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Sultry Air

Steve Scolnik @ 3:30 PM

A Heat Advisory is in effect until 6pm.

It's turning out to be hotter than expected this afternoon; all available local stations except Dulles were reporting over 90 degrees by 1pm; at 2:00 everyone was 90 or above. Coupled with a dewpoint of 75, National's 91 degrees translated into a heat index of 102. At 3pm, radar showed that an area of showers which originated in eastern West Virginia had marched east of I-81 in Virginia. There was also a small but intense cell near Frederick, MD, which was reporting a heavy thunderstorm at 3:21. The storm was continuing with light rain at 4pm. Other scattered activity was in far western Montgomery County, the Baltimore vicinity, and in both northern and southern Delaware. All of these areas are moving generally to the northeast as they develop.

Outlook

With all of the ingredients in place, showers and thunderstorms will continue to sprout around the region into this evening. After lows tonight in the lower 70s, tomorrow will again be warm and muggy with highs in the upper 80s and a 50% chance of showers.

Up in the Air

The Senate passed the energy bill this morning 85-12. The final disposition is still up in the air, though, since there are significant differences between this bill and the one passed by the House. Not the least of the differences is the cost of the tax incentives, which is estimated at $16-18 billion for the Senate version and $8 billion for the House. According to Bloomberg, the White House had asked for less than $7 billion. Although the Senate bill contains the weakest of the three alternative proposals for CO2 emission reduction, the House bill contains no such provision. You can read more details in reports from the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, Business Week, and over 400 other sources.

Off the Air

The Post has a front-page article today on why it's so hard to see the Nats on TV. It seems that one monopoly (Major League Baseball) gave a TV deal to another monopoly (MASN sports network set up by Peter Angelos of the Orioles) without involving the cable monopoly (Comcast). In Virginia, Cox decided to follow Comcast's example, so virtually nobody in the area gets to see the Nats games other than the ones on Channel 20. The next one scheduled is Nats @ Cubs on Saturday, 4pm.

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