I received this question in a reader comment a little while ago. Seemed like a fair one:

"Why so cold this year Frank?  Jet stream - El nino?  Any indication that it will continue?  Wasn't planning a break but with these temps may break up the winter with a trip to the Keys."

Check before you fly off to the Keys. The forecast there for Sunday calls for a high of 57 degrees and a low of 46. I've been there in that kind of weather. It ain't no picnic.

As for why it's been so cold, I sent the question to Chris Strong, at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Sterling. Here's his reply:

"The North Atlantic Oscillation is the reason for recent cold. It is a cycle that to a large extent governs how cold we are here at any given time.

"Unlike the El Nino/La Nina cycle which happens over years, the NAO cycles over weeks.  Here is a link to the recent trend on the Climate Prediction Center's webpage... http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html

"However, I would caution that we are grading 'cold' on the skewed scale compared to our relative mild weather over the past several years. A few thoughts:

* November was over 4 degrees above normal (very mild), which will also alter people's impressions going into winter.

* Looking at Dec 1-Jan 7, we are 27th coldest in Baltimore's records with a 33.7 degree avg. 1876-7 was coldest at 26.0 degrees, but more recent colder were 1989-90 27.8 (#3) and 2000-01 at 29.5 (#5).

* December was a few degrees below normal, but was just our 36th coldest on record.

* The first week of Jan has been cold, but as the first week of January goes, it was just the 24th coldest on record.

* Another important point....no temperature records have been broken this winter in Baltimore."

So, maybe it's not so cold, after all. And if it feels cold, just figure the NAO can change over a period of weeks. It can't last forever.

(AP PHOTO/Steve Ruark/Jan. 8, 2010)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Cold weather brings scarcity for many, both human and avian. And we all need to look out for each other in hard times.

A story I wrote for last Sunday's Sun, about a big crow roost near Loch Raven Boulevard and The Alameda (left), caught the attention of Sun reporter Fred Rasmussen. Fred spent some time this week watching a pair of crows working together to keep themselves fed for another day. Here's his tale:

"Frank: I loved your crow piece. While I was off earlier this week, I observed several crows who had found three ears of corn, tied together, that had been used as a fall door decoration.

"One crow kept dropping it in the street until its kernels started to pop off, which they ate with vigor. Then they separated the ears - so each crow could munch on their own ear. It was an incredible performance. Birdbrain? I don't think so. Cheers! Fred."

Anyone else have a good crow story?

(SUN PHOTO/Kim Hairston)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Phenomena
        

A fungal grain infestation caused by last spring's wet weather in Maryland was bad enough to earn a federal agricultural disaster declaration for 10 Maryland counties. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack approved the state's request for aid in a Nov. 13 letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Wheat and barley crops planted here became infected with the Vomitoxin (deoxynivalenol toxin, or DON) during May and June. The toxin is produced by a fungus called "Fusarium head blight," and the contamination makes the grain unmarketable, and unusable as feed.

The North Dakota State University describes its impact this way: "Grain with DON would have to be ingested in very high amounts to pose a health risk to humans, but it can affect flavors in foods and processing performance. Human food products are restricted to a 1-ppm level established by the FDA. This level is considered safe for human consumption. The food industry often sets standards that are more restrictive. DON causes feed refusal and poor weight gain in some livestock if fed above the advisory levels."

Maryland Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance said, "Farmers in the disaster designation areas experienced market value losses ranging from 30 to 55 percent."

The federal disaster declaration makes farmers in the primary designation areas, and all adjoining counties, eligible for "consideration" for assistance from the USDA Farm Service Agency.

The primary counties in the disaster declaration are Baltimore, Carroll, Cecil, Harford, Howard, Kent, Montgomery, Queen Anne's, Talbot and Washington.

BWI Marshall Airport recorded more than 9 inches of surplus rain during April, May and June. Since then, more than 3.5 additional inches of surplus rain have been added.

(SUN PHOTO/Glenn Fawcett 2008)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The ozone "hole" over Antartica reached its southern springtime peak in September, according to researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Measurements there indicated the size of the gap in the layer of the planet's atmosphere that protects us from dangerous ultraviolet radiation was the 10th largest on record.

