Wild Storms and the Cool Side of Spring

An above average temperatures week ends with a wild band of T'storms rolling through the Old Dominion. Heavy rain, some hail, wild straight line winds and a tornado in Mecklenburg County accompany a cold front pushing the warm air out of the way and set up a lovely, sunny, but cool weekend. Temps down to 43 Saturday morning and likely only in the low 60's today with overnight lows into the 30's in some spots. Sunday and Monday will be cooler still. Just like spring should be, warm, hot, cold, repeat and shuffle.
A very shaky week on the big planet with lots of quakes above 6 and the quake list jam-packed every day this week. No shockers on the volcano list: Indonesia, Kamchatka, Hawaii, Italy and Colombia dominate the list.
The waxing gibbous moon brightens the night sky with bright Jupiter setting earlier and earlier and Saturn rising opposite it across the dome of the sky. The bright stars of the winter constellations set early with Jupiter leaving the patterns of spring, and later in the evening of summer, to take over. Young leaves here in the forest make the skies harder and harder to see, hope you have a clear look at the space around you, today on Earth.

TOE Returns With Spring

After a long period of dormancy, Mr. H's TOE returns as spring break winds down and spring actually arrives in central Va. A long, cold, cloudy, often snowy winter has finally released its grip and warm temps are in store starting tomorrow; today is sunny but with the center of high pressure to our north the eastern air off the Atlantic has left a little chill about. On the morrow, the jet stream drifts back north of the South and warm, dare I say hot air, will move in and linger for much of the week ahead. Another system will approach late in the coming week and bring a slight chance of rain and slightly cooler temps; no snow in the forecast.
The Ring of Fire is still spewing ash, gas and lava from Chile all the way around to New Zealand, the mid-Atlantic ridge is even getting in on the eruption game with eruptions in Iceland and the Canary Islands. Hawaii and Montserrat are of course, on the list.
Earthquakes of 6 and 7 have appeared on that list but the biggest have been on land (New Guinea and near the China/Russia southeastern border) but there are many more in the 5 range on the tectonic-ing planet. Central Va Quake Zone is mercifully quiet.
In "out of the world" news, there isn't much. Jupiter, still dominating Taurus, is in the southwest at dark but with it's crew, the winter constellations, is setting early while Saturn rises in the east and with rings tilted for fine viewing is up most of the rest of the night. The other planets are hanging out on the other side of the sun from our view and will not return until later in spring.  The waning crescent moon is only visible for early morning risers (or if you look carefully in the sunny morning sky). The New moon is early Wednesday morning. The comet, I don't remember the name, that was supposed to be so bright has not been and its location above a setting sun didn't help. (Of course, comets do seek the sun so it figures that's where you would have to look.) Another comet heads our way for a potential fall turkey time spectacle; we will have to wait and see on that one.
But, don't wait for me to tell you, get out and check it out for yourself, today on Earth.