Hurricane Agnes

Some stuff is popping (got some dark clouds) showing up to the west. My lightning detector picked some confection almost 20 minutes ago And I actually hit 95 just after 3:30 pm and then it started clouding up. Currently 93 with dp 60. And yeah, the humidity is 33% here but it is still blast-furnacey here.

And just hit my first 90 of the season just after noon today. It's currently mostly sunny and 90 with dp bopping between 60 & 61 (not a good combo).

I agree! I watched during the 17-year lifespan of one of my nieces, as 2 brand new schools (Erdenheim Elementary and a brand new replacement Enfield Elementary) were built from the ground up in her township (Springfield, Montco) and that township has a population of 20,000 (from 4 towns). Meanwhile here in Philly... It doesn't bode well for "year round school" being proposed (and possibly piloted soon) unless they only do it in facilities that can handle it. In any case, I have bottomed out at 62 this morning and am on the way up, so will see how warm it gets before the frontal passage. Currently partly sunny and 64 with dp getting into the uh oh range at 59.

Looks to be a "pulsing" of warm/cool/warm/cool like a heartbeat, over the next 10 days.

That's because of all the piece-o-junk century old (or more) buildings that have no A/C. And yeah, back in the day, kids suffered in those old buildings with one of those giant pedestal fans with the windows open, lights out, and bees flying into the classroom, but I expect the teachers, staff, and parents complained - especially if some got heat stress or even heat stroke from it. Some schools are "newer" (in quotes) and have central air and other schools finally got some window units but the bulk still don't have them because the old electric circuits can't handle the amps for an AC in each classroom. So the 90 schools aren't "all" of them but are the ones that have no air. They apparently have a policy for closures for those schools if the temps are forecast for 90s and above (where inside the brick and masonry building, the temps can soar to 100+)..

Wow. Didn't expect that we would break the record for a dry May. And Reading's May 2023 is now 2nd driest month on record, period. Drought monitor also filling in - I ended up with a low of 55 this morning and hit 87 for a high. Thankfully the humidity has been reasonable. Currently partly sunny and 84 with dp 53.

Another pleasant day today with relatively low humidity, a cooler low this morning (compared to the last couple days) of 49 and a warmer high of 79. Expect that to change the next couple days. When I was out watering, I didn't see/smell any smoke here, although I admittedly wasn't sitting outside all day either. It's currently partly sunny and 75 with dp 54.

I saw Mt. Holly had tweeted this earlier -

Yup and that meant extended bouts of 90s because the sun didn't have to "waste energy" evaporating ground moisture and just fires up the ground and air. I heard Matt Brudy (Mt. Holly NWS) on KYW this afternoon and he mentioned PHL has only registered 0.24" of rain for the month. There is still a little ground water reserves from the end of April deluges but that will eventually drain away and of course the ground surface is now bone dry as all the precip gets suppressed to the south. I bottomed out at 54 this morning and hit 75 for a high. Air Quality Alert was lofted but I didn't realize that this Canadian wildfire smoke is going to be coming from the east coast (Nova Scotia) vs further out west that has been getting hit hard and sending it this way (Alberta). https://www.npr.org/2023/05/30/1178918224/canada-nova-scotia-wildfires-evacuations

Was at my Wyndmoor sister's house yesterday for grilling and it capped off one of those rare nice Memorial Day holiday weekends as there was often a tendency for some kind of rain on any of the 3 days in the past. Her spot is a great lightning bug habitat with a little creek at the bottom of the property but none were out yet (she said she tends to see them by around June 10). After another 50 low yesterday, I made it up to 77 IMBY with mostly calm winds. This morning's low was a warmer 58 and it shot up to 82 for a high before the easterly breezes kicked in and dropped me down to a current partly sunny 72 with dp 52. I am still holding at 0.31" of rain for the month. Had pulled out the hose to do a good soaking this past Thursday but may have to come back around again before the heat up later this week.

After another 50 low this morning, I got up to 79 for a high today and dry conditions aside (and the hose will have to get a workout), you couldn't ask for a better day in terms of lack of humidity. Currently mostly sunny and breezy with a few clouds here and there, and 77, with dp bopping between 41 - 43 and humidity between 28 - 30%.

Bottomed out at 50 this morning and made it to a pleasant 74 as a high, with an oddly "cool" breeze. I threw caution to the wind and put my overwintering potted tropical plants out for the summer given the upcoming week's forecast. This time last year we had similar temps although I ended up soaring to a high of 95 on 5/31/22. I know some of the guidance has suggested some kind of warm-up next week with a potential for mid-upper 80s or maybe a 90, but we shall see. It's currently a partly cloudy 71 with dp 41.

