Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[Jim]

Only if you start early, given the return of the monsoon flow.

[PatrickL]

Yeah, no doubt.

[azbackpackr]

WOOO! Big thunderstorm right now in Flag. Just found out the window in the bedroom of my rental leaks a little. It was never a problem in winter. Oh, well, what do you want for under $400 a month incl. utils?

It smells good, and I like the sound of rain on the roof and the thunder, while it remains pretty nice and warm inside.

Oh, and here come the fire engines. Someone has a problem. (Car accident? Fallen power pole? Someone or something struck by lightning?)

[paulhubbard]

Just drove back from Payson, ran into a supersoaker just north of the Jake's Corner turnoff.

[kingsnake]

Big dust storm here in Phoenix. At least sunnyslope was almost invisible ...

[Jim]

Lots of rain over most of Flagstaff, but not the airport, again, and it is hard to tell from the radar if Elden got much. Can Jake tell us if Elden got some rain?

[PatrickL]

Big dust storm here in Phoenix.

Driving through downtown has never been so fun. I want more haboobs.

[hippiepunkpirate]

Lots of rain over most of Flagstaff, but not the airport, again, and it is hard to tell from the radar if Elden got much. Can Jake tell us if Elden got some rain?

Can't give you a figure, but we got a good bit over here yesterday. It's starting to rain again right now.

[Jim]

All the rain yesterday and the brief shower today have been really hard on the air around here. Currently, it's 77 in my apartment, but the humidity is an astonishing 45%. 45%!! It was a pleasant 16% late last week. If it crosses the 50% threshold, I'm afraid I'll drown in my bed this night.

[hippiepunkpirate]

If it crosses the 50% threshold, I'm afraid I'll drown in my bed this night.

You Jersey folk should be able to handle it! ;) Kidding, Jim.

[big_load]

If it crosses the 50% threshold, I'm afraid I'll drown in my bed this night.

You Jersey folk should be able to handle it! ;) Kidding, Jim.

Yeah, really! I would be happy if the humidity got down to 50%. It's only 91 F here now, so that's not so bad.

[Jim]

I think it's humid when it's up to 35%. I like it down around 20% or less.

[SkyIslander18]

Down here in Saffordville, we got our first real measurable monsoon rain last night. Right now my porch meter is reading 42% humidity and it is hot & sticky. On the + side, the humidity has made several of my spiny star cactus' bloom and they are purdy!

[JimmyLyding]

The weather here in the East Bay is certainly interesting to someone from Arizona who's interested in the subject. Our humidity starts out in the 80+% range at dawn, and dips into the 40s in the afternoon before increasing again. It got to the mid 90s today here in Walnut Creek, and it was pretty ugly. Of course the high temps are forecast to be in the mid 80s by the beginning of next week so I'm not going to complain about a little heat lest be classified as a California Weather Wimp.

The really interesting weather phenomenon here is the fog. I only get "tule" fog here, which is when water vapor in the Central Valley rapidly cools and settles as fog because it's basically sitting in a basin. The fog doesn't rise above the Sierra Nevadas to the east (this fog only goes about a thousand feet high at most), and is also hemmed-in by the Coast Ranges both north and south of the Bay Area. Sometimes this fog spills into the gap in the Coast Ranges where the Delta enters San Francisco Bay (actually San Pablo Bay, but no one's ever heard of that), and last winter we had a lot. It's eerie to drive to work in a thick fog, but it typically burns off before lunch.

This is different from the "famous" fog that envelops San Francisco. Warm air from the central Pacific blows northeast across the cold California Current, causes evaporation, and is itself cooled by the cooler water which forms the fog. Then the fog flows into the Bay Area. It gets thick around San Francisco Bay because the Oakland/Berkeley Hills block its eastward path and the city itself is at ground-zero for fog. Driving west on Highway 24 from Walnut Creek towards Berkeley/Oakland this time of year frequently provides a view of the fog spilling eastward over the hills before quickly evaporating in the sun. Very cool.
I apologize to anyone who's read this far for that boring diatribe about the weather here. The truly hot months of August & September are coming up, then the 6-week fall, then the rain. We received a titanic amount of rain last winter/spring, but hopefully it won't be so crazy this year. Coming from AZ meant I loved the rain at first, but it gets old after 10 consecutive weeks where it rains 4-5 days-a-week. My poor cousin from Phoenix lives in Seattle, and he was really bumming this winter.

[big_load]

@Jim Lyding It's interesting when the fog bank rises up over Dublin and moves in toward Livermore. It took a while for me to feel like anything that intense was normal.

[chumley]

I apologize to anyone who's read this far for that boring diatribe about the weather here.

No apologies needed! Interesting stuff. I'm currently sitting in the airport in Tromsø, Norway, 200 miles north of the arctic circle. Norway is also a typically humid place, due to the gulf stream bringing a constant flow of warm, moist ocean air from across the Atlantic. It's amazing how quickly I've been working up a soaking sweat when it's only 65 degrees out! In fact, due to the moist air, the temperature here has NEVER been below zero (the record low temperature is -18C/0F). So despite being so far north, it's been colder in Flagstaff than it has ever been here!

[Jim]

Well I'm just happy the dew point dropped off a lot today and we're getting another reprieve from the ocean in the air.

[PaleoRob]

Dusty and windy this week, but no rain down here in CG.

[big_load]

It's one of the yuckiest nights we've had in the 24 years I've been out here. At 2:00 am, its 82F and 77% humidity (dew point 74F). It got up to 100 today and I didn't turn on the AC until I got home from work. By "AC", I mean the dinky little window unit that normally suffices to cool the whole house.

[RangerKelly]

It's one of the yuckiest nights we've had in the 24 years I've been out here. At 2:00 am, its 82F and 77% humidity (dew point 74F). It got up to 100 today and I didn't turn on the AC until I got home from work. By "AC", I mean the dinky little window unit that normally suffices to cool the whole house.

Out in Illinois we have it bad as well. I went out to take my dog out at about 9:00am and literally just stumbled and dove back in the house. It was 96F with somelike like 85% humidity. With my asthma I can not breath in this stuff at all.