Lotta quakes & sunspots, too
TDS* towns trashed, wooohooo
Da Nile is a terrible thing
W/ Earth on wild warming fling
With google..you would think if they call it NORMAL that would be the default, but NO!! whatever paragraph is the default..nerds..that don't read..
June 2024 - On & Off Earth
Watching my dog wander, I often wonder, just what is he sniffing (bear?). Four legged critters, their noses already close to the ground, rely heavily on the chemical signatures that we call scent, to survive on Earth. Walking upright, we came to rely much less on scent and much more heavily on sight. Still, we pick up plenty of information from our other senses but tend to push them deeper into the recesses of our brain’s information stream. But, I smell things on walks, just not always sure what I’m smelling and my dog won’t share his knowledge.
There are the obvious aromas, the funk from the cows, a skunk’s recent eye burning passage, the sweetness of honey suckle or a freshly mown lawn, salt spray on a beach trip and in June, in Virginia, we can smell the humidity. But, there are many odors, often subtle, beyond the obvious ones in the kitchen, that waft through our world. Out for a June walk, take a deep breath and enjoy a brief but shallow dip into a dog’s world.
Memorial Day begins the summer tourist season. June 1st, for meteorologists, begins both Summer and Hurricane Season. Astronomical Summer begins with the Summer Solstice on June 20th; precise measurements show our greatest sunward tilt will be at 4:51pm EDT. While that is the longest day and shortest night for the year, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset are a week before and after the solstice (respectively).
Limited darkness, no planets on our side of the sun and mosquitoes will limit my June sky viewing. The Full Strawberry moon will follow Scorpio low across the southern sky the night after the Solstice. Our orbit takes our solar view out of Taurus and into Gemini on that same night.
Did you see the Northern Lights? I did not, this time. The monster sunspot that sparked the auroras is still together and about to spin back to face Earth, again. Just learned those solar blasts not only charged up the air but the soil and rock and we (central VA) were actually in the highest soil voltage zone. Our volatile nearby star is still a year away from solar maximum, more blasts surely to come.
The Weather Service confirmed what I hinted at last month with their forecast for a far above average hurricane season. The north Atlantic didn’t cool much last winter, the waters already reheated to August temperatures. Hurricanes (and thunderstorms and tornadoes) are just following basic physical laws; heat moves to cold, high pressure to low, evaporation requires heat, condensation unleashes it.
Humans figured out how to use those same laws, controlling evaporation and condensation for refrigeration (and heating). Earth always one step ahead, uses the same processes to get excess heat from overly warm oceans to cooler latitudes. We control the processes, Earth tends to run wild with them. The good news: we can see the satellite views of storms and get alerts on our phones. The bad news: storm destruction reports have become DAILY news; somewhere, someone lost a home or town today.
Storms themselves have a smell. The ‘Earthy’ smell you notice just before a storm, is the air, recently pinned down in the soil by the normal weight of our atmosphere, suddenly released by the storm’s low pressure. It joins the other air and water molecules racing upward to fuel the coming storm. If you get another whiff, a burnt, acrid aroma after a nearby lightning strike, that’s ozone created by that powerful jolt of electricity… and you should get inside, NOW! Stay safe out there..it’s summer!!
Large Twayblades
Lady slipper cousins
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