Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Cool & Dry with a New Island

Canadian high pressure has pushed the jet stream deep into the south, a little unusual for the first week of summer, resulting in cool nights and warm, dry days for the east coast. As with all happenings on Earth, that will be short lived and hot and humid will return by week's end. In other change news, the Atlantic ocean has piled sand into a new "island" at the very tip of Hatteras Island(Cape Point) on North Carolina's outer banks. Like all barrier islands, this will be ephemeral and could be gone as quickly as it appeared or continue to grow for centuries until... and that's the ephemeral part, a hurricane in 2217 takes its sand and moves it somewhere else. Ephemeral for Earth is often quite different than the human view of short lived. In general, the outer banks eroded from the north end and sand, and potentially new islands, is deposited at the south and west end of the chain. With the current (not the longshore current moving the sand around) warming Earth is undergoing and melting of glacial ice from said warming, erosion and deposition of all of the barrier islands of the Atlantic coast of North America can only increase in speed and magnitude. Buy and build wisely - but as my favorite oceanfront realtor says, " there will always be oceanfront..."; will it be where you thought or want it to be. Time will have the final but ongoing say.
Speaking of magnitude, there has been a plethora of 2 and 3 magnitude quakes in the Sierra Nevada of California not far from the Nevada line so far today. That's way east of the San Andreas fault system but you don't push up mountains that high without lots of faulting.  Makes me wonder if these are foreshocks, warning of something larger or just young mountains adjusting as young mountains do? Again, time will answer that. The rest of the planet has experienced some minor shakes today with Indonesia and the southwest Pacific leading the way with quakes in the low 5 magnitude range.
The volcano list is now 6 days old and except Hawaii all current activity is around the Ring of Fire.
Tonight will find the waxing crescent moon about 1 degree away from Regulus, the heart of Leo; should be a lovely pairing. To "see" the rest of the lion, imagine Regulus as the point at the end of a backwards question mark that marks his head. There is a brightish triangle of stars to the left of the head marking the lion's reclining hindquarters.  Leo is one of the easier constellations to see/imagine what our ancestors saw in the night sky.  From the moon, following the ecliptic, that arc the sun, moon and planets takes across the sky, you will find bright Jupiter higher in the southwest and in the southeast yellowish Saturn. Will be a cool lovely night for star gazing - potential cloud cover notwithstanding.
But right now it's a cool and lovely day and time for this blogger and his large brown dog to get out and enjoy, today on Earth.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

It's Officially Summer!

Yesterday, a little after midnight eastern daylight time, our tilted, wobbling, spinning planet had its northern end tipped as far toward the sun as it's going to for 2017; and the summer season began. While yesterday was the longest day for the northern hemisphere (obviously, shortest south of the equator) that wasn't the earliest sunrise or latest sunset; the earliest sunrise was a little over a week ago and the latest sunset about a week hence. But, right now none of that really matters, it's warm (cooking hot in the desert southwest) with lots of sunlight and will be for the next couple of months, get out and enjoy, a little heat and humidity and sweat never hurt anyone.
While today will be hot here in the Old Dominion the remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy will collide with a cold front tomorrow and bring a cooler wetter day - much like the deep south is dealing with today- for late Friday and into Saturday, when Cindy will be gone. Next week is forecast to be ruled by Canadian high pressure with cool mornings and afternoons only in the low 80's. My long term forecast calls for that to be short lived and that the heat of summer is yet to truly arrive (even though like I said, it's already in Vegas).
This week's volcano list looks a lot like last week's, some rumbling and belching around the Ring O Fire - 20 on the list- but no surprises and no immediate warnings for air travel or locals.  The earthquake list today is a bit more eye catching leading with a 6.8 magnitude quake just off the southwest coast of Guatemala; that's a shake. Even though offshore, no tsunami warnings were issued. Like with the volcano list, the rim of the Pacific dominates with several 5+ quakes and several more in the upper 4's. Eastern Kansas got a good shake this morning as did north central Texas. Fracking: keeping oil and gas prices low and the great plains shaking.
While yesterday marked the start of summer it was also marking 2 months until the great American eclipse. The new moon for June will be tomorrow night about 10:30 EDT and leaving us with 2 lunar cycles until the moon lines up with our nearby star and blocks its light for about 2 and 1/2 minutes...if you are in the right spot - I plan on being in that shadow. If you caught the thin waning crescent early morning over the last couple of days you also saw Venus, currently on Earth's morning side and the bright beacon; the morning star.
Jupiter and Saturn dominate the evening sky once it finally gets dark on these lingering summer evenings, Jupiter in the southwest in Virgo and above much dimmer Spica and Saturn in the southeast in Ophiuchus with reddish Antares, the heart of Scorpio off to its west (right).
Here at the tirehouse, the window trim is done and looking good, the big brown dog has completed his morning wander and is napping on the cool soapstone floor while the squirrels, doves and gold finches graze on bird seed in the front yard. Time to get out and wander about on this portion on the big planet before today's heat and humidity make that a little oppressive. Hope you get out and enjoy today on Earth!

Friday, June 9, 2017

How About a TOE Update!!

Nine days into June and this part of the big planet is lovely, cool and dry conditions reign but as is always the case, that is about to change. The cut-off system bringing in the cool, north Atlantic air is moving on and a big ridge, dominated by a Bermuda high, will be pumping in the moist, steamy air from the south Atlantic; the reality of the pending summer will arrive Sunday and dominate the east coast for much of next week. Get out and enjoy the next couple of days before AC will be a safer place to be.
The USGS SI volcano list is a Ring of Fire who's who of volcanoes, from Chile all the way round to Indonesia, 2 dozen volcanoes, all the usual suspects, on this weeks list. Only Kilauea is not on the ring but it's like the axle with all the lesser peaks spewing around its always erupting center. Must be rocking out there in Hawaii, a 5.3 earthquake shook the big island earlier today.  That was the largest quake on today's list...so far. As usual, Oklahoma still feels like low oil prices are better than a stable state, with fracking continuing followed by salt water emplacement into deep formations leading to daily quakes. Glad I'm long gone from the Sooner state!
The June Full moon was exactly one hour ago as I type this but, not to worry you will see it as full tonight and it will have a companion planet just to its right: Saturn. And, while the ringed world is fairly low in the sky for northern viewers it is about as close as it gets (perihelion) in its 30ish year solar revolution to Earth and officially at opposition next Wednesday (directly behind the Earth from the sun and rising about sunset, setting at sunrise - just like a full moon) as well as having its rings tipped toward Earth for our viewing pleasure. Just to the west (right) of the moon/Saturn pairing you will find Scorpio, with orange-red Antares at its heart.
Jupiter is still the brightest star-like object in the evening, high in the south at sunset, above Virgo's bright star (but way dimmer than Jupiter) Spica. Looking up to your left and overhead will spike you to bright Arcturus and following a curved path, an arc, will guide you to the big dipper. Now you can reverse that path and see the easy way to get to Spica - follow the arc of the dipper's handle to Arcturus and then spike straight to Spica. Venus is bright in the east for early risers and Mars and Mercury are lost in the sun's glare this month. But, tonight, get out and check out the moon and Saturn, might be worth a photo opportunity-albeit a tricky one.
And, only 73 days till the great American Solar Eclipse. Get your plans finalized! Get out and enjoy the loveliness, today on Earth.