That sounds bad, but the data suggest that the hole has actually begun to shrink thanks to international restrictions in the early 1990s on the production and sale of products containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), mostly as propellants and refrigerants. The chemicals were discovered to be responsible for high-altitude chemical reactions in the coldest places on Earth that were destroying ozone molecules. Man-made ozone is a pollutant at ground level, but naturally occurring ozone high in the atmosphere acts as a shield against harmful solar radiation. 

The other piece of the measurement is the amount of ozone in a vertical column of air over South Pole Station. That's measured in something called Dobson Units.

The least amount of protective ozone ever measured there was 89 Dobson Units, in 1993. This September, the lowest reading was 98 Dobson Units. That's the seventh lowest on record, but an improvement.

The chart at right shows the average Dobson readings for the last half of October each year. You can see that the depletion appears to have ended during the 1990s, and ozone readings have stabilized and perhaps ticked up a notch.

But the progress is painfully slow. At this rate, the ozone hole won't return to normal until the 2060s. By then, lots of us (including me) will be dead. But our children and grandchildren will be around, and I hope they throw a big party and thank their ancestors for thinking for the long-term (for a change).

You can read more about this year's measurements here.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Like many other glass structures in Baltimore and elsewhere, the Baltimore Sun's footbridge over Centre Street continues to be a fatal lure to migrating birds this autumn.

My guess is these birds may be flying into the bridge because it looks like an inviting place to roost. They simply can't see the glass.  

This is an annual phenomenon. There are estimates that tens of millions - perhaps even hundreds of millions of birds die this way every year in the U.S. And based on past experience here at The Baltimore Sun, we can expect more than a dozen birds to die on the bridge in the coming weeks. Sun management has been asked to look into ways to minimize the hazard.

In addition to the four birds that have already collided with the bridge's glass windows and died. two more were on the ledges this morning. One (above) appeared to be another yellow-bellied sapsucker. It was still breathing when this photo was taken Monday morning, but was evidently paralyzed by the strike.

UPDATE: At 6 p.m., when I left the building, this bird was still alive (right), sitting upright and peeping. But he had not moved from the spot where I found him in the morning.

UPDATE: AT 10 a.m. Tuesday, this bird was still alive. Another - a very small black and white bird - had apparently hit the opposite window overnight and remained on the ledge, alert but evidently unable to fly off.

UPDATE: At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, as I left the building, I noted that the first bird had expired. The second, the small B&W bird, had disappeared. Hopefully, it was merely stunned and after a nice rest, flew off.

UPDATE: Noon Wednesday. The Sun has ordered UV decals that we hope will reduce the mortality on the bridge. No new strikes today.

The other (below) was a small brown bird, some sort of sparrow, I would guess, and very dead. I'll let the birders out there venture a species identification.

(I also noticed a tiny skeleton, probably left over from last spring or autumn.)

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says window glass collisions are rapidly becoming a significant contributor to the overall decline in bird populations. Here's more information from FLAP.org.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Phenomena
        

(No, not this one. It's a FLICKR PHOTO by marblegravy of the aftermath of a February 2007 hailstorm in Canberra, Australia.)  

But Samuel Cohen writes with a memory of one "hail-aceous" Maryland thunderstorm, one with hail so deep it's hardly believeable. Sam writes:

"I know that I did not imagine this, in the early 70's  1972-74 in July or August (I think it hit on a Wednesday or Thursday) we had a thunderstorm of which I have never seen before.  It hit right around 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. and the sky was black as if it was midnight.   A deluge, in Patterson Park trees were knocked down and in the streets.  In Dundalk they had 12 inches of hail and had to bring in a snow plow to remove the hail..I read it in the papers experienced the storm and had a friend who saw the hail...Can you look this up and tell me I'm not crazy??  My friend who experienced the hail has since moved away and none of my other friends remember this storm....

" To add to this at Fairmount Ave and Kenwood Aves (John's Bakery)  the cars were piled 3 cars high on each other and at the corner was Jerry Turner of WJZ with the film crew.  Every basement on Kenwood Ave was flooded and the city finally placed huge pipes there (it would always flood with any storm because of the hill coming down from St. Elizabeth's Church but this was the worse)  so it would never flood again...There were trees down everywhere on Baltimore Street..."

We're checking The Baltimore Sun's clip files. In the meantime, I forwarded Sam's question to Steve Zubrick, the science and operations officer out at the National Weather Service's Sterling forecast office. Here's his reply:

Continue reading "Anyone remember this hailstorm?" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The Maryland Department of Agriculture is warning farmers and grain elevator operators to check their wheat and barley crops for the presence of a fungus known as "vomitoxin" in their stored or unharvested grain. The troublesome pest does well when conditions are wet, as they were across much of the state this spring.

