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Meanwhile, last winter's El Nino has been replaced by it's opposite.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.

Who said that? 5 star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953. Shortly after taking office as President.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."






We don't make them like that anymore.  It has been said that the returning GI's from WWII, did not ever take any joy, boast or brag about what they did.  They were simply glad the war had ended.  In fact ,I have heard, many times, that they never talked about it at all.  God bless them all.


How ironic, that the top military leader of WWII, became one of the most strident voices against war.  Eisenhower was also famous for his warning about the dangers of "the military industrial complex" 


 We are now, I feel, in the grips of that complex, where endless war is itself, the goal. 


 A nation once united by the Great Depression and World War II, is here no longer.  The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War,  Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King assassination,Watergate, Clinton impeachment, Iraq War have all left us as a polarized nation. 




The USA is in a Polar Vortex, with no way out, so far.

COSTOFWAR.COM - The Cost of War

COSTOFWAR.COM - The Cost of War

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 New Jersey has spent 45 billion dollars on wars since 2001.  Our budget shortfall this year is 8 billion.  Think about it.


That is $12,000 a minute folks, just for New Jersey.


IN TOTAL, WE ARE NOW VERY NEAR THE 1 Trillion dollar mark.

I am a winter weather enthusiast, so I won't have much to say until we get indications on the 2010-2011 winter season.

BLIZZARDS AND HURRICANES, IS THERE A CONNECTION?


Record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic, portend a very active hurricane season.  A diminishing El Nino, is expected to add to the potential for strong hurricanes.  And, should this trend hold, another rough winter may be coming up next season.


The past winter weather pattern is connected to the set up of this hurricane season pattern.

Summer-like Easter Weekend, Rain next Saturday.

Several locations had a record rainfall for March, of about 10 inches of rain.