Everyone wants to talk weather part 2

[waggawerewolf27]

Ouch! I've seen a documentary on TV about those dust bowl days and it went on for a few years, didn't it? What happened, exactly, and where? It looks like you are getting a rerun of our horrible last summer. And I hope that doesn't happen to you.

Today is the first day of winter. And it is still very dry though a little chilly.

[Puddleglum]

I can attest to the humidity stargazer. Mowing the lawn, and having to wring out the t-shirt after
a good that comes from this is the part of the lawn that has not grown grass in nearly a decade has finally decided to sprout green. After dumping how many pounds ( or is it tons ) of grass seed on it every year we are finally seeing results.
Now if only this sudden green thumb does not suddenly vanish, and the green turn a sickly brown ( an oh so common event ) I might have something worth mowing.
More rain expected tonight, and through tomorrow. Hoping to see a few inches in the rain gauge.
Wagga. The Dust Bowl. Assuming that you mean the one in the U.S.A. Most people I have known attribute it to mass wind erosion due to the rush to cut down too many trees to make room for farmland. Many farms in the midwest now have rows of trees along some fields as windbreaks, and hold topsoil in place.

[fantasia]

It's gearing up to be a scorcher of a summer. For as far out as I trust the forecast, we're 5-10F above normal with very little chance for rain.

[starkat]

It's about the same here. We're running 5-10F above and light on rain. When we get it, it's the rock 'em sock 'em thunderstorms that potentially come with hail and 2+ inches of rain.

[Puddleglum]

Looking at temps in the upper 70'sF here for the rest of the week. Dependin on the channel, we might see some thunder early morning.
Humidity is the problem right now. The de humidifier has to b emptied twice a day. At least we get free water for the house plants. ( If you don't count the electricity to run it hat is. )

[johobbit]

I used to like swimming, haven't done it in years. We don't have air conditioning(well we do, it's just called a window)

Yep. At our former house, we did not have central air, but had a pool, so on those sultry, miserably humid nights, we would all dive in, then go to bed wet, whereupon we'd awaken partway through the night quite chilly. Still, it helped us get to sleep, that's for sure. And I'm much rather be cold than hot!

We have basically jumped from winter to summer. A few days, here and there, are more spring-like (hurrah), but other than that, the very warm weather is here. Thankfully this week has been a bit cooler, especially in the evenings, so we have been able to almost finished planting our gardens (veggie and floral) without sweltering ... just the potatoes to dig in tonight.

No seeds have sprouted yet (peas, beans, carrots), but they are expected to show themselves any day now.

I miss my early morning walks, but anything above 12C or so (mid 50s) is too warm for me to walk as briskly and long as I like to in the autumn and winter months.

Throughout the next week, the temps are rising higher and higher, so I'm bracing myself.

[waggawerewolf27]

Meanwhile, in Down Under, west of Botany Bay, we actually did get rain from last Tuesday, on and off for four days, including today. Unfortunately I forgot what it was like if my shoes and socks got wet from inadvertently stepping into one of the potholes in a car parking area. Now that is the swimming pool one gets when there isn't a swimming pool to cool off in. One idea for a hot summer's day when cossies were one piece and all day wear at home, was to dance around a sprinkler on front or back lawn, and another one was to hose each other down. But it is now winter, and cold enough for those who are not well to need the heaters on indoors.

[stargazer]

After jumping from winter to summer in May, our weather has settled down a little bit. It varies between warm and hot, humid days, and wet ones, like today. Southern Minnesota continues to be too wet for agriculture, with a small town near where I used to live receiving tennis ball-sized hail over the weekend. The northern part of the state is abnormally dry according to the Drought Monitor, but nothing like the extreme conditions in the desert Southwest US.

[Puddleglum]

Just got a bit of the rain today, along with some rather intimidating lightning. You know it is close when I can hear it in the factory at work over all the other noise that requires hearing protection.
After getting home we checked the rain gauge, and found a good inch, and a half had fallen. A welcome drink for the grass that had started to turn brown. The wind also played a bit of havoc with the tree branches. Thankfully nothing serious, though the neighbors needed a little help with one that insisted on not breaking cleanly, and just hung there waiting for the next poor soul to pass by, and get a knob on the head. A quick trip to the shed, and use of the pole saw got it down. I now have a nice piece of walnut to turn into noggins, and spoons for rendezvous

[stargazer]

The past couple days have been quite pleasant in terms of temperature and humidity; we even enjoyed an evening campfire the other day.

But the heat is on again, with record highs possible today (old record 94F/34C) with 'air you can wear' humidity. Whew! The weekend will add to our count of 90+ days, never a desirable result for polar bears.

Right now the fire department is outside, dealing with a kitchen fire in the house next door. Everyone is safe and they're just finishing up, but I don't envy them wearing all that gear when the heat index is pushing 100F/38C.

[fantasia]

We hit 100F for our actual temperature two days ago. And until yesterday it had been incredibly muggy and just generally yucky outside.NOAA says that we had our hottest May on record and I believe it. June has been just as bad. Our highs have been consistently 5-10F above average for this time of year. I suspect that means summer will be downright miserable.

[Puddleglum]

"Air you can wear" about sums it up stargazer. I have to remind myself not to lean on anything lest I stick.
The storms keep rolling through the state, but are so sporatic it is impossible to say where any rain will fall. We had a bank of dark clouds move in during lunch hour, only for it to literally split in two, and pass to the north, and south of us
It is supposed to be "chance of rain" all weekend, with a drop of 15 degreesF by Monday. Not a gambler. But I'm not betting on it.

[fantasia]

We've had some wild and crazy storm cells come roaring through our state. The individual cells aren't that big, but if you're under them, watch out! They've had tornadoes in western Kansas, but not many people live out there so I haven't heard of damage from those, but the gust fronts and the heavy, heavy rain have been unreal!
When my grandparents were alive, they farmed in western Kansas. I have a distant cousin who still runs things out there and apparently they had 5" of rain in a few hours time. There's a creek bed out there that I have no memory of ever having water in it, and it set a new record for the highest level.
Meanwhile I've been visiting my parents house for VBS this past week and we had a storm go over while I was loading kids into the van. I got the older two in while the wind was moving in. I ran out with the baby and I could feel the spray from the front of the storm. My third trip for my stuff resulted in me being completely soaked. That storm took out a mile or two of power lines north of the city and so my kiddos did VBS for an hour and a half in the dark.
Keeping an eye on the sky again today. It's sunny and very pleasant now, but we're supposed to get another round of rip roarin' storms this evening.

[stargazer]

That's a serious storm! I've seen TV coverage of late of the big storm cell that seemed to get stuck near KC and just kept rotating, bringing lots of storms and flooding to much of Iowa and southern Minnesota. We were just on the northern edge of that, receiving some rain but nothing serious.

Today is pleasant, with scattered showers expected tomorrow before summer heat returns for the rest of the week. Dew points will be well into the 70s F with heat index values possibly reaching 105F/41C - and it's that humid air that just sticks to everything.

We're past the summer solstice now, and tonight marks the latest sunset at this latitude. But the hottest time of year, statistically, is still almost a month away.

[waggawerewolf27]

And here we go round the mulberry bush, on a cold and frosty morning. It was the winter solstice six days ago, and now we rejoice in pre-dawn temperatures of 3 or 4C. We have had a little bit of rain on and off for a few days a week or fortnight, ago but has been fine but freezing since. It is even nice to have frost on the lawn and roofs, despite the severe drought we have been having.

[Kalta79]

Summer has hit here, and I'm wishing we had more room in our freezer for ice cream...