h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or should that be Mmmmm, topless bar

Oh wait, that's something else isn't it

Raze the roof!

89F/31.7 today

The forecast for tomorrow is 66/18.9.

Yesterday was odd. When I left for work before dawn, it was a balmy 67°. Around 10:30, I stepped outside and it was chilly, probably in the low to mid 50°'s. Then, by lunch at 12:30, it was back in the mid 60°'s.

Texas weather can give you whiplash.

Yes it can Our high on Monday was 89, and on Tuesday it was 68, but your roller coaster within one day was pretty spectacular.

More May- and July-type temperatures in March


Friday: 83° Sunny and Warm Afternoon; 57° Clear Evening to Mostly Cloudy Morning
Saturday: 84° Wind Gusts to 25+ mph; 61° Clear and Breezy Evening to Mostly Cloudy Morning
Sunday: 87° Mostly Cloudy to Partly Cloudy; 63° Mostly Clear
Monday: 88° Mostly Sunny to Partly Cloudy; 50° Dry Cold Front in the Evening. Partly Cloudy and Breezy

Yep... nearly Scorchio in mid March.

It was 72°F at 6 in the AM. Upper 80°s right now. No wind, high humidity.

Broke the record again today - 90F over 88F in 2011. At least the eight-day forecast is looking a little better, at least on some days. There's even a sub-70 forecast for Sunday *Faints* ::THUD:: ©®

By all of one fun-lovin degree

That's the one thing I wish I could (ball-peen) hammer into the heads of science denialists. Just look at all the records that are breaking around the nation and the world. Not many of them are for low temps...

Well, that's not quite true. There have been many broken low temperature records for highest low temperature.

There has not been a cooler than average month in over a decade, anywhere.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that there's a degree of the natural cycling of the world's climate in this, but the extent and accelerated rate of change, if the hockey stick is right, can't be ignored.

Well, not by anyone who can't see beyond their own dogma.

There is a natural climate cycle, and we should be getting *colder*.

The water coming out of my cold tap is still noticeably warm. Not quite July or August warm, but hotter than it should be at this time of the year. I hardly need to add any hot water when I'm handwashing clothes or washing the dishes.

I can usually tell what month it is by how far I have to open the tap on my shower. When it's off, the dial points straight up at noon and I turn it anticlockwise to start the water running - the further anticlockwise the hotter the water. In March I should be turning it to around 3.00 - more hot water than cold, and at the height of summer I might only need to open it to 8.00 or 9.00 because the 'cold' water is so warm I hardly need any hot water in the mix. Right now though, it's at about 5.00, which is where it should be in perhaps May or June (or November if you're coming out of summer).

The ground hasn't cooled down this winter - we haven't had enough days of cold temperatures for it to lose all of its summer heat like it usually does.

Rain! And more in the forecast Which is good on at least three counts. 1: We need it, 2: I miss it, 3: It halts work on the building site next door and I can open the windows without being battered by the noise

I noticed something a bit "odd". I use the ""s because I don't believe it's going to be very odd in the future.

In my area, my local climate zone, my local environmental region; we have a certain species of June bug. ( https://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/bimg139.html ) When I was a kid, they mainly stuck to their name and they'd 'come out' usually in middle to late may at the earliest. In recent years though, they are quite common throughout May and even late April.

I saw the first ones this year on 1 April. That is early even by recent standards.

THIS is the sort of thing that you can point to as being a result of climate change. Not any particular year, mind you, but that since the 70's the trend of June bug flights has moved 1.5 to 2 months earlier.

And yet, it ain't happening according to so many people here in Texas.

http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/bimg139.html for Ripley

That's very early. I haven't seen any of those around here yet but the crickets have already woken up.

It's as black as night out there (at 5.15pm) and there's some heinous thunder and lightning (very very frightening) in the vicinity

And we have hail.

We have hail in my apartment

I left the balcony door open when I came back in to take the spuds off the boil, and then it really hit, and the wind blew hail and leaves into the apartment. That's across the width of a six-foot balcony with another two feet of overhang from the roof. It's only pea size hail so no panic.

I had a feeling this would happen.

All the drainage for the building site next door, including their big storm drain, empties out of a retaining wall that backs onto the complex, and mostly at the bottom of the complex where all the water from the complex drains into our own storm drain, which most of the time can handle it but sometimes can't, such as during TS Hermine a few years ago or when there's a short burst of intense rain.Then we get a little whirlpool in front of the dumpsters with a couple of feet of water that's no threat to anyone and fun to watch.

Okay, we've just had a very intense burst of rainfall, but the water coming off the building site has all but flooded the complex down here and floated the dumpsters. It would have floated a few cars too if the owners hadn't moved them. The little wooded area at the back of my building is a lake of fast flowing water. That water used to run down a channel into another storm drain, and only twice in 12 years have I seen it overflow that - TS Hermine, and the day in 2001 when Cheapo flooded and we got 10" of rain in 12 hours. As heavy as the rain we've just had was (and it's still raining), it wasn't comparable to that.

And they haven't even laid any tarmac yet. It's going to be twice as bad when that gets put down.