Weather blog from MarylandWeather.com

Meteorite Man asks blog posters' help

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:31:58 -0500

"Meteorite Man" Steve Arnold is still looking for those key eyewitness reports that could point him toward any remnants of the July 6 Mason-Dixon Meteor that may have survived the fall to Earth.

Arnold has read through more than 100 comments from Weather Blog readers who saw or heard the meteor, and he's singled out more than 30 that were detailed enough to suggest that just a little more information might help point him to the impact zone.

That's Arnold below on Wednesday, kneeling in front of the Water Co. security apparatus that captured video of the meteor as it fell east of York, Pa. Monday morning. (Click here to see the video.)

The camera itself is the dark gray object attached to the bottom of the silver box. The videographer at right is TV producer Bob Melisso, who is filming Arnold's search on behalf of the Science Channel program "Meteorite Men."

Here's what he's asking for. And below his note are the names of the commenters he wants to hear from.

"For those of you that saw the fireball, please reply with the following details:     The address (including city and zip code) where you saw it?     What direction you were facing when seeing it?
    If you were indoors, and saw it through a window, what direction the window was facing?     What direction the fireball appeared to be heading from your perspective?
    If you saw the fireball burn out, could you pinpoint exactly (or close to) the direction it extinguished?     Was there a landmark between you and the fireball that helped you positively pinpoint the direction it was from you when it quit burning?
   If you heard a sonic boom, how long was it between seeing the light and hearing the sonic boom.    What other details that are relevant." Please send the details directly to Steve at MeteorHntr@aol.com
The WeatherBlog commenters he'd like to hear from are:

Siobhan, in West Chester, Pa.; M Gaines, in Lancaster, Pa.; Matt B, in Bel Air; Melissa Tillery, who was driving on I-70 near Hagerstown; Sam Luther, who was camping near Delta, Pa.; John, in rural northwest Harford, Co.; Diane, in Port Deposit; Chuck and Nikki, in Port Deposit;

Raquel, in Bergen County, N.J.; Nicole Green, in Pikesville; Myranda Warfield, in Jefferson; Mike and Julie, in Forest Hill; DJ, in Bel Air; Kimberly, in Forest Hill; DCD, in Littlestown, Pa.; Lisa Ewing, in Port Deposit; Karen Haney, in Hickory, north of Bel Air; Jenny Gresock, in Seven Valleys, Pa.;

Frank Memmo, in Churchville; Ashley Simpson, in Arnold; Chris, in Conowingo area of Cecil County; Kristen B., in Forest Hill; Dale, in Forest Hill; Tom D., who was southbound on I-83 in York, Pa.; Matt Bureau, in Greensburg, Pa.; Timothy Jones, in Philadelphia;

Chelsea, in Forest Hill; Terry, in Earlesville; Sue, in White Marsh; and HC, who was southbound on I-83 near Glen Rock, Pa.

Thanks. We'll keep you posted on any progress in the meteorite hunt.

And while we're on the topic, NBC on Sunday night will air yet another movie about a meteor headed for the Earth, and beautiful scientists racing to save the planet. It's called, "Meteor," of all things, and it starts at 9 p.m. on WBAL Channel 11 in Baltimore.

Jason Alexander ("Seinfeld's" George Castanza) is among the cast.

Come back here after it's over and let's see how many scientific errors we can list.

(SUN PHOTO By Frank D. Roylance)

It's official: El Nino has begun

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:03:09 -0500

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has made it official: Another El Nino has begun, with sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean now more than 1 degree Celsius above the average.

Red and orange colors on the map at left show where sea surface temperatures in the Pacific are 1 to 2 degrees above average.

The phenomenon, which occurs every two to five years, on average, typically triggers changes in weather trends around the globe. It is expected to last at least a year, and is the first El Nino since 2006. Here's more from NOAA.

For Maryland, El Nino's effects are not as cut and dried as they are for some parts of the world, such as the Pacific coast and Indonesia. But studies have found a trend toward stormier winters. That can mean a lot of snow, or very little - a sort of all-or-nothing deal, depending on temperatures. The most notable storm in an El Nino year may have been the Feb. 11, 1983 storm that dropped 22.8 inches on Baltimore (photo, right).

