Shaking Things Up... And Down Under

The earthquake map here shows the results from the last 7 days, but a lot of activity took place over the weekend. The one yellow dot in southern PA, was in York County. This is the second on this month. While it was officially reported as a magnitude 2 on the Richter Scale, it does remind us that although not as vibrant as the San Andreas Fault, there is still seismic activity in the east.
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also had it's second shock of the month.



Australia enters it's spring season and this beautiful full arch rainbow is one of the few promising things the Ausies have seen.

Last Wednesday (10/22), Sydney had it's coldest day in 30 years with a high of 58F.

The Blue hills of New South Whales had snow for only the 5th time in 50 years of record keeping.

North in Brisbane and Coffs, severe storms brought lightning and large hail. The image here with the flip flops is my favorite.

Thanks to Charlie Wilson for this information and images from the Sydney Morning Herald.

More on our chance of midweek flurries and another hit early next week, on an evening post. So please, check back then.

Put Ou The Fire

First: While we missed on most of the potential storms Sunday- Essex (Southeast Baltimore County) reported large hail with the one storm we did get in the afternoon.
The cold front a of this morning, was stalled over central Maryland. It will be a slow mover, and likely kick up more storms this afternoon. There is a large pool of cool air over the Great Lakes that will roll east. Our temperatures will cool down tomorrow. The computer models sometimes have a hard time handling this type of set up, but I see the likely hood that a lot of us north and west of the beltways stay in the 70s on Tuesday.

While there has been a lot of national coverage of the Midwest floods, and fires out west- we continue to have a rather uneventful June. Sure we had a few 90 degree days, but nothing out of the ordinary. Even the strong storms we have had, while damaging... have not been too widespread.
That is with the disclaimer that May did send us over the top with rainfall. This map shows how the spring translated into excessive rainfall or drought. It should be noted that the flooding along the Mississippi River in Iowa/Missouri/ Illinois was in part due to heavy late season snowfall. The eyesore in red- California having it's driest spring on record. If we averaged the extremes it would be close to normal rainfall. However, average is normal. This proves the extremes on one end are balanced by extremes on the other.
Secondly, but still important: On Friday a story came out from CNN, that say, " The North Pole might go ice free this summer." When did speculation become news? Oh, that's right, oil prices! But aren't we all complaining about that? If I said something like that in this blog- I would certainly become a story- just because it sounds impressive. The scientist quoted- Mark Serreze- speculates in the story, and says that this is not cyclical! I must argue that point! We don not have true ice records before 1979 at the north pole, but we do have archaeological records from nearby Greenland. In fact the dramatic change and cycles have affected the local population and culture.
Below is an online report...please keep this in mind. There has been patterns of growth and demise of cultures in the arctic circle. Records of livestock and crops have been uncovered in places where they could not survive today. Obviously there was a force at play that resulted in these temperature swings. Results that have been documented for the past 1500 years. Again my disclaimer: I don't discount some warming, but I discount humans causing it. I support alternative, clean, renewable energy, but not scaring people unjustly to get there. New reports often shock, but don't provide accurate, balanced reporting. That is the biggest shame of all.

A graphical description of changes in temperature in Greenland from 500 – 1990 A.D. based on analysis of the deep ice core from Greenland and some historical events. The annual temperature changes are shown vertical in ˚C. The numbers are to be read horizontal:
1. From 700 to 750 A.D. people belonging to the Late Dorset Culture move into the area around Smith Sound, Ellesmere Island and Greenland north of Thule.
2. Norse settlement of Iceland starts in the second half of the 9th century.
3. Norse settlement of Greenland starts just before the year 1000.
4. Thule Inuit move into northern Greenland in the 12th century.
5. Late Dorset culture disappears from Greenland in the second half of the 13th century.
6. The Western Settlement disappears in mid 14th century.
7. In 1408 is the Marriage in Hvalsey, the last known written document on the Norse in Greenland.
8. The Eastern Settlement disappears in mid 15th century.
9. John Cabot is the first European in the post-Iceland era to visit Labrador - Newfoundland in 1497.
10. “Little Ice Age” from ca 1600 to mid 18th century. 11. The Norwegian priest, Hans Egede, arrives in Greenland in 1721.

Severe Storms.Cooling Off: Locally! Globally?

Severe weather did break out yesterday. Hail over 1 inch was reported in Baltimore County's Lutherville and Timonium- along with many other reports seen here. Our morning show audio engineer was stuck at home due to damage near Northwood Dr. He called me this morning saying, "100 ft trees were snapped, light poles gone, hails dents in his siding, and the power meter was stripped off of his house".
In fact at one point 70,000 people lost power after the storms. That improved to 18,000 powerless homes this morning at 4:30.
This is part of the 439 wind and hail reports across the nation Tuesday.
If anything- this was in the forecast and most people were somewhat prepared even if scared.

Cooling Off Locally
All of this talk about the nation's extreme weather, and we had a little taste the the hot side of things. However, we should consider ourselves lucky. In the 4 days stretch of 90F+ temperatures, NO RECORDS were either set or tied in Baltimore.
So essentially- while the heat came early, it was not worthy of making the almanac.
It will get lost in time, much like the #2 wettest and #11 coolest May we just experienced.
Today: Temperatures will still be above normal, but a drop of about 10 degrees in the afternoon. It will feel much better.

Cooling Off Globally:
I got a long email forwarded t me from Meteorologists Tony Pann and Topper Shut from WUSA in Washington. For the purpose of space and time, I've just posted the most recent article in Science Daily- discussing the 'lack' of sunspot activity and how that may already be translating to Global Cooling:

Science Daily: Scientists not sure why Sun 'continues to be dead' – June 9, 2008

Excerpt: The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment." The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. "It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. […] The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren't sure why. "It's a dead face," Tsuneta said of the sun's appearance. Tsuneta said solar physicists aren't like weather forecasters; They can't predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.

Cold Air Delayed a Day

These images will update every time you load the page. The trough I mentioned on Friday will be moving through today. The radar will show a line a showers that will develop as the final push of cold air moves in. Typically showers will persist in the mountains of PA, WV and western MD after the cold air settles in. For most of central MD however, it will be the trough itself that will most likely bring us showers. As you can see, at least as of Sunday morning, the truly cold air was lingering just north on the other side of the Appalachians. There is a shot of snow mixed in back west, but I do not see it for us now. Since the cold air will be delayed a day, it will have a chance to modify before reaching us. However, if we get some convective storms to develop this afternoon- small hail is possible. That is because the freezing layer is pretty low, so it would not take much vertical lift to reach this. In fact, most showers in the spring and summer do have hail, but tends to melt before reaching the ground so you would never know it. That is a minor factor though. Plan on a much colder than normal pattern into Wednesday. There may be a dramatic warm up beyond that- but I will look into that tomorrow.