I had a flashback to 1982 while playing basketball with my son today. He innocently asked if I could still touch the rim. In my glory days I could bend the rim. My vertical jump was as high as the average temperature in January!
I answered my son’s question with a test flight. I arrived at the 10 foot metal rim with ease. That’s me hanging on the rim this afternoon at my house. My fingertips felt iron for the first time in a long time. My tendons and ligaments are not well oiled. They have gone unused for nearly two decades. This afternoon they were back in use and responding beautifully.
I will let you know if any tendons snap or cease-up in the next 24 hours.
The last day of this warmer than average/drier than average month lives up to the other 30 days. Highs above 80 again, and slim pickens for precipitation. Wanna see the problem?
In the middle and upper part of the atmosphere over the Dakotas you’ll see a couple of circular patterns. That’s a “cut-off low.” The normal general west to east flow is disrupted by this feature that evolves out of a trough of low pressure. It’s keeping the rain to the west of us…to the west of us. It might get as far east as southern Wisconsin by the end of the weekend as it begins to unravel, so we’ll bump the rain chance up a bit for Sunday.
The second full moon of the month arrives tomorrow. The last time this happened was in July of 2004. On average, there are two full moons in one month every three years.
Each month Indiana University sends me an Astronomy newsletter. Here is what they had to say about the Blue Moon:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first reference to a blue moon was in a proverb recorded in 1528, and it meant an obvious absurdity. Since then other meanings have emerged, ranging from the ecclesiastical calendar’s name for the 13th moon in a year to the modern phrase “once in a blue moon,” meaning very rarely. Blue moons are really not that uncommon, happening on average about once every three years.
The moon actually has appeared blue at times, because of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere from huge forest fires, for example. More information is available at http://www.inconstantmoon.com/cyc_blue.htm.
I hope the title of this morning’s blog doesn’t trip the filters on the company computer. It’s just the humidity thing.
Muggy weather will hold through Saturday, with just scattered afternoon storm chances Thursday and Friday. BTW, a viewer from Muncie emailed today wanting to know the difference between when we say “isolated” storms as opposed to “scattered” storms. Usually, isolated refers to about a 20% chance of storms over a given area, an scattered indicates about a 30% chance.
The next best chance of storms arrives Saturday, and it will be less hot and humid Sunday.
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