Extreme Heat Followed by Showers and Thunderstorms

Today was a day of amazing contrasts, with record high temperatures followed by thunderstorms and light rain.
style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif;">here.
I would like to thank all of you for your support. Together we will protect freedom of speech and respect for diversity of viewpoints.
______________________________

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Air Quality Declines As Inversion Slowly Weakens Overhead

Image
 Inversions, in which temperatures INCREASE with elevation,  suppress vertical mixing, which in turn allows pollutant concentrations to increase near the surface. And with a strong inversion over western Washington and Oregon the last few days, air quality has degraded to moderate levels at several locations.   To illustrate, below is a map  (at 7 PM today) showing the concentrations of small particles (less than 2.5 millionths of a meter) that are capable of passing deep into your lungs. Nasty stuff.  Low concentrations are green, with moderate values in yellow and orange, and red being even higher.  The Puget Sound region has degraded air quality and it is even worse around Portland.  Generally good in the mountains. Graphic provided by PurpleAir You can see the declining trend of air quality in Seattle with a plot of the small particle concentration during the past few days (below).  A progressive upward trend in small particles. The sources of the particles include combustion from ...
Read more

The Most Threatening Wildfire Period is Ahead. But Why? And a Warm, Pleasant Forecast.

Image
This has been a very benign wildfire season so far this year, with far fewer than normal wildfires over the western U.S., with considerably less than normal area burnt (see figures below). Number of wildfires by year:  WA DNR area The area burned by year:  WA DNR Area The area burned by year, California. But we can not become complacent!    Historically, the most threatening wildfire season in the Northwest is the end of August and early September as the atmosphere starts to cool. But why?  What is so threatening about the cool late summer/early autumn periods?  All is revealed in the podcast. And I also provide the forecast for the next week.  Very pleasant in the west, but a bit toasty in the east.  To listen to my podcast, use the link below or access it through your favorite podcast service. Some major podcast servers:     Like the podcast? Support on Patreon 
Read more

The Time of Year You Can See the Air Move

Image
  Most of the time, you can not see the air move.   You can feel it, but the complex, turbulent motions are invisible to you, except when it interacts with leaves and branches on trees and plants. But for a few weeks of the year, the sky is full of small, cotton-like tuffs that like a natural MRI machine reveals the complex three-dimensional motions of the atmosphere.   Cottonwood season.  And we right in the middle of it.   Being cottonwood aware is of particular value this year.  It reveals the active dispersion and movement of air that makes the outdoors essentially COVID safe, and thus should be of some comfort for those nervous about transmission outside. Cottonwood seeds are embedded in small cotton-like fibers.   A million seeds weigh about 3 pounds.  Yes, each seed and tuff weights about .000003 pounds.   And that fact, plus the cottonwood tuff, means that these seeds fall VERY, VERY, VERY slowly.   So slowly that they are excellent markers for the three-dimensional flow of the...
Read more