The fungus, more formally known as Fusarium head blight, or scab, produces a chemical called deoxynivalenol that renders the crop unmarketable, and unusable as feed. If animals eat enough of it, it causes excessive salivation, and irritated oral and gastrointenstinal tissues. The name alone suggests its symptoms.

The University of Maryland has already reported scab outbreaks , primarily in Southern Maryland and the Lower Eastern Shore, although the northern counties have seen some, too. The department's chief chemist is now testing samples of grain at elevators and feed mills to see whether the toxin is present and, if so, at what levels.

Farmers with crop insurance are advised to get in touch with their agents before harvesting the grain.  Wheat already in storage will not be eligible for insurance claims.

"Anyone considering feeding this year's crop to livestock definitely needs to know if vomitoxin is present, and at what levels, as some animals are very sensitive ... and can become sick from eating it," said Ag Secty Buddy Hance.

From April 1 through mid-June, BWI recorded more than 9 inches of surplus rain.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

At least one of the teams searching for any remnants of last week's Mason-Dixon meteor has narrowed their focus to a relatively small area of Lancaster County, Pa., roughly between Rte. 272 and the Susquehanna River.

Using the York Water Co. security video and Mike Hankey's telescopic image of the falling meteor, Rob Matson, an aerospace engineer from California  whose "hobby" interests include looking for asteroids and meteorites, has calculated the fall zone where he suspects any surviving fragments of the meteor ought to be. Here's his note to meteor hunter Steve Arnold:

"My best estimate at the moment is that meteorites should be found
somewhere in the region bounded by Pequea, Colemanville, Martic
Forge, Marticville, Holtwood, Bethesda (PA of course), and
Rawlinsville. The west side of the Susquehanna isn't ruled out,
but I would strongly favor the east side."

The search is now (mostly) up to local residents. Here's more from Arnold:

Continue reading "Meteorite search focuses on Lancaster County" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has made it official: Another El Nino has begun, with sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean now more than 1 degree Celsius above the average.

Red and orange colors on the map at left show where sea surface temperatures in the Pacific are 1 to 2 degrees above average.

The phenomenon, which occurs every two to five years, on average, typically triggers changes in weather trends around the globe. It is expected to last at least a year, and is the first El Nino since 2006. Here's more from NOAA.

For Maryland, El Nino's effects are not as cut and dried as they are for some parts of the world, such as the Pacific coast and Indonesia. But studies have found a trend toward stormier winters. That can mean a lot of snow, or very little - a sort of all-or-nothing deal, depending on temperatures. The most notable storm in an El Nino year may have been the Feb. 11, 1983 storm that dropped 22.8 inches on Baltimore (photo, right).

The general conclusion the experts have reached about El Nino Winters in Baltimore is summed up this way:

"El Niño winters in the Baltimore Region mean a milder than normal December. They also tend to be all or nothing when it comes to snowfall. Either there are no significant snow storms and season snow totals average less than 5 inches or there is a tendency toward multiple snow storms with seasonal totals above 30 inches.  These storms usually occur in January and February. November, December, and March often see little or no snow."

You can read more about this here.

(SUN PHOTO by Weyman Swagger 1983)

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Professional meteor hunter Steve Arnold is asking home and business owners in central Maryland and southern Pennsylvania to check their security tapes from early Monday morning for evidence of the meteor that scores of residents across the region have been reporting.

Most reader reports to this Blog put the time between 1:00 a.m. EDT and 1:15 a.m., July 6, with many focused on 1:08 - 1:10 a.m. 

Arnold, co-star of the Science Channel's "Meteorite Men" program, is hoping to use the tapes to triangulate on the meteor and calculate its path. From that, he hopes to launch a search for any bits of the space rock that may have made it to the ground.

"That security camera footage is badly needed," Arnold told me in an email note. "I am optimistic, as there should be a few thousand cameras that caught it on tape. The key is to find at least three good camera angles to triangulate from. By 'good,' I don't necessarily mean the clearest, or in color, but ones that have physical objects visible in the distance so that when visiting the camera in person, with a compass, one can tell exactly where the fireball extinguished. This way a definite line can be drawn from the lens of the camera to the object and on the the point of 'redardation.' Three good lines intersecting gives us what we need."

