Currently — May 23, 2022

May 22, 2022

The weather, currently

The first official area of concern of the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season was issued on Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico. As of Sunday evening, the swirl of clouds about 300 miles (500 km) south of Mobile, Alabama was already churning up gusty winds and a steady stream of heavy rain along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida. Further south, the swirl — officially known now as 90L — was completely devoid of thunderstorms near its center, a welcome sign that rapid intensification was unlikely to occur before it makes landfall on Monday.Up to six inches (150 mm) of rain is expected over the next day or two near the Mississippi / Alabama border, and wet weather should spread further inland into the Carolinas later this week as the system funnels warm and moist Gulf air northwards. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are more than two degrees F (1.2 degrees C) warmer than normal for this time of year, adding more potential fuel for heavy rain — a trend that has been attributed to climate change.

—Eric Holthaus

What you need to know, currently.

Our Managing Editor, Zaria Howell, profiled Mia Madison, Executive Director of Memphis Tilth. Memphis Tilth is an environmental organization that promotes sustainable local food systems.

“It wasn’t until Madison transferred to the University of Memphis in the early 2000s to study geography, however, that she learned about the connection between environmental racism and marginalized communities.

It was in urban planning and anthropology classes that Madison began to seriously flex her advocacy muscle. Although, she says that it’s her lived experiences — growing up in the South, witnessing and following white flight, creating poverty maps for the city of Memphis — that really informed a lot of her interest in community organizing.”