The general conclusion the experts have reached about El Nino Winters in Baltimore is summed up this way:

"El Niño winters in the Baltimore Region mean a milder than normal December. They also tend to be all or nothing when it comes to snowfall. Either there are no significant snow storms and season snow totals average less than 5 inches or there is a tendency toward multiple snow storms with seasonal totals above 30 inches. These storms usually occur in January and February. November, December, and March often see little or no snow."

You can read more about this here.

(SUN PHOTO by Weyman Swagger 1983)

Brrrr .. Morning low close to record

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:34:31 -0500

That was one chill breeze coming in the bedroom window this morning. Reminds me of summer in New England. It was only 54 degrees at daybreak on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville. And there were some colder readings than that across the region. York, Pa. reported a low of 50 at the airport.

It was 56 early this morning at BWI-Marshall Airport. That was within 2 degrees of the record low for a July 9 at BWI. The 54-degree reading there was set on this date a quarter-century ago - in 1984.

There was a low of 64 degrees at Washington Reagan. Dulles Airport, out in northern Virginia, reached 58 degrees. It was 58 in Hagerstown, too.

All this as we approach what is, on average at least, the hottest two weeks of the year.

Here are some other low readings from across the region. (Check the date on the map; the 7/9 data had not been loaded at the time of this writing.)

The forecast continues to look just fine. The seasonable weather is expected to continue, with some heating-up, and a chance of showers and thunderstorms over the weekend. But the first half of next week looks a lot like this week - mild temperatures and dry weather.

Mason-Dixon meteor turns up on security cam

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:25:34 -0500

The big fireball meteor that startled residents in Central Maryland and southern Pennsylvania early Monday morning was captured on a security camera video in York Pa. It's about 18 seconds into the 70-second video. Meteorite hunters hope this will be a first clue to guide them to the spot where surviving bits of the meteor - if there are any - may have landed.

The camera was one of about 50 that protect the various facilities of the York Water Company. The president and CEO, Jeffrey R. Hines, said he and his wife live in York and heard the sonic boom touched off by the meteor as it entered the atmosphere at about 1:10 a.m. Monday. But they didn't see anything.

It wasn't until late on Monday that he decided to check the security video to see what the cameras might have seen.

"It didn't take long," he said. The quality isn't great. "It's a security camera, at night."

But the meteor is unmistakable, he said. "You can see the fireball, and see it all ready to burn out, and a number of pieces of meteorite. Probably four or five frames is all it captures."

Even so, Hines said, "It's pretty cool." With two or three more images like this, meteorite hunters hope to be able to triangulate on the meteor's trajectory, and its final seconds before any surviving pieces fell to Earth.

Here's to 12:34:56 7.8.09

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:03:05 -0500

So you'll be sitting around the lunch table at work today, and you'll raise your cup of diet soda and call for a toast: "Here's to the magic of numbers, and to this magic moment in time: 12:34:56 p.m. on 7/8/09."

Your friends and co-workers will be amazed at your mathematical acumen, and your acute awareness of your place in the space-time continuum.

Either that, or you will be greeted with blank stares, and people will begin to leave the table, claiming to have pressing work to attend to.

Just remember, you heard it here first.

Four evenings beneath the Int'l Space Station

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:05:49 -0500

There is always a chance that clouds and storms will interfere. But if we get lucky, there should be plenty of opportunity to spot the International Space Station this week as it passes over the mid-Atlantic states.

The long hours of northern daylight at this time of year are keeping the station in direct sunlight later into the evening, and earlier in the morning, so there are actually more than 20 flybys that observers in the Baltimore area could catch in the next nine days if they were so inclined. But many are in the wee hours of the morning, and other passes are low to the horizon and harder to see.

In this post I'll highlight just four passes, all of them very bright, evening opportunities at least halfway up the sky from the horizon. Here goes:

Tuesday evening, July 7: Look for the ISS as it rises above the southwestern horizon at 9:32 p.m. EDT. It will pass through the Summer Triangle, climbing to 43 degrees above the southeastern horizon by 9:35 p.m. From there it will cruise off toward the northeast, disappearing at about 9:38 p.m. UPDATE: Good pass, very bright, no clouds. The unmanned Russian Progress supply ship trailed the ISS by about 15 seconds.

Wednesday evening, July 8: On this pass, too, the ISS will rise from the southwest at 9:57 p.m., passing just above Saturn. Then it will travel through the stars of the Big Dipper, about 48 degrees above the northwestern horizon at 9:59 p.m. From there it will head off toward the northeast as it flies over New England and the Canadian Maritime Provinces and disappears at about 10:02 p.m.

