Big Earthquake Near Full Moon Again!

Loyal readers of my blog should recall my frequent mention of large earthquakes and the lunar cycle. It does appear to have some gravitational connection, and had been on my radar since the December 26th Indian Ocean/Sumatra earthquake. This morning a 5.4 magnitude quake hit the Indiana/Illinois border. It's rare, but still an active fault area. This may be the first since 1984, but here is a link to the history of earthquakes in Illinois, and Indiana. Here a neat widget that plots and follows recent global earthquakes. It is completely interactive. Below is my daily weather post.


Back to the weather and the warmest day of the year- so far:
First the stats:
Today's Record High is 94F set in 1896
My theory holds: These spring warm ups often end up warmer than expected. I was the first in town to call for an 80 degree day back on Tuesday. So as we aim for temperatures even higher (my call this morning is for 83F) it will pale to the long standing record. Still a cap to a beautiful week. Now we need some rain, since my new grass seed has been battling low dew points. I do not have much hope for this weekend to give us that rain. The system out west will be delayed a day and weaken a lot when it reached us. I am downgrading our chances of rain to 30% or less for Sunday, and will leave the radars up on this blog to watch beginning tomorrow.


TV Date:
Weather Myths on 20/20 tonight. I may have to Tivo this one...

Earth Day and the Sea...
The Polar Bears are fine:
Earth Day in the sea today moves the attention to the arctic sea and fear of dwindling sea ice. First of all, this past winter resulted in a dramatic recovery of ice in the northern hemisphere. There has mean recent reports that it is young ice and will melt faster.. but nonetheless it has also enhanced the snow pack and ice on many glaciers in the Rockies. In fact, that source of cold air has led to the latest freeze and start to the crop season in Iowa.
The Polar Bear has been the mascot of Climate Change since Big Al's movie and that poor neglected cub Knut in Berlin's Zoo. However there has been a dispute from scientists that argue accusations made in 'The Movie' and by environmentalists. The Polar Bears are doing pretty well. Professor Scott Armstrong announced to Senator Boxer that his joint effort paper has been accepted by his peers to be published. There are two sub populations of bears that have had trouble, but most are doing well. Overstating or misleading information that has scared many. Unfortunately it may backfire as facts such as this and MIT's Tropical Expert Kerry Emanuel state a reversal on their positions. Monday's post below has the link to Emanuel's announcement opposing his earlier beliefs that Global Warming would increase Hurricane numbers and strength. Will National Geographic publish this?

Less Is More. Temps will Soar!

We never did get the clouds to truly build up yesterday- so with less clouds, we get more on the thermometer. Our normal temps should get up into the mid 60s, and today we begin our return with a shot at 60F. Look at the heat out west. Even for the desert, these were not records. In fact that Phoenix record high was 103F back in 1925- but still quite warm. A sign of some of the heat in the nation. Often when one coast is cold, the other is warm. This is no exception, but as the jet stream lifts- we get some heat to return in a hurry. My forecast from yesterday was perhaps to conservative. In 10 years of forecasting for Maryland- there is one thing that almost always proves true. Warm ups are warmer than expected. As soon as the wind shifts to the west or southwest we get the benefit of downslope warming. Combine that with sunshine, and the forecast models usually can't handle our warming. Here is the GFS Outlook for BWI. I do not like to rely on just one model, but this is used by most forecasters as a benchmark for your typical 7-day forecast. I've highlighted the high temperatures which shoot for 78F for Friday. My 80F is not much higher, and only 2 degrees higher than last Friday's 78F. I will track this for you over the next few days to see if there is a trend up, which may be the case...

GFSX MOS
KBWI   GFSX MOS GUIDANCE   4/15/2008  0000 UTC                     
FHR  24| 36  48| 60  72| 84  96|108 120|132 144|156 168|180 192    
TUE  15| WED 16| THU 17| FRI 18| SAT 19| SUN 20| MON 21| TUE 22 CLIMO
X/N  60| 27  68| 37  74| 45  78| 50  69| 47  62| 45  66| 49  67 45 68
TMP  52| 38  58| 46  65| 52  68| 55  60| 51  56| 49  59| 54  60    
DPT  26| 28  31| 38  42| 44  48| 47  46| 42  40| 41  44| 46  45    
CLD  CL| CL  CL| CL  CL| CL  CL| PC  OV| OV  OV| OV  OV| PC  PC