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!
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