September: On & Off Earth

September 2022 - On & Off Earth

Looking back eleven years, after the earthquake dust had settled and aftershocks had slowed (a bit), students and staffs came back to the schools to get everything that we’d left inside after fleeing the buildings. One of the first students I saw, from the previous semester, pointed her finger at me and said, “you said this couldn’t happen!” 

She was right. For years, I had been telling students about the reality of our living in an earthquake zone but had also been telling them, don’t worry, we’re not on a plate boundary, we’re not going to have a big quake. My reply to her, “you are right, I was wrong”. (Glad to know she was listening.)

In last month’s column, using my weather journals and the Virginia Wildlife calendar’s insight, I ruled out the chance of Canadian air driving a cold front all the way through the Old Dominion. Once again, but this time pleasantly so, I was wrong. While much of the northern hemisphere swelters in extreme heat, we have had a fairly pleasant late August.

One thing there is no doubt about, on September 22nd, at 9:04pm EDT, the Autumnal Equinox will occur as our tilted planet’s orbit re-aligns the sun directly over the equator. That evening’s sunset will be due West, the following morning’s sunrise ever so slightly south of due East as the nighttime begins to win out over the daylight and we move into Fall. Earth’s orbit moves the sun from Leo into Virgo on the 17th.

Also a certainty, on the evening of the 9th, the Full Harvest moon will rise as the sun sets and travel across the sky, lead by Saturn and trailed by Jupiter. The Moon, to circle the Earth in 29.5 days, moves eastward about 12 degrees per day. The moon's movement is easy to spot over the 5 days it takes to move from near Saturn on the 7th to near Jupiter on the 11th.

While our ancestors figured out the movements in the night (and daytime) skies long ago, our ability to predict the comings and goings of weather systems remains iffy beyond a very few days. 70 years ago, some of the very first computers were put to work to make long term weather forecasts. Today’s far superior machines still come up short. The weekend forecast on any given Monday subject to change by Friday. I will stick with my standard forecast, “there will be weather”.

Hurricane season 2022, so far, has certainly not lived up to expectations. The average peak for the Earth’s biggest storms is September 10th in the Atlantic basin and there are signs of an uptick in activity; Earth is going to move the excess summer heat around. The calm times, well before the storm warnings are issued, are when to check your storm preparations; now might be a good time.

Until any stormier times arrive, I hope you are able to get out on the planet and enjoy our, relatively, milder last days of summer. Yes, it’s warm and humid and there are bugs about but the extreme weather issues much of the world has suffered through this summer have not been much felt here. But, we all know, with great certainty, there will be change.

Next month: an update on the launch of Artemis, the world’s biggest rocket.

For now Artemis is on delay, fuel leak issues..

Today On Earth

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