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| This is a start to showing what weather is |
Ignoring Merriam Webster for the moment, I will say what weather is to me. Weather is everything going on outside in the environment. Weather can be rain...weather can be wind...weather can be clouds. It is not necessarily everything you can SEE, it can be minuscule changes in pressure which are not very apparent to anyone but play a big role in what happens with the atmosphere.
A more Important question when it comes to weather is...
What does weather Impact?
Everything.
It can impact something as small as "should I cut my grass today?" to multi-billion dollar decisions made on wall st. The impacts of weather are far reaching. Below are some extreme examples of the impact of weather:
*The drought in the late 1980's caused an estimated $40 BILLION in damage to agriculture. (Source: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/techrpts/tr200301/tr2003-01.pdf)
* A 2005 estimate of Hurricane Katrina damage was listed at approx $140 BILLION. Though the toll on the people of New Orleans and other gulf coast communities will never be able to be measured. (Source: http://www.marshall.edu/cber/research/katrina/Katrina-Estimates.pdf)
* The 1993 Super storm, a snow storm that impacted much of the US east coast, cost more than $5 Billion in losses. (Source: http://www.rms.com/publications/1993_SuperStorm.pdf)
* A cold rain that fell in late October 2008 cost the Author some enjoyment and lost time in trying to watch his favorite baseball team win the World Series. (Source: Me)
I will focus much of this blog on the economic impacts of the weather but I will also be sure to include some fun facts and interesting commentary as I see fit.
