Starship Asterisk*

neufer wrote:

Beyond wrote:
On a 'lighter' note, after about a week of reaching into the 90's F, it's now 52' F and raining lightly. 52' F in the latter part of July Well, i guess it's not unheard of around here, but it sure is uncommon That said, it's a welcome change from the humid 90's.

I might even have to use a little bit of heat tonight.

• You could always hydrate.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=81714 wrote:

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

---

<<In the summer of 2013, Elephant Butte Reservoir dwindled to its lowest level in forty years. By late July, despite the arrival of monsoon rains, the reservoir was still virtually empty. Numbers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated the total water in storage to be 65,057 acre-feet on July 24, 2013, about 3 percent of the reservoir’s capacity of 2.2 million acre-feet. The last time water levels were that low was 1972, after droughts in the 1950s and 1960s depleted Elephant Butte. On the other hand, the reservoir was filled nearly to capacity for most of the period between 1985 and 2000.

Located in southern New Mexico and fed by the Rio Grande, Elephant Butte is New Mexico’s largest reservoir. Created in 1915 with the construction of the Elephant Butte Dam, the reservoir provides water for about 90,000 acres of farmland and nearly half the population of El Paso, Texas. Drought severely strained the system in 2013. Spring runoff from snowpack in the mountains was well below average, and anemic rains throughout the beginning of the year left 80 percent of New Mexico grappling with either “extreme” or “exceptional” drought (the two most severe categories). The arrival of rains from the southwestern monsoon in early July offered a burst of moisture. But the impact on water storage at Elephant Butte was minimal, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard Landsat 8 acquired the top image of the parched reservoir on July 8, 2013, when it was filled to about 3 percent of capacity. The bottom image shows the reservoir on June 2, 1994, when it was at about 89 percent of capacity. With such limited water supplies in 2013, farmers have faced the shortest irrigation season on record, receiving just three acre-inches instead of three acre-feet of water. To meet the demand, El Paso water authorities have had to drill new wells that tap underground aquifers. The city has also increased desalinization efforts and called for voluntary water conservation measures.>>

mjimih wrote:and the thrid vid too, just when a huge piece slams into the window on the leftmost pane, he stops filming. Once a window breaks it would be instantly very windy inside that room.

orin stepanek wrote:It has been quite pleasant for a couple of weeks but now the 10 day forecast is for temperatures in the 90's! Oh well fall is just around the corner!

Beyond wrote: Just about the same here. The weather or not guys are threatening us with a heat-wave this week. Well, cooling off the weather, sure beats shoveling it

orin stepanek wrote: I'm not anxious to try it out though!

Shift In The Pattern. The (amazingly) persistent kink in the jet stream that has funneled a parade of Canadian cool fronts south of the border, sparking frost over the Minnesota Arrowhead and 30s over interior New England in recent days will become more progressive, blowing west to east, allowing a heat bubble to expand eastward into the Plains and Midwest by midweek. Animation: WeatherNation TV.

Will we have a mild autumn? The atmosphere has an uncanny ability to "even things out". Considering snow lingered into May and it's been unseasonably cool for the last 4 weeks I suspect we'll enjoy a warmer than average autumn, continuing the trend of recent decades. Odds favor a very mild El Nino into the winter months, meaning a very slight mild bias. We'll see. For now prepare for one of the hotter 1-2 weeks of the summer.

Wildfires' Size, Scope Biggest Since Yellowstone Blaze In '88. The fire in Idaho is gargantuan - here's an excerpt from a description at The Idaho Statesman: "...In 13 of the past 25 years, more than 5 million acres of wild land has burned in the nation. In 2012, 2008 and 2007, more than 9 million acres were burned, and eight of the nine worst fire years since 1960 have taken place since 2000. A generation of firefighters has been humbled, facing conditions their predecessors never imagined. The fires, driven by a warming climate, bountiful fuels and a growing population living on lands that once were wild, are reshaping the ecosystem and the human communities within...A Department of Agriculture report predicts that the acreage burned by wildfires will double by 2050 to about 20 million acres annually. Another USDA report predicts that for every 1.8-degree temperature increase the earth experiences - expected by 2050 - the area burned in the western U.S. could quadruple. "The largest issue we now face is how to adapt our management to anticipate climate-change impacts and to mitigate their potential effects," Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told Congress this year..."

mjimih wrote:http://www.startribune.com/weather/blog ... ather.html

rstevenson wrote:
On the other paw, I was feeling decidedly depressed at the far too early feel of Fall in the air. But now I've been refreshed by a couple of days of heat. Lovely stuff, that heat -- what would we do without it...

rstevenson wrote:On the other paw, I was feeling decidedly depressed at the far too early feel of Fall in the air. But now I've been refreshed by a couple of days of heat. Lovely stuff, that heat -- what would we do without it...

little-ice-age.jpg

Rob

... It was 15F degrees cooler in the deserts of southern California than it was in Minnesota yesterday.

ECMWF "Euro" guidance is hinting at a push of much cooler air coming sooner than expected; a big drop in temperature/dew point by Sunday and Labor Day.

"Ridge Riders". More T-storms will flare up along the northern boundary of a very slow moving heat bubble over the Upper Midwest, the best chance of some badly needed rain Thursday. Cooler air is building over Canada, relief that will finally sweep across the northern tier of the USA early next week.

mjimih wrote:Ugh oven heat (with high tropical humidity) for 6 days straight

... It was 15F degrees cooler in the deserts of southern California than it was in Minnesota yesterday.

http://www.startribune.com/weather/blog ... ather.html

ECMWF "Euro" guidance is hinting at a push of much cooler air coming sooner than expected; a big drop in temperature/dew point by Sunday and Labor Day.

"Ridge Riders". More T-storms will flare up along the northern boundary of a very slow moving heat bubble over the Upper Midwest, the best chance of some badly needed rain Thursday. Cooler air is building over Canada, relief that will finally sweep across the northern tier of the USA early next week.

maybe a nice fresh cool breeze for the last day of the Great MN State Fair (labor day), which always signals the end of summer for us.