CoralRed

Just saw 11:00 Channel 16 weather. Guy said newest models showing far less rain. His newest rain map showed almost nothing for South East and South Central PA. We in Williamsport got about the highest with .37. He pointed out that prior future radar was lit up like a Christmas tree with lots of colors. No more. Now just greens, some very pale. Sorry. Who knows though, maybe things will change overnight.

Off Topic but this article about the heat in Phoenix is great. It has before and after pictures taken with a regular and thermal camera that show just how hot objects are. It is also full of information that I didn't know. I have never heard of people passing out and getting burns from the pavement. I wonder how severe they can get. Also never knew that heat makes diabetes worse. These are things to think about when going to hot places and to let friends and family know. It is so strange to think that overall, I'd say we did better than expected on heat and humidity this year while many others here in US and other places had terrible experiences. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12381215/WIDER-IMAGE-Heat-camera-captures-scorching-nature-record-Phoenix-heat-wave.html Off Topic #2 - Fire Season: Where is ours? I wondered that before hitting Submit button so I checked. We have not been lucky at all; we just haven't hit it yet. AccuWeather said in April: We are going to be hearing far more bad weather news than we want to in the next four months and who knows which one one will be worse, the hurricanes spinning up from extremely warm ocean water or the wildfires? We had better not get an Agnes II here!

This story got covered by the Washington Post. The comments people left on this Tweet are contradictory and people are arguing a lot. Maybe others will get more out of them them than I did. But by being covered by the Washington Post, more people should be talking about and covering this, which should be a plus for everyone.

I see you all are already talking about heat. I just saw this on Twitter. Evidently Chile in South America -- which of course is currently experiencing winter -- is having quite a heat wave. I cannot explain it or understand how it can be but they have had temperatures over 100F! In winter! I am surprised this wasn't all over the news.

I just saw on Twitter that our Canadian friends have had wildfires burn the equivalent of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and that is just as of end of July. More to come, obviously-- probably much more. Graph shows 1960-today https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1685703510443118592?s=20

What union fight is that?

11:32p Noisy storm with lots of lightening out in Western PA coming our way. Weather guy said it is breaking up and weakening but still looks good enough to make it to Williamsport. If it is mostly just rain with not much show, that is fine by me and I am sure everyone else.

8:05p: More unexpected rain for Williamsport. In my earlier post what I thought was end of rain was temporary slowdown during training. We had a couple cycles that lasted about two hours. I heard thunder and double checked tonight's weather. We changed from very little or nothing to .42, all supposedly falling between 8:00-9:00. Sunlight is reflecting off ceiling light fixture and I can hear cars travelling over the wet street. Let's see what else we get.

Williamsport and immediate area has been sitting under our own yellow-orange blob for over 45 minutes and it is finally moving away. We had thunder but little to no lightning and about 2 minutes of hail. Going out shortly so I hope this is it until after I get back. We got a lot more than predicted .17.

This was an unexpected surprise I am very happy about. Williamsport's air is almost back to normal. It is the yellow 55 sticking out in northern PA. Rest of the state has to catch up to us. I hope that happens overnight. I wish someone would get a Purple Air device and fill in the big empty space in northern PA and southern NY.

6:45p Has been thundering in Williamsport and now I hear some rain. We were supposed to get .25 or less. I saw about an hour ago Wunderground said about .75 and now it is .53. Who knows what we will end up with but at least we are getting something. Based on smoke numbers in Indiana and Ohio, it looks like we will have smoke again tomorrow. I guess when they say Smoke on Monday, we should assume Tuesday and maybe Wednesday too.

The oranges and reds are coming to get us. Look at the lineup of dots; it makes me think of two armies but we have no defense so I guess it is a bloodless takeover not a battle. I looked all the way out west and it seems all the dots are under 200 this time so we must consider ourselves lucky. Just in the last 10 minutes, Williamsport's dot went from 37 to 44 and from green to yellow.

2:59a: We seem to be done for now. I checked two weather stations on Williamsport. They showed totals of just about an inch since Saturday night. Weather Service says Montoursville Airport five miles away got 3.29 in last six hours. It seems like many other nearby places got lots more than we did. I couldn't figure out earlier why we were getting all these warnings and alerts when we were getting rain but nothing torrential and the curtains didn't move so little wind. There is a Flood Warning until 7:30a. I am glad we got some rain but happy we didn't get too much at once. * WHERE...A portion of central Pennsylvania, including the following counties, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Sullivan and Union. * IMPACTS...Flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations is imminent or occurring. Streams continue to rise due to excess runoff from earlier rainfall. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 136 AM EDT, Doppler radar and automated rain gauges indicated heavy rain due to showers and thunderstorms. Flooding is ongoing in portions of the warned area. Between 3 and 5 inches of rain have fallen. - Additional rainfall amounts up to 1 inch are possible in the warned area.

I remember mead from stuff I read in college. What does it taste like? It is wine, isn't it? As I recall, the old beers were very low alcohol because people drank them a lot due to water so bad. Does mead pack any kind of punch? I can't believe I am talking about mead!