Arnold also asked me to see whether the region's weather radar captured a trace of the falling meteor. I've asked the National Weather Service at Sterling to look into it.

Security camera footage has been used before to document fireball meteors. There are lots of them on YouTube. So, if you own or have access to security camera tapes in the region, check your Monday morning data for the flash. If you find something, you can contact me at frank.roylance@baltsun.com, or Steve Arnold at MeteorHntr@aol.com. Or, copy us both.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Phenomena
        

We have been receiving reports today of a likely meteor over north-central Maryland and southern Pennsylvania early Monday morning. (Not the one in the Flickr.com image above.) 

Below are the first reports we have received. If you heard or saw something similar, around the same time, please leave a comment. Include the time, your location, which direction you saw the object or flash, a description of what you saw, and note any boom or other sound you heard, as well as the time lapse between flash and boom.

The York Dispatch:  In York County, Pa., police officers from Penn Township, Southwestern Regional and Newberry Township reported seeing a flash and hearing a boom around 1:15 a.m. Monday, July 6, according to local 911 centers. Officials in Harford County, Md. also reported seeing a flash and hearing a boom near the Mason-Dixon Line. 

Capital Gazette: An Annapolis city police officer reported that she and her partner both saw what she described as a "bright blue light in the sky" just after midnight. It was followed by "a light with a tail, falling from the sky," according to our informant. Annapolis police reported hearing a similar report on Baltimore County police radio.

Gary Moon, reporting to The Sun's News Tips: "I heard and felt a deep earth blast similar to an earthquake, which shook my home in Glen Rock, Pa., early Monday morning. I thought I would hear MUCH more about this one ... nothing."

Deborah Markow, Havre de Grace: "Last night, couldn't sleep, went out on back deck, laid on lounge, eyes closed and then it was like someone pointed a flash light in my eyes it was so bright. I saw another one streak through the sky ... It was one of the most thrilling sights to behold a ball of fire flying through the sky."

I have not yet seen any meteor reports of this event on the American Meteor Society's Fireball Sightings Log, but it's early yet, and this fireball, coming in the wee hours after a long holiday, probably did not catch many people out and about.

Which makes reports like these, and yours, all the more important. If you saw this object, be sure to leave a report with the AMS, too.

But judging from the descriptions, it almost certainly was a fireball, which is simply an especially bright meteor, vaporizing with an impressive flash.

Here's a pretty good example on video.

They are sometimes followed by a sonic boom, which would explain the booming noises in the reports. Some fireball observers - though none yet for this event - also report a crackling or hissing sound that is concurrent with the meteor's flash and which has never been fully explained scientifically.

Although meteor rates begin to pick up in July, this is not the peak time for any particular meteor shower. It seems likely this was a "sporadic," or isolated meteor that just happened to be especially big and bright. Big ones like this are always unexpected, always startling to witness, and always a thrill.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (111)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting a small earth tremor at about 9:45 a.m. EDT this morning, measured with a magnitude of just 2.8. That's not likely to be felt by many, but is enough to detect and report. 

The center of the shaking was pinpointed in southern New Jersey, on the eastern shore of the Delaware River near Pennsville, NJ, about 8 miles south southeast of Wilmington, Del.

The quake was centered about 3 miles deep. Here's a map. Anyone feel anything?

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

A tremendous eruption by Russia's Sarychev volcano, in the Kuril Islands, on June 12 is causing strange and beautiful violet and lavender sunsets around the northern hemisphere this week. The astronauits aboard the International Space Station shot some amazing video of the eruption as they flew over. 

The sunset colors occur when fine particles of ash and sulphur dioxide blasted into the stratosphere by the eruption begin to scatter blue light. Mixed with the reddish colors of a normal sunset, they produce the purplish hue.

Photographers in northern countries have been taking remarkable pictures of the sunsets. I'm not sure whether the particulates have made it as far south as Maryland, but it's worth watching the sunsets this week.

In addition to the unusual colors, some photos show high clouds, bright yellow bands called a "twilight arch," and tall crepuscular rays fanning out from the western horizon. Here is a gallery showing some of these phenomena.

The eruption on the remote island in the Kuril chain northeast of Japan smothered half the island in lava. Here (below) is a photo of the island, snapped today by NASA's Terra Earth-observing satellite. The gray color on the northwestern side is lava. The red in the false-color image is actually green vegetation. 

