First of all, sorry about the bad formatting of yesterday's post. I am not sure why the text ended up changing sizes or why some of the paragraphs were out of place. It has something to do with the blogging software that we use. It is also bad at formatting pictures, so it is a pain in the rear to put more than a couple pictures in the posts. I'll give it a try today. Here is a picture of a beautiful sunset taken over Lake Du Bay by Nancy Leher.
No doubt some folks saw a nice sunrise this morning because we did have a few clouds in the sky. We had clouds in Wausau but no rain. As expected thunderstorms moved into the northwoods late last night and they made it as far south as north Lincoln and Langlade counties. This activity diminished and now we will wait for more thunderstorms activity to develop this afternoon in more of the area. The stalled out front bringing the chance of thunderstorms will remain in the area tomorrow and Thursday and continue to produce rounds of thunderstorms. On Friday the front will likely move far enough south so that the northwoods stays dry while the southern half of the area has another chance of thunderstorms. Luckily, the forecast still looks dry and comfortable for the weekend. What about the chance of severe weather? There will be some severe storms later today, Wednesday, and Thursday with high winds and hail being the primary threats, but I don't think it will be widespread across the entire area.
Space News:
NASA has finally released a schedule of the final space shuttle flights before it is retired. There will be eight flights and then...that's it. Future flights will be accomplished with the Orion Crew Vehicle that will resemble the spacecraft of old. It will sit on top of a rocket. The Space Shuttle was an interesting design for it's time but was never meant to get us anywhere outside of earth's orbit, which could be seen as a step back from the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then we were hitting golf balls on the moon. If the Space Shuttle had been used aggressively to build a space station or some other type of orbital platform back in the 1980s then it would have paid much higher dividends. Instead it may have ended up delaying human space exploration. Robotic exploration has been much more successful and prolific.
Which reminds me, the Phoenix lander is still processing data on Mars. Mission scientists have data from the first couple of experiments on Martian soil but are holding back on the release of the results until they are absolutely sure they have analyzed everything correctly.
There was a meeting recently regarding the future of the ISS, to ensure that the primary countries involved in the project would continue to support it through 2020. There is some concern about support for the ISS out to that date because NASA will stop shuttle launches in 2010 and the first module of the space station was designed to last 15 years and it was first launched in 1998. That means the first module would be living past its designed lifespan after 2013. One reason I am hoping that the ISS sticks around is that it could become a more popular private space tourism destination. Bigelow is developing an inflatable space hotel but if that does not work out, then the ISS could be a secondary stop. I can't imagine the ISS operators would turn down big money from rich tourists.
Lastly, I hate to bring out the AGW list 2 days in a row, but this one was too good to pass up. AGW will cause more kidney stones to develop. Kidney stones are linked to lack of proper hydration and warmer temps will lead to more people getting less than optimal water intake. So more kidney stones adds to the other medical items on the list of bad things that will happen because of AGW ranging from more mental illness, to more asthma, to more obesity. Here is the updated list:
(More bee colony collapse disorder and other multiple infectious disease outbreaks, Caribou populations will decline, 1 in 8 bird species could go extinct – including long distance migratory song birds, eucalyptus leaves will become less nutritious and Koala bears will die, the 2008 tropical storm disaster in Myanmar, Tropical bugs will not reproduce, toxic chemicals will pour out of glaciers, Narwhals will go extinct, more deadly algae blooms, more poverty, a massive increase in volcanic activity, new disease outbreaks from previously frozen corpses, irreversible water circulation alteration in Lake Tahoe, dramatically decreased rice production, fewer flowers in the Rocky Mountains, the Butterfly fish will starve, transportation system will be ruined, air pollution related deaths will increase, tropical fish could go deaf, more “ocean deserts”, more tundra wildfires, collapsing oceanic food webs, sharks devastating Antarctic sea life, the drying up of Lake Mead by 2021, plant-devouring insect invasions, poor food quality, increased human mortality, more solastalgia/mental illness, more wars, the past 1993 conflict in Somalia, more intense heat waves, more heat deaths, polar bears starving, Isle Royale Moose dying, Walruses dying, Penguins starving (including King penguins), Australian bats dying, more hurricanes, less hurricanes, more intense and bigger hurricanes, a longer hurricane season, more stormy weather, rising oceans, more acidic oceans, California wildfires, more droughts, more floods, future disastrous declines in food production, coral reefs (hard and soft) dying, enormous extinctions of plant and animal species, massive loss of fish in the Bering Sea, the earth literally being torn apart, Amazon deforestation, a bigger ozone hole, a smaller ozone hole, less fresh water, more obesity, more hunger, more asthma, more allergies, more infectious disease, more kidney stones…more to come)
Meteorologist Justin Loew
Tropical Storm Dolly has now been upgraded to Hurricane Dolly. Dolly is currently a minimal hurricane with sustained winds up to 75 miles per hour. Dolly is gradually strengthening and continues its northwesterly track towards the far southern tip of Texas. Dolly's landfall is pretty definite, but there still some uncertainty as to where exactly the core of the hurricane will make landfall. Right now the Texas/Mexico border looks to be the bullseye, putting the popular spring break destination of South Padre Island in the thick of things. Here is the latest coordinates, stats, and forecasted track of Dolly as of 7:00 p.m. CDT Tuesday.
Dolly will continue to track over warmer waters and is expected to strengthen before landfall...a category 2 hurricane is not out of question.
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