Friday, August 19, 2005
Circle of Life
Steve Scolnik @ 3:45 PM
HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TO 6 PM EDT SATURDAY
Following morning rains that were heavy at times, widespread clouds and easterly winds are keeping afternoon temperatures near overnight lows in the Washington metro area. The 3pm 72 degree reading at National was 3 degrees below the 3 am reading last night, and drizzle knocked it down a degree to 71 the next hour. This means that the high so far today is the midnight reading of 79. Dewpoints are high enough to produce near 100% humidity and fog in some places. Somehow, this does not inspire a lot of confidence that the area is actually to the south of a warm front, as shown on the latest surface analysis this afternoon. The rain has moved east of the Chesapeake Bay, where it was moderate to heavy across the lower portion of the Delmarva peninsula before moving mainly offshore.
Outlook
Temperatures over the next 24 hours will be highly dependent on the amount of cloud cover, but the models are all breaking up the clouds by mid morning tomorrow and pushing temperatures into the 90s in the afternoon. Together with dewpoints that would make any August proud, heat indices are likely to be extremely unpleasant.
Tropical Topics
From the National Hurricane Center: "There are no tropical cyclones in the Atlantic at this time."
The ghost of Irene is helping to complete the meteorological Circle of Life by spinning away near Greenland, bringing some tropical warmth to northern latitudes and some Arctic chill to lower latitudes: In northern Maine, this morning's low of 37 at Caribou beat the old record by 3 degrees, and Houlton also beat its old record by 3 degrees with a low of 34. A couple of locations reported 32.
Political Science
The U.K. Independent follows up yesterday's wire service stories about the U.S. senators' trip to investigate Arctic effects of global warming with a bylined article, "Global warming: Will you listen now, America?" and an editorial, "The American consensus of denial is crumbling".
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