Hurricane Earl poses some threat to the East Coast.

North Carolina and Eastern New England could be brushed by Earl.  The storm will be closest to NJ about Friday.  It should miss us.

Heavy downpours in parts of NJ. Tropics getting active.

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A Cape Verde type storm has begun forming East of Africa.

• There is a chance for a near miss from a hurricane in 10 to 15 days according to Dr. Jeff Masters at the Weatherunderground.  Bermuda may be in the path.  But it is way too early to get worried.  Lots of things can change.
• Most areas get 1 to 2 inches of rain with the most northern locations reporting 3 to 4 inches.

Good chance for rain today and later this week.

Right now, rain is headed for northern areas and, more rain may fall tonight.  When you are in a drought as we currently are, you have to keep your fingers crossed for rain.  Forecasts for rain tend to go bust when the drought hangs on stubbornly. 


 When droughts do break, it tends to happen in a big way.

Historic heat wave: is it Global Warming?....maybe.

The heat wave in Russia is greater than anything in the historic records available.  Unfortunately, written numerical records are available for only about 130 years.  In the USA, we are in the same situation, only 100 to 150 years of weather data.  Colonial accounts of brutal winters with great snows have no measurements, usually.  You can read about a winter when the horses could not move through the deep snow, yet, no one actually measured the depth.

The 1936 summer is the Grandaddy of all USA heat waves, with widespread temperatures of 100 degrees or better.  Some of those records still stand today.

In 2003, Europe had a brutal heatwave with as many as 25,000 to 50,000 deaths blamed on excessive heat.

People in France and England learned that air conditioning is not an unnecessary luxury, because they "never get" hot summers.

But, these are all weather events, not climate change indicators.  One hot summer does not mean Global Warming is here.  Nor does a cold, snowy winter such as we just had, mean that Global Warming is only a hoax.

If only we would stop thinking that current weather tells us how the climate will shape up for the next 30 to 50 years.  Responsible climatologists insist that while we have had plenty of warm weather, the last couple of decades, we just don't know if it is because of a climate change, that is already underway.

Climatologists think in periods of many decades, if not centuries.  So we just don't know for sure.  But current trends, if they continue, could change all that.

My own sense, is that we are being hit by a combination of natural cycles and warming caused by human activity.  The CO2 warming theory is sound, but how soon will it happen and how bad will it be? We don't really know.  By the time we do know, it will be too late to change anything.  And when you think about it, it is probably too late already.  Stop burning oil,gas,coal,wood etc.?  How do we do that?
Solar is too expensive, nuclear too dangerous (for some people )  and wind power too limited.

Hey, if it is hot in NYC, why don't we plant more trees and paint all the roofs white?  It might help.

Green energy sources are worth pursuing with or without Global Warming so, why not?  I don't like sending my dollars overseas every time that I fill up my gas tank.  Do you?

CSU still predicting active hurricane season.

Dr. Gray still expects about 18 storms this season and about half of those will become hurricanes.  Tropical depression Colin is very weak but may gain strength over the next several days well east of Florida.


We are only now just beginning to enter the time of most frequent storm development.  The probability of tropical storms increases quickly as August progresses.


July was a hot month with NYC metro temps about 5 degrees above normal.  Baltimore was even hotter.

High heat and humidity July 24th

With temperatures already around 90 degrees this morning and with a dewpoint around 75, or better, this will be about as bad as it gets for summer heat today.  Thunderstorms likely, but of the hit or miss variety.

Hot summer forecast and active hurricane season forecast. June 2010 was the warmest June on record, the 3rd month in a row globally.

This summer is proving to be hotter than usual and is expected to continue through the remainder of this season. In fact, warmer than normal weather is expected to last, perhaps until November.

Meanwhile, last winter's El Nino has been replaced by it's opposite.  A La Nina has developed in the Pacific, with now cooler than normal ocean temperatures.  This development does not bode well for this hurricane season.  More than the average number of hurricanes are expected to occur, in the Atlantic basin.


The only available winter forecast for our area, from the NWS, shows no clear trend.  There are equal chances for either warm or cold weather and as for expected rain or snow , there are also equal chances for either above or below average totals.

Careful and precise measurements from Hawaii of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Since 1957, there has been a steady increase in CO2.

Note the annual fluctuation with the change of seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. Click image to enlarge.

These  measurements were begun in the International Geophysical Year in 1957.  A group of nations organized an intensive study of the earth that year.  The monitoring station for CO2 was set up on a dormant volcano in the big island of Hawaii.  The site was chosen for it's ocean location far from industrial air pollution.  Mauna Loa is about 13,000 feet high and the air up there is about as pure as it gets anywhere.

Global Warming since the year 1880

It sure looks like it is getting warmer doesn't it?

Click image to enlarge.

Is it from human activity or a natural cycle?  Or a combination of the two?  Will it continue?

Winter for 2010/2011

A drier winter seems likely since the El Nino has weakened considerably.  More to come later this summer.

4th of July weekend begins a 10 day heatwave.

We already have had 1 hurricane in the Gulf, so the forecasts for an active hurricane season appear to be on track, so far.  According to Weatherunderground, there have been only 11 hurricanes in June, since 1945.

We are in for a hot weather spell which will last through the end of next week.

HAPPY 4th of JULY !

Forecasters see a hot summer this year, not like last year.

Both the National Weather Service and Joe Bastardi at Accuweather see a hot summer ahead.  They also agrre on a hurricane season that will be more active than usual.

5 star General , Dwight D. Eisenhower and the weather connection to the Normandy invasion.

General Eisenhower who commanded the Normandy Invasion.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected to be the commander of all the forces that gathered for the Normandy invasion.  His easy going, mid-western ways were key in his appointment.  He was seen as a man who could get along with such forceful personalities as Patton and Montgomery.

Weather was immensely important for the invasion.  On the advice of the weather forecasters, the invasion was launched during a brief lull in a spell of stormy June weather.  The NAZI forces did not believe that an invasion could take place that week. 

As the invasion drew nearer,  General Eisenhower got little sleep and smoked cigarettes constantly.  He was, perhaps, the most nervous soldier of all.

As the invasion approached, he said that before the battle commences, the plan is everything.  Once the battle begins, he said, all the plans are worthless.

D Day brought all the confusion that could be expected.  A key flaw in the plan for first wave of soldiers, to hit the beach, was that the Captain of each group was placed at the front of the landing craft.  It was felt that the officer should be in front to lead his men.  As a result, all of the officers were killed or wounded immediately.  The enlisted men had no officers.   Many were hopelessly distant from their planned landing area.  All were seasick, from a rocky crossing of the English Channel.

 Fortunately, the initiative and improvisational skill that Americans were known for, enabled them to regroup and devise a battle plan on the fly.  They did not wait for new orders to come from higher up.

Meanwhile, the reserve NAZI forces were frozen in place, not responding.  No one dared to awake a sleeping Adolph Hitler, who would give the command to counter attack.

More below.

The greatest generation. World War II vets.

My dad, who served in the army and took part in the invasion of Italy. 


 That campaign was the first direct assault on Nazi controlled Europe.  His assignment was to an anti-aircraft battery, as a machine gunner and truck driver.  He was awarded the Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound he received.


 Italy was supposed to be the easy invasion.  It wasn't. It helped pave the way for the Normandy invasion. 1944 photo. Died August 24,1951.


See below for one of my favorite quotes from General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Normandy Invasion.

NASA Photo from the Solar Dynamics Laboratory

A composite photo of 5 different wavelengths.