Thursday Night

This warm front will head back up this way early tomorrow morning bringing thunderstorms and temperatures in the 70s. But as soon as it gets here it will decide to move along and drag a cold front with its own storms behind it in the evening. So be prepared for everything tomorrow. After that some boring colder (mid-50s) weather for a while, and then maybe some more stable warm air in the middle of the week.

Learning Corner : Ions

Dear Weather Goddess,

Could you please clear up a question for me? People are always talking about ions, and whether they are positive or negative.

Why should I care?
What do ions do?
Do they only change polarity during a good (or bad depending on whether you like them or not) thunderstorm?
Do animals freak out due to ion actions?

-Cat


As you may remember from high school science classes, ions are atoms that have lost or gained electrons and therefore carry a positive or negative charge. The earth's normal radiation creates positive ions in the air near its surface, while flowing or evaporating water will create negative ions in the air surrounding it. Why this is is beyond my powers to relate as the explanations are dense and boring and made me sleepy. So just trust me. When a thunderstorm comes along the air near the ground will become positively charged, while the bottom of the storm will become negatively charged. (Once again I can't really explain...) During the course of the storm the combined effects of lightning and rain will leave the air near the ground full of negatively charged ions.

Why should you care? Supposedly these negative ions are responsible for the happy, relaxed feelings we have after a thunderstorm, at the beach, or in the shower. It seems that there have been some real studies shown on this phenomenon that prove there is some truth to it, and seasonal affective disorder and other mild depressions may be partially attributable to positive ions.

As far as animals are concerned there are plenty of words on the web explaining their responses to positive ions before storms and especially before earthquakes. I didn't feel like plunging into that morass, but the answer may be out there if you feel like looking. You can also find quite a bit of speculation on the effects of ions on the stockmarket, crime, sports, politics, empires, dinosaurs etc.

If you are concerned about your positive ion exposure you can buy an expensive thing that shoots negative ions around your apartment, or you can just stop reading blogs, do the dishes and take a shower.

Wednesday Night

Okay, obviously, I was very very wrong. But luckily so was everyone else. So, no nice weather this week. There is this stupid front hanging out just south of us now, and the winds are blowing over the lake for the next day and a half, so we will have some cold blustery weather tomorrow, with a brief respite on Friday, and then some more crap over the weekend. The National Weather Service forecast is pretty dire for the next week, but Skilling is more optimistic, so I will go with him. Expect 40s tomorrow with high winds, then a brief period of warmth on Friday with a high in the upper 60s but dropping rapidly in the evening, then highs in the 50s for the next few days and another warming trend starting on Tuesday. (All of this will be accompanied by periodic rain and persistent cloudiness.)

Monday night, May 9th

My dear readers, I apologize for the long hiatus. I will give you two lame excuses: one, I was working very hard on my new website, conglomeratemap.org, and two, I then was simply lazy and tired for the last week and didn't want to look at the computer, but I think that might have something to do with the western edge of a high pressure system that was hanging out for so long, which always gets me depressed.

Now, happily, I have a wonderful forecast for everyone. Tomorrow will be nice and summery, with a high at or above 80. For the rest of the week we have what I consider to be ideal weather: highs near 80 and storms at night. So far nothing looks like it will be terribly severe, just a nice release at the end of the day.