For a comparison shot, showing what the island looked like before the eruption, click here. 

Posted by Frank Roylance at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The thunderstorm that passed over Anne Arundel County after 7 a.m. Thursday dropped 1.72 inches of rain on the National Weather Service instruments at BWI. That brought the total June rainfall at the city's station of record to more than 5 inches by my reckoning.

The long-term average precipitation for June at the airport is 3.43 inches, so we have now drowned the June average. With more rain in the cards for the rest of the week, we are likely to go well beyond 5 inches before this month finally closes.

We may finally see some sunshine (ask your grandparents) early next week. More on that in a moment. For now, here's how we stack up so far against the rainiest Junes in Baltimore for the last 20 years:

June 2006:  7.32 inches

June 2003:  6.96 inches

June 1989:  5.98 inches

June 2000:  5.54 inches

June 2009:  5.09 inches*

* Through 11 a.m. June 18 (unofficial)

The heaviest rains yesterday, and into early this morning, were recorded to our west. Cresaptown, in Allegany County, saw 2.34 inches.  Accident, in Garrett County, reported 2 inches. 

Closer to home, Elkridge and Severn each reported more than 1.4 inches.  Totals were much smaller to the north. Long Green, in Baltimore County reported 0.86 inch. We had about a half-inch on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, while The Sun's station at Calvert & Centre streets recorded a little more than a half-inch. Here are more rain reports. 

(SUN PHOTO/Barbara Haddock Taylor/June 19, 2006)

Continue reading "Rain tops 5 inches at BWI for June ... so far" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Okay, so we knew there had to be a downside to all this rain that wiped out the winter drought. It's mosquitoes.

With plenty of puddles and soggy wetlands to breed in, and warming weather to kick-start their development, the little buggers are on their way.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture (that's the Ag Dept.'s Dennis Earling, below, inspecting a Baltimore County puddle for mosquito larvae back in 1997) is reminding Marylanders they can do a lot to hold down skeeter populations in their neighborhoods and around their homes. Here the advisory issued today:

"Residents in most areas can anticipate the emergence of troublesome numbers of adult mosquitoes within the next two weeks.  Land-based mosquito control activities are underway statewide in addition to aerial spraying on the lower Eastern Shore.  MDA’s combined acreage for aerial larviciding and adulticiding is 60,000 acres predominantly in Dorchester County.

“As the weather begins to warm, homeowners are reminded that their regular spring cleaning activities can help reduce mosquito populations” said Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance.  “Measures such as removing containers that accumulate water and cleaning roof gutters will help prevent mosquitoes from breeding and will make spring outdoor activities such as gardening, barbeques and outdoor sports more pleasant.”

While spring cleaning residents should:

•     Remove any buckets, cups, bottles, plastic bags, etc. that may have accumulated outside.

•     Clean roof gutters (after the oak trees have finished flowering).

•     Check rain barrels to make sure they are completely screened (including around the down spout).

•     Remove any old tires (or drill holes in those used for playground equipment).  Store usable tires in a shed or garage so they will not accumulate water.

•     Fix dripping outdoor faucets.

•     Introduce fish to ornamental ponds, even those with fountains or bubblers.  Most fish will eat mosquito larvae.

•     Make sure outdoor trash cans have tight-fitting lids.  If lids are not available, drill holes in the bottom of the can.

"For more information about Maryland’s Mosquito Control Program, call 410-841-5870 or go to Maryland Department of Agriculture’s website at www.mda.state.md.us."  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

In all the reporting in recent weeks about the bird strike data recently released by the Federal Aviation Administration, I never read anything specific to Maryland. But the report is now available online and it's available to anyone curious enough to plow through it.

It's fascinating reading, full of statistics and gory photos, including a shot of one expired bald eagle, snapped after he blasted through the windshield of a helicopter, knocking a passenger unconscious and forcing the pilot to land - safely, as it turned out.

If you never really realized that a fluffy, feathery bird could pose a mortal threat to big, aluminum airliners, get a load of the photos in this report. You'll be amazed by what happens to the leading edge of a Boeing 737's wing after being smacked by a blue heron.

The data include an accounting of reported wildlife strikes on aircraft, by state. It notes a total of 954 incidents in Maryland - not just BWI, one presumes - between 1990 and 2007. The tally includes 890 birds, 6 bats and 58 terrestrial mammals. Bambi strikes back!

