Author Archives: Mark P

87 90’s

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We have had a very hot late summer, extending all the way into October. I looked at the daily high temperatures from May through October 4, and counted 87 days when the high temperature was 90F or higher. The Atlanta tv weather people have been talking about the new record this year of 91 days of 90 or higher, exceeding the old record of 90 days.

I don’t know whether Rome’s 87 days is a record. I wanted to check the historical data but I didn’t have time (or take the time) to look for them. The only thing I found was a site that let me look at the daily high and low for a given month. It would be way too much trouble to go back through the entire history of Rome’s weather on a month-by-month basis. I might look later for a site with all the months tabulated. I’m pretty sure I have found such a site before.

We are now predicted to have a high under 90 for the foreseeable future, which, in the case of my iPhone weather app, is through next weekend. So, 88F Saturday, 86 Sunday, 81 Monday, and upper 70’s to low 80’s from then on. And lows in the 40’s next weekend!

Even better, the forecast also calls for fairly widespread, through light, rain on Monday. Too bad the rain gods took the summer off. We could have used some more rain a little earlier.

Sunset from the mall

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We went to our local mall Monday night. It was around 7:45 when we left, just in time to see the last red of sunset and the setting new moon.

I had to use my iPhone since I almost never have my camera with me. Unfortunately, for this purpose at least, the lens was far too wide to get what I wanted. I had to crop the image significantly to get this.

The brightest part of the sky also washed out the red.

Leah and I remarked on how red the sky was while we were driving back home. It made it very pretty, but the beauty belied the cause, which is dirty air. In this case, I suspect that much of what I call dirty air is really dirt, or dust, suspended in the air. It’s not particularly noticeable during the day, but when the sun’s rays have to travel through a lot of it, it tints the sky red.

We in the Southeast are under a high pressure area that tends to keep whatever happens to end up in the air suspended there. Atlanta has had air quality warnings lately, and I noticed my weather app showed one for us a couple of days ago.

We hope that a cold front that is supposed to come through next weekend will clear some of the pollution from the air, as well as bring in some slightly lower temperatures.

A little rain

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We have been having quite the summer so far this fall. It has been hot and dry for most of the last half of summer and now into late September. We finally had some rain last Friday. We got about two tenths of an inch in the afternoon. The rain was preceded by a double rainbow.

The outer bow is hard to see, especially in this shot.

Later in the evening we got more. The total was about eight tenths of an inch, not nearly what we needed but we’re grateful for what we got.

But it’s still supposed to be over 90F for the rest of this week. The Atlanta TV weather people have been tracking the number of days this summer with highs over 90. The record is 90 days, and as of Sunday, it was 86 for this year. They expect to break the record.

Next weekend the highs are supposed to drop into the low 80’s. That’s still higher than the average high temperature at the beginning of October, but it has been so hot for so long that those temperatures will be a relief.

Late summer color

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For about two years we have been staring out our bedroom window at a bare, red-clay area between the house and the driveway. This is how it looked.

I was just getting ready to start some landscaping when I took this photo. Now it looks like this.

There is actually a small Japanese maple in the middle of the bare area between the foreground vincas and the back ground vincas. The vinca plants have been doing quite well. Unfortunately, it has been so hot and dry here that they were beginning to wilt. I put about 30 gallons on them on Saturday, all from one of our rainwater collector tanks, which you can see at the left side of the house.

The hot and dry weather has caused some of the hardwoods to start turning color. I had not noticed this maple until Saturday.

The color is nice, but it’s way too early. Some other maples have started to turn red. Some of the other hardwoods, including oaks, which usually turn brownish yellow, are starting to turn brown. No color. That is sometimes a bad sign, especially for dogwoods. I have noticed that dogwoods whose leaves turn brown late in the summer often don’t come back next spring. I have mentioned before that we have lost most of the native dogwoods that used to grow on our property. We will probably lose more after this summer.

Trimmed

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I have been procrastinating on the trim in our house. I finally got around to applying the trim around the window in the front of our living room. This picture was taken before I caulked the cracks, although I don’t think you can see them.

This is the last time I put an equal-leg arched window in a house.

You might also notice that there is a baseboard in the photo. With just a little bit more work I’ll get all the shoe moulding applied, cracks caulked and finish paint applied.

Now to complete the trim in the house, I only need to … well, the list is still too long.