Weatherman Rapping While BASE Jumping

Not sure if you've seen this. KMVT Morning Meteorologist Nick Kosir is rapping the weather forecast while BASE jumping. He's rapping to Chris Brown's song, "Look At Me Now."

Interesting way to share the weather report :-)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment/100th Post

This is my 100th post! Time to celebrate with some chocolate chip cookies! :-)

I saw this video from Accuweather.com, about baking chocolate chip cookies in a car in the excessive heat. I thought it would be the perfect post and seems like the cookies turned out pretty good. In the video the temperature outside was 99 but the temperature inside the car reached to 180.

At 2PM in DC, it was 102 today, with a heat index of 119 and a dew point at 77. DC may tie or even surpass the record of 103 by the end of the day. Newark, NJ reached an all-time high since records began, of 108 today.

Try to stay cool!

Space Shuttle Atlantis' Landing Marks End Of NASA's 30-Year Space Program

It's the end of a 30-year era. Space Shuttle Atlantis has safely landed at 5:58 a.m. EDT at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Space Shuttle's flight lasted 12 days, 18 hours, 28 minutes and 55 seconds.

To read more about the historic occurrence, check out this link. They have a bittersweet video of Space Shuttle Atlantis' landing, which the picture below is a screenshot of.

Heat Wave Continues To Sweep Across U.S.

It's only going to get hotter, with temperatures nearing 102, to round out the work week. DC reached it's 11th day above 95+ for 2011 today, which is past the average for a typical year. There were 27 days over 95+ last year. Much of the U.S. is feeling the heat as well as a heat wave is sweeps across from the Plains to the Northeast. NOAA has a good visual representation of the heatwave which started July 13. The animation uses high temperatures predicted from NOAA's high resolution North American Model (NAM). Here is a screenshot of the heatwave from today:


Here is the link to the animation.

If you can try to reduce your time being outside. If you are going outside, remember to drink plenty of water and do not leave children or pets inside your car.

2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season Update

So far it has been pretty mum for the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season. There have been 2 named storms since the season started on June 1. The first named storm was Tropical Storm Arlene, which lasted from June 29 to July 1. The storm made landfall by Cabo Rojo, Mexico with sustained winds of 65 mph. It dissipated over the mountains of Eastern Mexico on July 1. Confirmed were sadly 25 fatalities.

As of today the second has it's second named storm, Tropical Storm Bret. It's about 100 miles off the Northwest coast of Great Abaco Island with sustained winds at 35 mph. Here is the current forecast for the storm's path:

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Tropical Storm Bret is not expected to make any landfall in the U.S. There is still much more of the season remaining. The season is not officially over until November 30. For more information about the current tropical storm and hurricane season, visit this link.

Space Weather Revisited

I'm a meteorologist and currently I'm researching some of the chemical aspects behind air quality. I know that sounds very vague but more well be developing over the summer and much into my next school year. I'm really fascinated by weather that occurs within the Troposphere and in the Stratosphere. Tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, they amongst many other weather occurrences are spectacular phenomenons. They however, can be very deadly and finding out ways to better educate the public on them is something I like to do too.

I also am really fascinated by the weather that occurs in Thermosphere, Ionosphere and beyond. A good example of this, is the Aurora Borealis. This phenomena is actually one of my favorite weather phenomenons, though you may be thinking that's not a tornado or weather we are more likely to see everyday. You may even be thinking the Aurora Borealis, is not even weather. Although it is not within the planetary atmosphere of the Earth, the Troposphere and Stratosphere, the Aurora is due to a change in the atmosphere. This is much like the weather we see closer to Earth. Our weather changes due to changes in the atmosphere and other atmospheric processes.

The term for weather like the Aurora Borealis is called Space Weather and currently Space Weather is a very growing field. I have been to a few conferences including the 33rd Annual National Weather Association conference in Louisville, KY, the 90th Annual American Meteorological Society conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and the 91st Annual American Meteorological Society conference in Seattle, Washington, and at all of those conferences, there have been presentations on Space Weather.

I saw a picture on a CNN News Blog and was motivated to write this entry. Here's the picture below:

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The picture is of the Southern Lights taken by a member of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis recently launched on July 8, and marked the final mission of NASA's 30 year Space Shuttle Program. Isn't it spectacular?

The Aurora Borealis is a very well known space weather phenomenon, in what may sound reminiscent of my July 20, 2009, a few others include solar flares, meteor showers and solar flares and I'll add a new one coronal holes.

As mentioned in the post, only one ground phenomenon that can propagate into outer space and that is a lightning. What is created is called a blue jet. Here is a picture from Wikipedia showing this phenomenon in more detail:


According to Wikipedia, blue jets can reach to "the lowest levels of the ionosphere 25 miles (40 km) to 50 miles (80 km) above the Earth."

