Wednesday midday
Pleasant weather continues…another nice pause from the usual July heat and humidity. So far this summer we’ve seen several times when the heat/humidity build and then fade away after 2-3 days. That’s been the dominant pattern since May and current forecast models continue the trend. That would be nice, but I’ve never had much faith in long range predictions.
Current forecasts are concentrating on growing chances for showers/thunderstorms over the weekend. The NAM model hits it pretty hard for Saturday rains while the GFS doesn’t buy that idea. The GFS “hints” at a small chance for showers late Sunday. In my experience, at forecasts beyond two days, the GFS seems to have a better handle on things, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about a wet weekend (at this point).
Blatant Unsolicited Promotion
Yesterday’s post featured a couple of beautiful photos of Rocky Mountain cloud formations. They were sent to me by some friends who were on a business trip to Colorado. Their business: hiking. They’ve recently launched a third web site…RockyMountainHikingTrails.com. More than everything you’d ever want to know about hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (one of my favorite spots on Earth) and surrounding areas is on the site. Their two other sites are HikingintheSmokys.com (a little closer to home) and HikingGlacier.com. Don’t leave home without them!
Hype and Happenstance (not by Jane Austin)
The recent Typhoon to strike the Philippines has been largely ignored by the media. But it brings to mind the incredible hype about the “Super Typhoon Haiyan” last fall. Strongest storm ever…220 miles per hour winds…another result of climate change…and on and on. All these “reports” came out during or in the immediate aftermath of the event. The images of the death and destruction were truly horrible, but unfortunately not unusual for an underdeveloped nation.
But a few months later, after things had settled down, the real story of Typhoon emerged. In the Philippines, any typhoon that produces winds over 140 mph is called a Super Typhoon. Haiyan just managed to make the list. Maximum winds recorded over land reached 147 mph. The Weather Service of the Philippines ranks Haiyan as 7th on their list of strongest typhoons over the past 60 years. So, Haiyan wasn’t the strongest storm ever, it just barely reached the Phillipines’ “Top Ten”.
My guess is that probably everybody reading this already knew the information in the first paragraph. How many of you knew the 2nd paragraph’s info? BE VERY,VERY WARY OF THE HYPE!