Thursday evening, July 9: This pass will begin in the southwest at 8:46 p.m. EDT. The ISS will appear like a bright, moving star, rising 46 degrees above the southeast horizon at 8:49 p.m. From there it will fly off toward the northeast and vanish at 8:52 p.m.

Friday evening, July 10: Watch for the space station to rise out of the western sky at 9:10 p.m. EDT, passing just below Saturn this time, then climbing to 46 degrees (halfway up) from the northwestern horizon. It will pass along the bottom edge of the Dipper stars at 9:13 p.m. before moving off toward the mortheast, where it will fade away at 9:16 p.m.

As always, come back here and let us know how you did. Take the kids out to watch. One of them might decide to become an astronaut. Or a science writer.

The image above, by the way, is the expected view through the ISS Cupola that astronauts will carry to the station and install sometime next year.

Wallops to test crew escape system Wednesday A.M.

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:09:32 -0500

There's an interesting launch planned for early Wednesday at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, down on Virginia's Eastern Shore. It's not one that will be visible for hundreds of miles around, but it does mark an important milestone for manned space flight. The weather forecast is promising.

At 6:15 a.m. EDT, NASA will attempt to launch its Max Launch Abort System, a rocket-propelled mechanism that's designed to pull astronauts and their crew capsule away from their boosters in the event of a failure at, or near, the launch pad. If there's a delay, the launch window is open until 10 a.m.

UPDATE: Launch (photo) was successful. Anyone see it?

The idea recalls the tall escape towers that topped the old Mercury and Apollo capsules. They were essentially small rocket engines designed to yank the crew capsule to safety and provide time for its parachutes to deploy and lower the crew safely to the ocean.

If the space shuttle had had a similar system, the Challenger crew might have made it to safety as their booster rockets and liquid fuel tanks blew up after launch in 1986.

The MLAS system is being developed for possible use with NASA's planned Orion spacecraft, the Apollo-like capsule that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2015, and on to the moon in 2020, if all goes according to plan.

Anyway, the launch from Wallops Wednesday morning will be a short one - two minutes. The MLAS rocket is expected to carry a simulated Orion capsule no more than a mile into the sky, and a mile out to sea. But it would sure be something nifty to watch if you happen to be nearby.

The test vehicle is 33 feet tall and the whole system weighs 45,000 pounds. The weather forecast for the area is good.

For more information, visit the Wallops Web site. Their launches can be followed on Twitter @NASA_Wallops.

(NASA PHOTO)

Hot weather due back (briefly) for the weekend

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:18:09 -0500

Feeling a little warm downtown at the moment (87 at The Sun's weather station), but the airport remains at a comfortable 83 degrees as we write. This mild-for-July weather is expected to continue for the rest of the work week. But hot weather is due back for the weekend, forecasters say.

We're only a week into July, of course, but so far the temperatures for the month at BWI-Marshall are averaging a cool 71.5 degrees. That's 4 degrees below the long-term average of 75.5 degrees for the first week of July in Baltimore.

It can't last, of course. But if it did, it would make this the coolest July on record for the city. The only Julys that come close are 1891, which averaged 71.6 degrees for the entire month; 2000 and 2001, which ended with an average temperature of 72.7 and 72.8 degrees, respectively.

Two days so far this month have failed to reach the 80s, and two nights dipped into the 50s at BWI. No records were broken, but we're all saving a bundle on our cooling bills.

The days ahead look pretty much the same as another cold front slips by. Forecasters see slight chances for precipitation today, followed by some clearing and drier air for Wednesday. More chances for showers return Thursday, with highs only in the low- to mid-80s, which is a few degrees cooler than the long-term averages. Nights will hold in the 60s at the airport.

By Saturday, however, we'll be crowding 90 degrees again, with increased risk of showers and thunderstorms. That will persist until the next cold front drops by, perhaps by late Sunday.

Long-term outlooks still don't see much in store for us in the way of our more typically hot and humid Chesapeake Summer weather.

You're welcome, but please... In lieu of flowers, you may donate to your favorite charity.

