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Compared to last year, it's been cooler this Summer than last year. It's also been wetter than anything your dirty little mind could imagine. Last year was dryer than your dirty little mind could imagine with record highs. This year, while hot, cloud cover has kept the heat knocked down a few degrees. Last year I remember riding in the evening around 5:30 pm and it felt like was riding through an oven. This time, it's all about the soup.
Guam sunset today, during rainy season...
Beautiful pics Bubba. Guam looks great.
The weather in NYC so far has been similar to what Charles describes. Everytime I watch the news, I can barely see more than a couple of miles on the cam behind the reporters. Sometimes the haze and murk limit things to less than 1/2 a mile.
Here, rainy until a month ago, then mostly dry, cool and sunny. The typical afternoon gets partly cloudy as thermals form the cloud cover over the Catskills and they blow over the Hudson Valley until sunset when things clear up again. Today is a typical example of what happens when it does rain. Rain goes to the north and south, but usually misses us in the middle.
Guam looks great alright but what's that thing that looks like cloth hanging on the tower? Anyway, if you can see a mile in New York it's an exceptionally clear day. When I lived up north in the highest part of Union my kitchen window faced east so every morning if it wasn't raining I would greet the sunrise over Newark and Manhattan. That is at least an hour or so after the sun rose above the horizon, it still had a couple thousand feet to go before rising above the nearly impenetrable soup. The morning flight into Newark from San Juan would come in on a normal glide slope, then as it approached the airport would bounce a few times as the pilot adjusted for a steeper angle, finally it punched a hole and disappeared into the Stygian darkness under a brightly lit sky. If the lower level of the atmosphere above the city were any thicker the planes would crash on impact.
Now that I live about 40 miles to the south on the shoreline I have a different perspective, a little less dramatic but a considerably wider view. Standing on the beach looking to my right (south) I can see mile after mile after mile of clear blue sky and ahead to the east out to sea there are all these little dots, pleasure craft and on the horizon the longer dashes that barely move, large ships going to and from the Port of New York and surrounds. Looking to my left is another story altogether, the shoreline disappears into what looks like someone having taken a piece of charcoal and smeared the horizon for miles out to sea. Ships coming and going have reinforced bows like ice breakers to penetrate the barrier. Occasionally I hear a bang and the scream of tortured metal when a captain doesn't adjust the angle of approach and scrapes sideways like the Titanic did the iceberg.
"Rain goes to the north and south, but usually misses us in the middle."
And for good reason, storms are deflected by the dome too so some bounce north, some bounce south, and some bigger ones split down the middle. You still live close enough for them to miss you, they hit hard and deflect at a wide angle. When it rains in New York it's always accompanied by lightning punching holes allowing the rain to come through. You know that storms in the area have more than their share of lightning and that's why. Now you know, when you live under the dome all you can see is up but from my perspective outside and at a distance I can see them hammering their way in, some even use a chisel.
I'm sure you've heard them say it never rains in southern California. Same thing, bigger dome. Los Angeles County is in a bowl surrounded by hills so the soup collects in it and being thicker than normal air prevents storms from entering the bowl. They slide in off the Pacific, deflect up the hills and keep right on sliding over the valley like a bowl of fruit salad sealed with Saran Wrap. That's why they call it La La Land, FRUIT SALAD you dope!
Then there is Da Bowl, channel 6 where NOTHING penetrates...........
Parts of this story are true, the rest has been changed to protect the innocent. (Cue Dragnet theme.)
Rain let up this evening. It wasn't a hard rain but since the ground was already super saturated ...
Lol,, That cloth hanging on the tower is a Guam flag. There was no wind and dark, so I can see that it would look strange.. Usually its straight out because of the wind.
Finally had a dry (ish) streak. No rain for 12 days straight and the lawn finally dried out enough to mow. Now I need to take down all the other plants around the yard that went rogue. Normally I'd be able to prune or shear them but this time I need a chainsaw.
We'll take the rain. It's been too dry here and our lawn was dying until last night.
It rained fairly hard, but we are still being in the rain department.
The farmers are complaining about the lack of rain.
Leaves began falling a couple of weeks ago, a far cry from last year when it began over 2 months later. About 10% of the trees are crimson from a few hard frosts we've already had. Low was about 34°F a few days ago (2°C). Definitely already looking like Fall here.
Europe and Russia had a cold winter, and colder and wetter spring as normal, end of May someone pulled a switch and summer arrived with a vengeance, hot record breaking and very dry, that lasted till the first week in Septemnr when we got some needed rain, still 8 inches short here for the normal yearly rain we get..
Sunny start this morning, cold 7C at night 18 C in the daytime.
No heating on here, still 21 C in the house because it is very well isolated.
It has become a sport to see how long i can get without putting the gasfires on here, won't happen yet, have some added alternative heating like kerosene lamps and kerosene stove for cooking special meatdishes, they add a bunch of heat and kerosene doesn't smell, just needs some ventilation.
But ventilation is standard here just will have to pick up some kerosene this week, 40 liters ( 11 gallons) will do for the hard winter.
We don't have to fear for electricity loss because all cables are underground, no breaking there.
Natural gas heating never let us down, so no problems there as well, and even if, the kerosene stove and lamps could heat up the living room enough to keep it warm just in case ( and make a nice stew too ) ;)
We'll just have to see what the winter brings if it will be another cold one like the last 5 ones or not.
Checked the car out and readied it for the winter period, shops are 400 yards away so no problem there.
Let it rip ;)