Category Archives: Weather

Sunset skies

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As I have mentioned before, we don’t have a clear view of the west, so we have to look at what the sunset is doing to other parts of the sky. We saw this a few days ago.

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This is looking down Wildlife Trail next to our driveway towards Rome.

We also saw this.

blue beam

I don’t know exactly what caused this since we couldn’t see the sky behind us, where the sun was setting, but I have to assume there were clouds that cast shadows across the sky and clouds that we could see. I’m going to make another assumption that the two shadows were caused by different clouds or different parts of the same cloud, since they appear to be different widths and shadowing different parts of the sky. It’s odd-looking, almost like a blue beam shooting across the sky. I have seen this phenomenon before, but never with a good view to the west to actually see what’s causing it.

A hint of fall in the air

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When I walked the dogs Wednesday morning it was possible to believe that it was not going to stay hot and humid forever. Although we have had a few relatively cool nights this summer, this felt like the first real hint of fall.

We’re used to July and August being hotter than June on average, but it does seem odd when you think about the fact that the days have been getting shorter since June 21.

I made a plot of average monthly high (in red) and low (in blue) temperatures for Rome. I made it for two years so you can see how the ups and downs cycle through the year. The green line is an arbitrary number that shows how the incoming sunlight varies through the year, normalized so that the values are similar to the temperature values. What this plot shows is that temperature lags the change in heating caused by the change in incoming sunlight, both in summer and in winter.

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So, the warmest days are not the longest days and the coldest days are not the shortest days. That’s because the Earth acts like a pot of water being heated on the stove; it takes a while to bring it to a boil. But in July, even with days that are shorter than in June, we’re still getting so much sunlight that the Earth wants to be warmer than it already is. We’re lucky the seasons are as short as they are. If they were longer, it would be so hot that we’d probably all have to move further north. But we’d still have to keep a winter home somewhere even further south.

In the meantime, we have opened all the windows in the house, because it’s finally cooler outside than inside.

Rainy night in Georgia

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Wednesday evening, without any warning, it started raining hard. Soon there was thunder and lightning, and then some small hail.

What is this stuff falling from the sky?

What is this stuff falling from the sky?

The sky took on a yellowish-pink glow at sunset.

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I had to let the camera use its flash to get the sky to look anything like it did to the eye. The flash caught rain drops, and a hummingbird leaving our feeder (at the left above the red plastic flower on the feeder).

It has been raining for about two hours; the gauge shows 1.12 inches so far, and the weather radar shows a lot of rain to our west.

I don’t know whether Robin’s comment to the last post has anything to do with the rain, but I’m going to ask that she make the same wish the next time we seem to be stuck in a dry rut.

It’s still dry

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When I posted on August 6 that we were dry, we had received 2.24 inches of rain since May 10. In the time since, nature has been taunting us with heavy rain to our west, moving our way, and then a few drops when it reaches us. This was the weather radar this morning at 10:40.

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There was a very nice and fairly large thunderstorm passing just north of us. We could hear the thunder. We didn’t even get a sprinkle out of it. We’re at the pushpin.

This was all lined up and heading towards us later in the afternoon.

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We’ll get rain out of this for sure, right. Here it is 20 minutes later

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And then this. It looks like we’re getting rain here, doesn’t it?

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And then it was gone.

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But, look, here comes more, out to the west.

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You know we’ll get a lot of rain out of this one. Here it is, and we’re in it.

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And then it was gone. I checked the rain gauge. Three-tenths of an inch for the day, and this is what it looked like later in the evening.

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So with this 0.3 inches of rain today, we have had 2.58 inches since May 10. The rain chances for the rest of this week are going steadily down, and the forecast is for 90s the rest of the week peaking at 98 F by Friday. I wonder if it will ever rain again.

Dry days

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It’s dry here.

On average, July is our third wettest month of the year, with nearly five inches. August is not far behind with about four and a half. The National Weather Service shows 6.42 inches since June 1. We have measured 2.24 inches since May 10. Rome’s official weather is measured at the Richard Russell Airport, which is located north of town and about 10 miles due east of our house. Given that rain in the summer here is usually the result of isolated storms and showers, it’s not particularly remarkable that the official record should differ from ours. We have watched the weather radar track what looks like heavy rain heading towards us from Alabama, only to have it fade away to nothing when it reaches us. We have seen flash flood warnings for Rome from heavy rain south of us. But the top of the mountain is dry.

Is it fall already?

Is it fall already?

It’s so dry that some of the plants are considering calling it a season and dropping their leaves. The leaves on all the dogwoods are shriveled and drooping. The powdery mildew started the process and now the heat and lack of rain are finishing it. The vinca plants are all bowing their heads. A few leaves here and there are turning on a few maples, the muscadine vines and even the poison ivy. It’s not a trend yet; it’s only a few, but unless we get some rain, I’m afraid it may spread.