So if you see on my blog, postings about hurricanes, or solar flares, I'm just posting about weather near and far :-)

To learn more about Space Weather visit this link.

Bonus!

Now this is much more astronomy, but here's a picture I posted to my Flickr, of the full moon taken by my friend Drew, on July 16. It was with my Casio Exilm EX-277. I was really surprised at how well, he got this shot of the moon. It is a tad blurry, though. Haha.

Storms On Saturn

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I'm sure you're heard about the Red Eye on Jupiter, a gathering of magnificent storms, now Saturn has it's own unique gathering.

A recent article by Carolyn Porco talks about this phenomena:

Tempest-from-hell seen on Saturn
"Imagine being caught in a thunderstorm as wide as the Earth with discharges of lightning 10,000 times more powerful than normal, flashing 10 times per second at its peak.

Now imagine that this storm is still unfolding, eight months later.

One of the most violent weather events in the Solar System began to erupt on Saturn last December and is still enthralling astronomers, the British journal Nature reported on Wednesday.

Two studies draw on observations by professional and amateur astronomers using a broad range of gear, from relatively small ground-based telescopes to NASA's magnificent scoutcraft, Cassini.

Saturn, like Jupiter, is no stranger to convective storms.

It too is a "gas giant," or planet comprising layers of thick, roiling gases rather than a rock, like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury.

The difference, though, is that jovian mega-storms tend to erupt unexpectedly, but the lord of the rings gives birth to a monster almost periodically.

It occurs on average once every Saturnian year -- nearly 29.5 Earth years -- and appears to be linked to the summer solstice, when the planet's orbit brings it a bit closer to the Sun and its atmosphere warms a little.

The event is known as the "Great White Spot" (a counterpart to the swirling "Great Red Spot" on Jupiter) because of the mass of brilliant white storm clouds that erupt in the upper atmosphere.

The show is so big that it can be visible by telescopes from distant Earth. Five have been observed in the last 130 years. The last occurred in 1990.

But the current Great White Spot is proving to be a dazzling spectacle, revealed by an unprecedented array of observational power at hand.

Events began at 2105 GMT on December 5, when ground-based telescopes detected a "barely visible white point" on a normally unblemished and hazy part of Saturn's northern hemisphere, at around latitude 35 degrees north.

At the same time, Cassini turned its "ears" towards the target, listening in to radio emissions from the storm via an onboard plasma-wave instrument.

These signals are the telltales of lightning. Lightning cannot be seen visually on Saturn at night because of interference from sunlight scattered from the planet's ring system, which comprises billions of shiny particles.

Within a few weeks, the point had ballooned into a storm system that was some 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) across, roughly comparable with the diameter of the Earth, and after two months the clouds had almost encircled the entire planet.

Analysis of the data suggests that the "spot" is in fact a cluster of super-storms, produced by upwelling of heat, moisture and ammonia from water clouds from lower down in the Saturnian atmosphere, where the pressure is high.

As this mix rises into a cooler atmospheric layer called the tropopause, bright, white clouds of ammonia start to spread horizontally into a tail, sculpted by eastward jets of wind.

Astronomers are especially intrigued by the current Great White Spot.

The observational history of this phenomenon is sketchy. But evidence suggests the present spot is exceptionally intense and rather premature, for it was still spring on Saturn when the storm brewed."

Hot, Then Slight Cool Down

Area Forecast-Washington DC
(July 11- 17)

I'll just do a summary of the forecast for this week :-) We're still looking at a hot week in the DC area for this upcoming week. High pressure will remain offshore into Monday as we can expect mostly sunny skies and highs in the lower 90s for Monday. A weak cold front will move through the region on Tuesday bringing a slight chance of showers, Tuesday into Wednesday. The high for Tuesday looks to be around 98. We'll be getting some slight relief on Wednesday as that cold front moves through and we can expect a high of 90. We can expect partly sunny skies for the rest of the week as a large upper ridge builds east from the Great Lakes region into the weekend. Highs will be in the mid to upper 80s.

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Warm Week Ahead

Hope you are staying cool because it will be warm this upcoming week. For tonight we can expect showers and thunderstorms that are ahead of a cold front moving through the region. That cold front will stall in Virginia. Independence Day looks to be a great day for a BBQ as it will be in the lower 90s with partly sunny skies. If you are planning on viewing fireworks Monday night, the forecast looks to be in your favor, as we can expect partly cloudy skies and a low of 71. High pressure will build in the region by Tuesday as we expect partly sunny skies and a high in the upper 80s into Wednesday. Mid-week the stalled front will move towards the north, as a warm front, and we can expect temperatures in the lower 90s as we enter into the weekend. We may see isolated storms and thunderstorms on Friday, associated with the front.

Happy Fourth of July!!!!


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