Posted by Frank Roylance at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Phenomena
        

The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting two small earth tremors this morning centered near Franklintown, Pa., between York and Carlisle, about 60 miles north northwest of Baltimore.

The first, rated at a magnitude 2.9, occurred at 1:36 a.m. The second, rated at 2.4, was recorded at 6:26 a.m. Both were shallow quakes - barely a mile below the surface. They were centered very close together. The first was a mile south of Franklintown, the second 2 miles east northeast of the town.

Earthquakes of this magnitude would not be felt by most people. But if you live in the area, and you felt something this morning, please leave us a comment and describe what it was like. Be sure to include your location, the time, and a description of the tremor.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Where have all the sunspots gone? Solar scientists thought 2008 was the quietest year for solar activity on record. But 2009 has started out even quieter. The percentage of days without any sunspots visible on the sun's disk has increased this year to 87 percent, up from 73 percent in 2008.

This now ranks as the quietest ebb in the sun's 11-year cycle of rising and falling activity in almost a century. Among the notable effects so far:

* a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, which is allowing more galactic cosmic rays to penetrate the solar system, endangering space-walking astronauts. Lower solar wind pressure also produces fewer auroras.

* a striking slump in solar irradiance, or brightness. It's only 0.02 percent in visible wavelengths, but 6 percent in the ultraviolet. It's cooled and shrunk the upper atmosphere, extending the orbital lifetimes of satellites and junk in low-Earth orbit.

* a 55-year low in solar radio emissions. Nobody seems to understand this one.

You can read more about this odd solar minimum here.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Phenomena
        

This afternoon's big earthquake near the Pacific island nation of Tonga has sent seismic waves around the world. The impulse was felt in a USGS monitoring well in Christianburg, in southwest Virginia, where water levels surged as the seismic wave passed through the surrounding rock.

This well is especially sensitive to seismic signals, and regularly responds to big quakes around the world. Here is the water level tracing from today's quake. The Tonga quake is the big blip at the right end of the trace.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Have you noticed unusually low water around the bay today? That would be the work of the gusty northwest winds, which have been pushing water down the bay. The effect is especially noticeable in the upper tidal Potomac and Baltimore Harbor, according to the National Weather Service.

Here's the water level forecast from NOAA, predicting water levels as much as 2 feet below predicted tidal levels (dark blue).

You can follow the tide gauges here; just click on the map for Maryland. The noon graphic is reproduced below.

Continue reading "Northwest wind lowers bay water levels" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

That's right. I couldn't believe it either. I just had email from Steve Zubrick, the science officer for the National Weather Service office in Sterling. He's down near Richmond and reported a temperature of 59 degrees.

Huh?! It's 34 here at The Sun, and it's been hovering near freezing most of the day. And it's 25 degrees warmer in Richmond? But I checked and it's true. Actually, at last check it was 64 degrees!! Thirty degrees warmer than Fredericksburg, just 53 miles away!

It's also 62 degrees this afternoon at Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. And 51 at OC.

The warm air mass that has been pulled north off the ocean into the mid-Atlantic states by this big low has pushed hard into south-central Virginia. But it hasn't succeeded yet in displacing the cold, dense air in place at the surface just to the north of Richmond, or across most of Maryland. The snow and ice cover is helping to keep things cool at the surface. It's also cooling the warmer, wetter air aloft and condensing the moisture into fog.

Here are some current temperature readings along a line from Baltimore south:

Baltimore: 32 degrees

Washington National:  32 degrees

Fredericksburg, VA:  34 degrees 

Richmond, VA: 64 degrees

Williamston, N.C.:  72 degrees

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

There was a small earth tremor just after midnight this morning, centered only about 57 miles north of Baltimore, and I'm wondering if anyone in the area felt it.

The US Geological Survey pinpointed the center of the shake two miles north northeast of a place called Salunga-Landisville, Pa. I've never heard of the place, but it's a bit north and west of Lancaster. It struck at 12:04 a.m. EST and was rated at a mere 3.4 on the Richter scale. Not much, to be sure, but big enough to be felt. I' ve had one email from Bryan in Timonium telling me he felt it there.

Here is a map of the area. The orange box shows the location of the tremor. And here's a link to more maps.

