Tuesday midday
Very pleasant (and unusual) July weather continues and should last, although with slowly warming day by day through Thursday. When we get these below normal temperatures they are brought in by upper level troughs (basically a huge pocket of colder than normal air aloft. This destabilizes the atmosphere so that daytime heating tends to generate a large amount of afternoon cloudiness. You saw it yesterday and we’ll see it again today and tomorrow. Sometimes there is enough moisture to produce a small amount of precipitation. An example is snow flurries after the arrival of a blast of cold air. When it happens in the summer, once in awhile it generates some small, light showers. Today’s models bring in a little more moisture than yesterday, So, is possible we could see a few brief showers this afternoon and evening, especially over southern Indiana.
Starting Friday, the chance for rain will return. GFS and NAM are pretty weak with this next system. It will definitely be moisture-shy as upper level winds will stay from the northwest. So, it’s a good thing we got some pretty good rains last weekend.
Space news
The summer’s best time for viewing meteor showers comes in August with the Perseid Shower. This year’s peak is expected to be August 11-13. However, it won’t be nearly as “viewable” as most years. The peak coincides with the largest, brightest full moon of the year. So, the usual predictions of “up to 120 per hour” have been lowered to about 30 per hour.
Astronomers have been watching the skies for possible asteroids that could be on collision paths with Earth. As of today, we know of 1493 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. These PHAs, as they are commonly known are defined as asteroids which are greater than 100 meters in diameter and have orbits that bring them within 5 million miles of Earth. An impact would be devastating to our Earth, but at this time none is known to have an orbit that would create a direct impact here. That’s the good news, the bad news is that PHAs are still being discovered.
Stuff
On September 16, 1921, a baby boy born in East London, England, was reported to have been born with 14 fingers and 15 toes.
The average American uses about 168 gallons of water a day.