Sunday, July 08, 2012

Aerie weather

Saturday at the Aerie was a scorcher. The temperature reached 88 F before noon and would have gone higher except that Mother Nature pushed a blanket of clouds our way. Said clouds brought severe thunderstorms to our north and south as they swept in from the northwest. Us? We didn't get anything...until later in the afternoon.

That's when a cell of T-storms several miles in diameter took direct aim at the Aerie and slowly (there was remarkably little wind) moved overhead. In 15 to 20 minutes we had a couple of dozen lightening strikes--some so close I barely had time to say "one one thou...", more than a quarter inch of rain--there was 0.32 inches in the rain gauge this morning, and a drop in the temperature of 10 degrees from 83 F to 73 F.

We got a little more rain during the night but the sky has been mostly clear with a few fair weather cumulus clouds today. The temperature has been pleasant as well and hasn't yet reached 80 degrees. Tonight's low is supposed to be in the mid 50s so it might be good to turn the bedroom AC off and enjoy the quiet.

Looking at the 10-day forecast at weather.com and it shows little chance of precipitation during that period. Just one day is listed as 30%, ONE day--Sunday, July 15th! All the rest are 0-10% chance with most of them being the 0. Highs are listed as low to mid 80s but we're usually a few degrees cooler here at 2100 feet, and the lows are mid 50s to low 60s. (The lows are usually pretty accurate except during the winter. Cold air sinks and accumulates in the valley then and we are a couple of degrees warmer. During the summer, that cold air has to get past us first.)

If I can stop the depredations of the ground hogs, I'll be watering the garden regularly.

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