll need inspiration on some of those days, so please send me your weather and climate questions, whether they are inspired by events in Laura’s books or observations out your own windows!