Sunglasses on the Moon?

One of my favorite features of this blog will be sharing viewer photos. This photo was sent in by Kathryn Harris of Chattanooga, taken early Friday morning. It really looks as if the moon has some nice "shades" on! Thank you Kathryn for sharing this photo.

We experienced some outstanding weather again Tuesday, but we are in dire need of some rain. Our yearly deficit stands at just under 10 and 1/4 inches. Only scattered showers are possible to end the week, and not the all around soaking rains that we need. It is so dry that parts of the Peach State have burn bans. See this link for more details: Walker County Burn Ban.

As we get closer to the summer season, our chances for rain will be limited to the afternoon variety that routinely pops up. Because of the scattered nature of these showers, not every location will benifit from the rainfall. Outside of the afternoon variety of showers, what we will have to watch is the activity in the tropics. Nobody wants to root for an active season, but active Gulf years tend to help our region with rainfall. The National Hurricane Center will release thier seasonal forecast Monday, May 14th. However, early outlooks have already been released by the Colorado State University team of Dr. Gray and Phillip Klotzbach. Accu-Weather's hurricane expert Joe Bastardi has also chimed in with his outlook. The National Hurricane Center projection usually closely mirrors the Colorado State numbers. Early outlooks are pointing toward more activity in the tropics, especially in the Gulf. Again, while this may cause some jitters in coastal communities, folks inland (like us), will have a different view of increased Gulf activity in hopes of more rain. You can read a brief synopsis of the early forecasts at this link: Early Season Hurricane Forecasts. I will provide a link to the NHC forecast on Monday.

Some pre-season excitement with a current non-tropical low pressure system off the southeast US Atlantic coast. Hurricane Hunter aircraft might investigate this system should it persist in the Atlantic waters and gain more tropical characteristics. Regardless, it is generating gale force wind gusts and beach erosion off the Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts. Check out the status and satellite images of this system at this link: Southeast Coast Low

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