My low yesterday was 47 and high was 82 and I shockingly got 0.01" of rain - which was not expected since the rain from the front was pretty diffuse. In fact, just after midnight, I got another 0.01" out of nowhere so have a total of 0.02" from the anemic 2-day event and so far 0.31" for the entire month of May. Currently 51 and somewhat hazy with dp 43.

Monday I finished up with a high of 80 after a low of 54, with today's high and low a little cooler @ 53 and 74. Currently have a thick deck of hazy cirrus up above where the sun is still managing to shine through it. Temp is 72 with dp 51.

Made it up to 77 today after a low of 55. When I went to bed last night, the broken precipitation line ahead of the front was incoming and by early this morning, the line had solidified, but not until after it hit New Jersey (and eventually reached the coast). So as as a result, I only picked up 0.03" from it (2-day total was 0.21"). I'll have to settle for that. Currently 64 with dp 53.

Had a low of 54 this morning and seemed to have been at the western edge of the precipitation shield. So far, with the on and off dribbling, I have 0.18" in the bucket and I'll take it at this point. Am currently at my high of 67, with dp a sticky 67, and the sky seems to want to brighten some.

Made it up to 69 as a high yesterday and after a low of 47 this morning, got up to a warmer 75 today. It was sunny for the most part but the clouds rolled in briefly and the skies were more changeable by the afternoon, with the sun going in and out. Currently 59 with dp 52.

Yeah... had to live vicariously through some coworkers who lived outside of the city with cable and who would tape programs from HBO that I would borrow. I think one of them was "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" (1981) about Nostradamus and that originally ran on HBO (I had bought my first VCR in 1986).

I think the "bootleg" HBO dish was a little butterfly looking thing that was mounted on a mast on the roof of a house. There was also a descrambler box that came with the service. Alternately, that gigantic dish in the yard was part of actual satellite service and even had a remote that triggered a motor in the base so it could move around to better tune a channel in.

Mt. Pocono (with a 26) and Trenton (with a 37) also had record lows this morning - The 41 ended up being my low this morning and I did quickly rebound. Currently a pleasant 63 with dp that has crept up to 40 now, after going as low as 26 earlier this morning.

"Jerrold" is a blast from the past! I think one of their cable boxes was the first that we had. Philly didn't authorize cable until around 1984 and then had the city divided up into quarters and awarded contracts to 4 different cable providers. Eventually Comcast took over 3 of them. We didn't get our neighborhood strung and ready until around 1989. I remember some coworkers and even neighbors who had those "special" (in quotes) antennas to get HBO and also knew the nephews of one of my mother's best friends who had a big 4ft satellite dish on their front lawn in the early '80s to get satellite service. It looked similar to this - My earliest cable experience was at my cousins' house up in New Hampshire where they actually had cable wired directly to their TV back in 1972 since they received little or no reception of Boston stations. We were amazed at them having a 24-hour cartoon station. And I remember Prism and I think they were billing themselves as the Flyers station.

That's why your area is under a frost advisory although because it is so dry, that might or might not translate into ice crystals...

Had a low of 49 yesterday with a high of 68 (a bit warmer than I expected). But that front did a number on the dp overnight. Although the winds here have dropped compared to the breezy conditions yesterday, they haven't gone completely calm and there appears to be a high deck of cirrus, so that is going to impact any further radiational cooling. Currently 41 (and I expect I may possible drop a little more) with dp 27.

One of the issues of 2002's drought was that I remember literally after 9/11, the fall and winter precipitation along the lower northeast/upper mid-Atlantic, was scant (this actually helped NYC to deal with the aftermath of the building collapses all winter). But I think to put it in perspective, we here in the east are thankfully nowhere near the southwest and southern west coast in terms of extended extreme drought conditions that for the first time in at least a decade, is being nipped. I just stumbled on this interesting analogous note about 2001/2002 and that season coming off what was also a 3-peat La Nina - https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast06mar_1 Was also looking at the longer-term cycles like the PDO, where it has been in a negative phase - https://www.worldclimateservice.com/2021/09/01/pacific-decadal-oscillation/ And in comparison to the past 3 decades - (more granular data can be found going back to the 1850s - https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/pdo/) Just some musings as the PDO is overlaying the ENSO and would need to do a deeper dive into it to see if anything is similar to 2001/2002. We had precipitation during the fall/winter 2022/2023 (although not in the form desired ) but it really did dry up almost completely in Jan/Feb 2002 (no measurable snow at KPHL that Jan), with a 95 temp in mid-April 2002 (helping to make it the driest Apr on record at the time), and worse, little or nothing in Jul 2002. So am hoping we don't get that dire this year.

Yup - that happened here in the city too - 2002 was a real droughty year that also featured extended heatwaves that summer (dry begets dry). Remnants of Hurricane Isidore (which was a TS at U.S. landfall) helped to break it -