Small earthquakes in this part of the country are not common, but they are not unheard-of either.  Here is a map showing where similar small quakes have been located in recent years. Today's shake was the biggest in a series this fall in the same general area. Here's a link to a list.

The seismic hazard is pretty low around Baltimore, although we have had several in recent years - including one in the Dundalk area, and another in Lochearn. I don't have those stories at my fingertips. But here's a link to the Maryland Geological Survey, which has more details.

The risk of seismic activity increases as you go up the East Coast to the New York City area. Here's a hazard map.

If you felt this morning's tremor, leave us a comment and describe what you felt.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Phenomena
        

A small earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale rattled portions of eastern South Carolina at 7:42 this morning. The quake was centered 3 miles southeast of Goose Creek, and 6 miles north of North Charleston. Here's a local news report.

A little shake like this one would not normally get much attention. But there is a fairly serious history of earthquakes in Charleston. They're not common, but they have caused terrible destruction.

The most memorable was the quake in August 1886, which has since been estimated at between 6.6 and 7.3 on the Richter scale. It devastated Charleston, causing the destruction of a quarter of the valuation of the city's buildings and killing more than 60 people. Aftershocks continued for decades. Some even believe the more recent tremors in Charleston are in fact aftershocks from the 1886 quake. Here's more.

Most remarkably, that 1886 quake in Charleston was felt across a vast region - as far north as Boston, west to Chicago and south to Cuba. It was even felt far at sea - in Bermuda. Baltimoreans reported the shaking, too. 

Here is a map of the Zip codes of people who told the USGS they felt this morning's tremor:

Here is more on Maryland earthquakes.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

Temperatures hovered around 50 degrees as we turned in last night. That's pretty close to the normal high for this time of year at BWI. Maybe a bit mild. (The normal overnight LOW is 28 degrees.) Then, after midnight, warm air began arriving from the South, and the heater kicked in.

The mercury out at BWI jumped from 50 to 60 degrees between 1 and 2 a.m. Here at The Sun, it leapt from 50 to 59 degrees between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. And it's been headed higher ever since - 63 at 11 a.m. The last time we broke 60 degrees at BWI was on Nov. 15.

Mild as it is, there's no record under threat today. The all-time high for Baltimore on a Dec . 10 is 72 degrees, set in 1966. The record low is 1 degree, set way back in 1876. The record high minimum is 49 degrees. So far, our low for the day is a shade warmer than that, at 50 degrees, but we can probably count on temperatures to fall late today, dipping well below 49 as a strong cold front drifts by and stalls to our south.

The forecasters out at Sterling are looking for a low tonight of 41 degrees. The front will go by late this evening, followed by more rain than we've seen so far (0.05 inch so far at The Sun), plus gusty winds. 

Thursday will bring more rain, a colder, heavier rain, with daytime highs only around 40 degrees. The driver is another low that's developing in the Gulf.  Here's the radar loop.

The storm is expected to move across the southeastern states and off the Virginia/Carolina coast. With the cold air moving in from the north and west, the low could generate mixed precipitation here early Thursday, especially north and west of the I-95 corridor, forecasters say. But it won't last long, turning to all rain in the lowlands, and an icy mix in the mountains to our west.

But as the storm pulls away early Friday, forecasters warn that the precip could switch back to snow or sleet west of I-95, at least briefly.

Behind all this soggy mess there's more high pressure on the way for the weekend. with sunny skies on tap Saturday through Monday, with highs rising through the 40s and into the low 50s by the start of the new workweek.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Phenomena
        

About once a day for the past two weeks, my wife and I have been finding bugs in our house. No, not hidden microphones. Real bugs. They're small - about the size and shape of a lightning bug. They're mostly black, with red trim. Very spiffy.

They're also easy to catch. They seem to have no interest in flying. And while they're pretty active, they are easily out-maneuvered, crushed and disposed of.

I managed to snap some pictures with my new digital camera (above). A little blurry, but you can see what they look like. Then I consulted University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp's Bug of the Week Web site. Clicked on the BOW Archive, scrolled down to late November and spotted a likely match from 2005: the boxelder bug.

Here below is Mike's commentary on this late-autumn home invader. We have no boxelder trees I know of. Maybe they're also partial to Bradford pear trees. We do have one of those that's dumped a huge mess of grape-sized pears on our sidewalk. Ick.   

Posted by Frank Roylance at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Phenomena