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  • Steve Adamson | Meteorologist
    by: Steve Adamson | Meteorologist
    Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:50:00 PDT

    Hard to imagine, but yes our days are getting shorter again. When summer officially arrived on the 20th of June, it marked our longest day of the year. In Atlanta, that meant 14 hours and 24 minutes of "sun over the horizon" daylight and another half hour or so of additional twilight. Sunset times of 8:52pm commenced and continued to stay there through July 6th. ( 8:52pm is the latest sunset time of the year for Atlanta )

    With the occurence of the solstice, sunrise times had already began to get a bit later, and we've trimmed about 5 minutes of time off of our daylight since the first day of summer.

    Now the sunset times are beginning to decrease as well. Beginning July 7th, we lose a minute's worth of daylight with the sunset at 8:51pm. Now and each day ahead, we'll continue the trend of shaving off a minute or two of daylight as we head towards the Autumnal Equinox in Spetember. From there, we'll further decrease the amount of daylight as fall progresses towards the Winter Solstice on Dec. 21st.

    I've always found it sorta intriguing that once we reach our longest day of the year, we immediately begin the process of going in the other direction. Slowly at first, only losing seconds from the peak daylight time in the immediate days that follow the solstice, and then decreasing the amount steadily by one to two minutes per day beyond then.

    The long days of summer have are well known for their impact on American lifestyle. Most of us get less sleep. Longer days keep most of us outside longer and thus we tend not go to sleep as early. In addition, longer days promote more outdoor activity, so physically, we tend to do more, be it evening walks, working outdoors around the home, recreational sporting activities and the like all tend to keep us more active in the outdoors during this time of the year.

    Most of us won't be curtailing these activities for a while yet, but the daylight to enjoy them will continue to get less and less as we work further into summer. I've often wondered how people's lifestyle would change if daylight remained constant throughout the year. For instance, if we were limited to just 10 hours of daylight instead of more than 14, would we as a society adapt to being physically less active? Or if daylight was 14 hours or more all the time, would we tend to become less energetic after a while from sleeping less trying to do various activities for longer periods of time?

    Maybe it's a good thing the seasonal time clock works the way it does. It allows us the best of both worlds. However, the variations of the amount of daylight vary widely, depending upon ones' geographic latitude. Think about how it is in Alaska. Summer days that bring almost 24 hours of daylight for a while, but then winter days that bring nearly 24 hours of darkness. Talk about a body clock adjustment!

    I think Atlanta is geographically posistioned just right for the ideal spread between our longest days and our shortest days. 9 hours and 54 minutes for the shortest day and 14 hours and 24 minutes for the longest. About a four-and-a-half hour spread. Much easier on the body clock than what folks living in those high latitude areas have to deal with where extremes are the norm.

  • Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    by: Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:22:00 PDT

    11:15am-Thursday

    Our second tropical storm of the season has formed.  The tropical depression developing off the coast of Africa officially grew to tropical storm status late this morning.  The new tropical storm is named Bertha.

    Usually at this time of year, we see storms developing near the gulf or in the Caribbean in the warm water.  It's usually later in the year when the storms begin forming off the coast of Africa.  We typically call it Cape Verde season later in the summer because that is when those storms develop near the Cape Verde Islands.  It's interested to see that a storm has already developed well ahead of schedule.

    The forecast track of this storm has it nearing hurricane strength by early next week.  The forecast track also keeps it out to sea.  It doesn't look like this one will make it to the United States.  We'll keep tracking it for you and keep you posted as it moves east.  You can also check out our Hurricane Guide here at 11Alive.com for updates.

    I'm off tomorrow for July 4th.  I'm also taking some days off next week, too.  Steve Adamson will be filling in for me on the morning show.  My family will be spending July 4th at Lake Oconee.  We'll be jet skiing, wake boarding and eating plenty of hamburgers from the grill!

    Have a great 4th!

     

  • Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    by: Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:05:30 PDT

    7/2/08-10:15am

    Another great morning!  Temps were very refreshing again this morning.  In the city, we held in the 60s...but there were a lot of 50s in the suburbs.  These temps are still not typical of July. 

    We'll warm up a little more this afternoon than we did yesterday.  Yesterday's high was 85.  I cut the grass yesterday.  Even though it was warm, I couldn't really complain too much thanks to the dry air!  Today, we'll be about 3 degrees higher than yesterday when we move up to 88.  The air will still be dry.  Dewpoints will be in the upper 40s and lower 50s, so it won't be muggy again today.  Things are about to change, though.  The humidity will be a little higher on Thursday and Friday with temps warming to near 90. 

    Even though the humidity will go up, it looks like the 4th of July will stay dry.  We'll see a few of those afternoon storms beginning to pop up again by the weekend.  That pattern will last through the beginning of next week.

    Don't get spoiled by this cooler and drier start to July.  The hot muggies will be back before you know it!

  • Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    by: Chris Holcomb | Meteorologist
    Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:59:37 PDT

    6/30/08-Monday 6am

    Today is the last day of June!  The weather the next couple of days won't be typical June/July type weather!  A cold front came through last night bringing storms to some areas.  All of that rain moved south and east and then fell apart overnight.

    Now, we are on the north side of that front.  We will have cooler and drier air today.  The dewpoints will lower with that dry air.  So it won't be as muggy with lower humidity.  Since it will be drier tonight, that will allow temps to drop a little more by morning.  Can you believe we will start off July with a morning temp of 60 degrees.  Many areas in the burbs will even be in the 50s!

    We will gradually warm up as we head toward the end of the week.  Right now, July 4th is looking good, but scattered showers will return on Saturday and Sunday.

  • Josh Johnson | Meteorologist
    by: Josh Johnson | Meteorologist
    Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:02:46 PDT

    Sure hearing a lot about the ice situation up at the North Pole.  Apparently, an ice scientist has come out with a projection that involves the North Pole's ice completely melting this summer.

    I have several opinions on this - first, I'll believe it when I see it.  There is still plenty of ice in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, which includes the North Pole.  From what I gather from this report, there is simply an area of ice that is thin, and it happens to reside over the  North Pole.  On the whole, ice levels in the northern Hemisphere are not terribly different than previous years and decades.

    Secondly, even if that does in fact occur, it's not proof or even compelling evidence of manmade global warming.  I realize that pretty much flies in the face of everything you're probably hearing about this from the national media.  But, ice coverage in Antartica (South Pole) set an all-time high in 2007.

    Here is a graphic showing ice coverage in the Southern Hemisphere.  The record goes back until 1979, so it does include the majority of the time that the manmade global warming folks want us to believe that we did all of the "damage"...

    This chart shows the Southern Hemisphere sea ice area in square kilometers from 1978 to today.

    Here is another interesting chart...This one shows the ice area of the NORTHERN hemisphere (including the North Pole, which is supposedly melting and proving that we're destroying the Earth)... 

    Looks like the change is very, very subtle when viewed on the whole. 

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