SLOweather

This evening at 6:04 PM, the moon will become full, the second full moon of May 2007 in our area. The second full moon in the month is commonly called a “Blue Moon”. Blue Moons occur, on average, every 2.7 years.

This one is rather interesting because different parts of the world will see 2 full moons in 3 different months. North and South America experience this one, at the end of May. Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia have it in June, and New Zealand will have to wait until the end of July.

The next Blue moon isn’t until December 2009.

The more original definition of a blue moon was the third full moon in a season with 4 full moons. The current definition comes from an apparent mistake in interpretation in Sky and Telescope magazine in 1946, which has since entered popular culture.

Last night’s almost-full moon, shot freehand with a Nikon D40…

Today, Katie and I went on a 2 mile hike into the Irish Hills Natural Reserve. We saw only a few other people on the trail. Even though last winter was very dry in our area, there were quite a few wildflowers in bloom.

Bloomeria crocea, Golden stars ( Thanks to Paul Furman and Steve Junak for correcting me on this one…)

Chaparral Pea…

There were more globe lilies in bloom than we are used to seeing along the trail.

Honeysuckle…

A lizard keeping lookout for a juicy bug…

Sticky Monkeyflower…

Seep Monkeyflower…

And a Douglas Iris…

NOAA has some pretty cool satellite pictures of the current fires. The smoke plumes are clearly visible.

LA Griffith Park

Larger Image

Florida and Georgia

Larger Image

From John Lindsey at Diablo Canyon…

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITION:

A weak upper-level low pressure center will move inland over Cape Mendocino this evening with rain spending southward to Monterey. Variably cloudy skies and breezy conditions will continue through this evening. Clouds will increase tonight ahead of a weak cold front which will pass our area on Friday morning with a few sprinkles/drizzle and cooler temperatures.

Falling pressure inland together with a strong pressure ridge offshore will produce strong to gale force northwesterly winds and mostly clear conditions on Friday afternoon through Saturday.

This weekend is shaping up to be very nice weather-wise across our area. A moderately strong high pressure ridge will become centered over the state by Sunday and, in combination with an offshore flow pattern, will bring warm temperatures across all areas including our coast on Sunday and Monday. Temperatures will range from the high 80s to low 90s across our inland areas and the mid 70s along our coastline. For the remainder of the week next week, a typical summer-like weather pattern will develop by mid week, with coastal low clouds and fog during the night and morning hours along with seasonal temperatures.

If you are a Charter Internet subscriber in the San Luis Obispo area, or you read this morning’s Trib, you know that the service outage to upgrade equipment is still on-going. While there is limited internet access, there are also some sites still not accessible through Charter.

This affects some links on the SLOweather page, as well as our ability to upload lightning data to StrikStarUS. Luckily, there hasn’t been any lightning activity recently to upload.

If you are a Charter Internet user affected by this outage, make sure that you call them and get full credit for every day or partial day that you did not have full service. 888-852-2235

Today’s May full moon became full at 3:09 AM PDT this morning, and is known as the Full “Flower� or “Hare� Moon. Also the Full “Corn Planting� Moon, or the Full “Milk� Moon. The Celts knew it as the Bright Moon.

This is the first of 2 Full Moons this month in this time zone. More on that later.

SLoweather’s Internet connection is back up and working, since a little before 11 AM.

This just in from John Lindsey out at Diablo Canyon…

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITION:

A cold front moving into Northern California today is expected to weaken before reaching the Diablo Canyon area on Wednesday. This system will produce increasing clouds tonight leading to the chance for sprinkles or even a few light rain showers over our inland areas on Wednesday.

The next cold front will graze our area on Thursday, producing mostly cloudy conditions, much cooler inland temperatures and sprinkles throughout our area.

Partly cloudy, cool and windy weather will develop on Friday.

The large-scale low pressure system finally moves eastward and out of our area by late Friday. High pressure reestablishes itself over the region early next week for fair and warmer weather. Temperatures should be back to normal May values by next Tuesday with warmer weather forecast into the middle part of next week.

The Charter internet connection at the weather station has been down since about 2:17 AM Tuesday morning, hence the stale data and no morning forecast. Things should pick up automatically as soon as the Internet connection is restored.

In the interim, I’m assembling a backup non-Charter Internet connection that should be in place by the weekend.