Todd Gross' Cape Cod and The Islands Weather Page!

WEATHER TRIVIA

This week's question involves LAST weekends crazy weather. It actually snowed during the downpours in some areas.. at 45 degrees!! How can that happen?

ANSWER: A very cold pool of air moved in above, and thunderstorms erupted at the same time. As you can see by a typical thunderstorm structure to the left, warm air is drawn into the thunderstorm ahead and from the sides of the approaching storm. However, JUST ahead of, and accompanying rain, t here is a DOWNDRAFT of cold air from above. This often results in what is known as a "microburst" which is a cold rush of air down that spreads out at speeds up to 100mph when hitting the ground causing tornado like damage. This area of the storm is sometimes accompanied by hail, large chunks of ice that are blowing around up and down in the top of the thunderstorm, getting bigger and bigger until they fall as ice out of the cloud. But snow??? Rare, but it happens in the "near winter" season. If the downdraft is strong enough, it will simply accompany huge snowflakes that form which rush down from the cloud and don't have time to melt, even if the temperature near the ground is 45-52 degrees. That is why there is snow on record in places like Rochester, NY in August as an example, and why it snowed in Harvard, Ma. briefly last weekend (5/21) in the Boston area! CLICK ON THE IMAGE, ASIDE FROM THE COLOR, IT IS HAND DRAWN BY WEATHER EXPERT/METEOROLOGIST/PROFESSOR JEFF HABY.

Weather Trivia

Weather Trivia Question: Why are thunderstorms LESS likely on Cape Cod than in interior Massachusetts, especially at this time of year? Find out the answer later today.

ANSWER: POSTED FRIDAY NIGHT: Thunderstorms grow from warm air near the ground being significantly warmer than the air above. The cooling seabreezes on the Cape stabilize this scenario, so very often when storms move in the interior, they lose steam, so to speak, when entering southeastern Massachusetts.

PREVIOUSLY:
When and where was the biggest, fastest, temperature rise in the 48 states
In two minutes:  The rise was because of a "downslope" wind off the mountains ---> 49F, Spearfish, S.D., Jan. 22, 1943, from -4F at 7:30 A.M. to +45F at 7:32 A.M. Now that's a rise!

Previous week's weather trivia question was :
What year did we "skip" summer?

ANSWER: 1816

Volcanic ash prevented sunlight from reaching the Earth that year, and much of the world cooled, but it hit New England particularly hard, along with Europe.

From Wikipedia:
In May of 1816, however, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England  Nearly a foot of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95°F (35°C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize (corn) and other grain prices rose dramatically. Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel.

Could it happen again? YES! If a strong volcanic eruption spewed high into the atmosphere, we could skip summer all over again, even with all the Global Warming issues you have heard about time and time again.

THREE BRAND NEW FEATURES!

Three, yes, THREE in one week.. on the Todd Space blog network (see upper left on web page)

Todd Space: Weather, Lawn, and Landscape

and

WeatherEducation.Net

and

WorldWeatherNow.Com

ENJOY!

Watch an Eagle Feed Her Young

The place to head for this article and so much more is on John Brigg's birding page, part of my our growing network of weather, astronomy, and nature pages. You won't believe some of the stuff coming. Now I'm not alone in spreading the nature/weather/astro connection. Here is just a sample:
Hurricane Page(s)
Astrophotography
Astronomy Gear Reviews
Lawn Care
Weather History and Historical Weather Fiction
Global Weather
I'm also looking for an author about Golfing, if anyone sees a tie in.

Full Moon Names

One of the things that I became known for on TV was mentioning the "name" of the full moon each month. This month it is most commonly known as the full "pink" moon. . . as named by the Native  Americans. (Possibly named from the pink phlox that grows naturally and blooms late April)

However, it turns out that the names really ran the gamut culture to culture in the word, and tribe to tribe amongst the Native Americans! There is  a FULL MOON link in  Todd's World of Links in the sidebar that  explains some of these cultural names. The picture left? No, it isn't a "full moon", I took the shot, as a composite of many, about 5 years ago. It is very representative of how the moon looks in a telescope, by the way!

Viewer Videos - RI Surf

Surf at The Breakers in Rhode Island WMV FILE

Thanks to Barry Botelho for sending it and to his son Michael for filming it!

Spring Peepers and Blooming - Signs of Spring

Each and every March, somewhere between the 10th and the 30th, (during the first extended mild period, usually a moist period as well) the Spring peepers, those noisy tree frogs that sound kind of like crickets emerge in area fresh water bogs. In some cases the sound they emit in unison can be deafening. While they are a sure sign of spring, there is usually one snowfall that happens after they come out on average. The size of a thumbnail, these tiny creatures fill themselves up with air, as you can see by clicking on the picture to the left. They let out that mating toot that becomes more shrill later in the season as they mature in early May. They probably will hold off until right after the cold snap due here through early next week, but they are sure to "hatch" later next week or certainly before April 1st.

LATE NOTE: THE FIRST PEEPERS WERE REPORTED TO ME THURSDAY OF THIS PAST WEEK RIGHT ON SCHEDULE... straight from the Cranberry bogs. Now, trilling wood frogs have been reported as well as of 3/27.

AND LOOK AT THIS SIGN OF SPRING, bulbs are now blooming through the area. This picture was taken on Monday on the Vineyard.

SUNSPOTS ARE BACK! - AND LOOK...

I looked through special filters at the sun the other day (shade 14 welders glass) and noticed there were NO sunspots. Well here it is, confirmation from NASA, we have hit sunspot "minimum", in the cycle that usually lasts for 11 years or so. If you click THIS LINK you will have an idea of what the sun usually looks like. You can find out about the activities of the sun at any time through SpaceWeather.Com. AND if you want to find out about some dire predictions about the solar maximum coming up in a few years CLICK HERE.

NOTE: IMAGE LEFT.. Sunspots have begun to return, and not only that, the grouping you see if you click on the photo left caused an aurora borealis (Northern Lights) which was caught by our own weather spotter John Lanoue. This was a subtle, but very true to how it looks aurorae in ultra dark Maine skies. I've made it my wallpaper!

INTERESTED IN ASTRONOMY, a FIREBALL was reported Wednesday night too, what is that? CLICK HERE

JUPITER'S NEW RED SPOT?

If this isn't a hoax, it is one of the biggest pieces of Astronomy News in a long time: A new Red Spot on Jupiter! What is the Great Red Spot? A huge hurricane ever-present storm on Jupiter that has been churning for centuries. Usually smaller "ovals" form, similar, but much smaller to the either red spot (which often look orange and not red at all)  but a truly new Red Spot  would be amazing, rare, and the big question.. is it there for the long haul. See the NASA link above, I hope this is for real.

Animals Reacted Pre-Storm

Below is a quote from Linda Nash in Princeton, Ma. regarding her horse farm prior to the cold frontal passage in central Massachusetts. NOTE: My coop. observer network reported trees down, 60mph winds, live wires as the cold front came through the Rt. 495 area from Essex Cty southwest to Worcester Cty, and now to Plymouth and Bristol counties. (Photo by Todd Gross 10/23/03)

"Bizarre equine reactions in the moments before it 
struck.A mare in a 2 acre pasture frantically racing 500' 
back and forth.Down at the house - 2 mares entered 
the same stall, which is not unusul,but what was bizarre was 
they started to panic, circling together in the stall. Another 
mare in another paddock was trying to jump her fence.All this was 
about 2 minutes before the hail and winds slammed us.I've had 
horses for almost 17 years and never had this reaction to "incoming"."
 - L. Nash