1:35am Update. I checked two weather stations for Williamsport and both said we had .39 of rain. I didn't think we even made the .33 predicted. The storms are continuing northeast so a lot of Lycoming County will end up with something. Let's keep that rain coming!

So will we get this unexpected but now predicted .33 of rain here in Williamsport? We got a Severe Thunderstorm Warning but we are not named in it; closest place is Jersey Shore, 16 miles away. I will come back and update about what looks to me like a sure thing

It looks like we here in Williamsport are done with the rain that has been coming down in the northern half of the state off and on for hours. We received .42. I saw this post on Twitter from the guy who covers fires. He did a podcast that covers, among other things, the question: "The U.S. sends a massive resource order to Canada. Are the U.S. resources left enough to cover the coming fire season?" Usually the international help for other countries like us is a question of firefighters, not resources. I sure hope we didn't send too much up there. I have been very surprised and relieved that we haven't had more fires, considering we get hotter and Canada's fires have been an out of control mess for over a month. Ocean temps are elevated so God knows what hurricane season will bring as it really starts to get going in another month. Our weather may soon become too interesting. https://twitter.com/HotshotWake/status/1679169290988142594

Sorry I cannot tell you. I know we were down and that unlike others here for the past month or so, we have had not had very much. We are not in a crisis of course but this is the fourth summer we have had noticeably more sunny days and less rain and grey skies than normal in Williamsport. That Canadian smoke turned many sunny days this past month to hazy or worse doesn't change our real weather, it just covers it up. I hardly ever carry my umbrella anymore. Part of that is me walking less and taking bus more but still, it is so strange.

That's the way it goes sometimes. I am just glad we got what we did. It is funny to think as I wrote early this morning that we literally started out strong with a bang -- from nothing to thunder and good rain -- and went downhill after that when others got so much.

Not me up here in Williamsport. Just checked and before noon Montoursville Airport is down for .45 and for afternoon .08. But I knew we didn't get that much this morning and I checked two Williamsport weather stations on Wunderground: .11 and .16 earlier this afternoon before my nap. So about .5 for Montoursville and .25 for us five miles away, assuming we also got the .08. Whatever else we get isn't going to make much difference. Lots of days have rain in 10 day forecast, two about .5 so farmers have something to look forward to.

Started off with a bang: Suddenly realized the 4:30a silence of Williamsport had been replaced with both rain and thunder. Funny 11:00p precip map for Channel 16 showed only only location getting more than one inch yet weather guy mentioned possibility of several inches as he discussed updated models and lower amounts than predicted earlier. Once again I feel I have no idea really what we will end up getting. At least it won't be nothing this time. Things will be off and on until 11a then all day until around midnight according to Wunderground hourly.

Williamsport finally got lucky with storms. Thunder and lightening -- lightening didn't get too close. 1.23 first hour, .09 second hour between 9-11p for a total of 1.32. And I will brag but save you details: I was chatting with Comcast agent during much of the worse. Took forever since agents have to go back and forth between more than one customer, with 10-15 minute pauses. Never experienced such a thing before. More rain tomorrow and Sunday. Hope it really happens.

11:05p: Weather guy at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton now says same thing as yesterday and earlier today about things getting better as in not a problem anymore but added at the end number should be about 100 tomorrow. He said it was 120 over there now. That is not going back to normal and they (and we) are supposed to be getting rain which should help but evidently not much. If I had family members with asthma and other lung problems this smoky air along with the uncertainty would really be driving me nuts. I am lucky I can just be annoyed and wonder how this is effecting my nasal allergies without really worrying.

The article mentions controlled burning and thinning too. When all those people died out in California awhile back there was a lot of talk about lack of controlled burning there. I realize now I haven't heard much about controlled burning since then. I guess it often ends up being an argument with experts calling for it and fearful nearby residents saying no. And I suppose the drier it is, the more reluctant residents are -- but also fires can be that much worse then too. So many questions, and then add possible climate change effects into the mix and that makes everything even more complicated.

1. I am officially discouraged and frankly more than a bit worried about the smoky air in our future. According to my scrawled notes for the 3 stations around Williamsport, we were 156-157-160 Friday at 6:06a 115-122-131 today at 2:26p 149-144-152 today at 9:03p There were no air quality notices for us today, things were supposed to go down -- actually yesterday but it got extended -- but here we are, more or less stuck at same levels for day and a half. I can only hope this time the promises on TV weather tonight that smoke will be pushed out will finally come true. 2. I just saw this at CNN.com and am not happy at all. It seems Canada is not very good on fire management and underfunds it too. Pot calling kettle black I know -- but our smoke usually does not go into other countries. This jumped out at me. Does this mean the smoke we are getting is also far more dense and has much more pollution than ordinary smoke? Also that it seems we are going to keep getting this year after year. Not every year necessarily, granted, but that we will have this stuff coming in off and on indefinitely. "Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world’s largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet." ... "Boreal forests are carbon dense, releasing 10 to 20 times more planet-heating carbon pollution for each unit of area burned by wildfires than other ecosystems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances. " Thoughts? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html