(SUN PHOTO by Kim Hairston 2006)

Meteorite hunter says: Check security camera tapes

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:57:26 -0500

Professional meteor hunter Steve Arnold is asking home and business owners in central Maryland and southern Pennsylvania to check their security tapes from early Monday morning for evidence of the meteor that scores of residents across the region have been reporting.

Most reader reports to this Blog put the time between 1:00 a.m. EDT and 1:15 a.m., July 6, with many focused on 1:08 - 1:10 a.m.

Arnold, co-star of the Science Channel's "Meteorite Men" program, is hoping to use the tapes to triangulate on the meteor and calculate its path. From that, he hopes to launch a search for any bits of the space rock that may have made it to the ground.

"That security camera footage is badly needed," Arnold told me in an email note. "I am optimistic, as there should be a few thousand cameras that caught it on tape. The key is to find at least three good camera angles to triangulate from. By 'good,' I don't necessarily mean the clearest, or in color, but ones that have physical objects visible in the distance so that when visiting the camera in person, with a compass, one can tell exactly where the fireball extinguished. This way a definite line can be drawn from the lens of the camera to the object and on the the point of 'redardation.' Three good lines intersecting gives us what we need."

Arnold also asked me to see whether the region's weather radar captured a trace of the falling meteor. I've asked the National Weather Service at Sterling to look into it.

Security camera footage has been used before to document fireball meteors. There are lots of them on YouTube. So, if you own or have access to security camera tapes in the region, check your Monday morning data for the flash. If you find something, you can contact me at frank.roylance@baltsun.com, or Steve Arnold at MeteorHntr@aol.com. Or, copy us both.

A Mason-Dixon meteor?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:43:07 -0500

We have been receiving reports today of a likely meteor over north-central Maryland and southern Pennsylvania early Monday morning. (Not the one in the Flickr.com image above.)

Below are the first reports we have received. If you heard or saw something similar, around the same time, please leave a comment. Include the time, your location, which direction you saw the object or flash, a description of what you saw, and note any boom or other sound you heard, as well as the time lapse between flash and boom.

The York Dispatch: In York County, Pa., police officers from Penn Township, Southwestern Regional and Newberry Township reported seeing a flash and hearing a boom around 1:15 a.m. Monday, July 6, according to local 911 centers. Officials in Harford County, Md. also reported seeing a flash and hearing a boom near the Mason-Dixon Line.

Capital Gazette: An Annapolis city police officer reported that she and her partner both saw what she described as a "bright blue light in the sky" just after midnight. It was followed by "a light with a tail, falling from the sky," according to our informant. Annapolis police reported hearing a similar report on Baltimore County police radio.

Gary Moon, reporting to The Sun's News Tips: "I heard and felt a deep earth blast similar to an earthquake, which shook my home in Glen Rock, Pa., early Monday morning. I thought I would hear MUCH more about this one ... nothing."

Deborah Markow, Havre de Grace: "Last night, couldn't sleep, went out on back deck, laid on lounge, eyes closed and then it was like someone pointed a flash light in my eyes it was so bright. I saw another one streak through the sky ... It was one of the most thrilling sights to behold a ball of fire flying through the sky."

I have not yet seen any meteor reports of this event on the American Meteor Society's Fireball Sightings Log, but it's early yet, and this fireball, coming in the wee hours after a long holiday, probably did not catch many people out and about.

Which makes reports like these, and yours, all the more important. If you saw this object, be sure to leave a report with the AMS, too.

But judging from the descriptions, it almost certainly was a fireball, which is simply an especially bright meteor, vaporizing with an impressive flash.

Here's a pretty good example on video.

They are sometimes followed by a sonic boom, which would explain the booming noises in the reports. Some fireball observers - though none yet for this event - also report a crackling or hissing sound that is concurrent with the meteor's flash and which has never been fully explained scientifically.

Although meteor rates begin to pick up in July, this is not the peak time for any particular meteor shower. It seems likely this was a "sporadic," or isolated meteor that just happened to be especially big and bright. Big ones like this are always unexpected, always startling to witness, and always a thrill.

Space Station flyover Monday night

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:01:28 -0500

Space Cadets! There will be an unusually nice opportunity Monday evening to watch the International Space Station fly by on its way from the Louisiana coast to the Canadian Maritime provinces.

If skies are clear, we'll pick it up at 10:43 p.m. EDT, rising out of the southwest as it passes over northern Alabama. Look for a bright, star-like object hustling toward the northeast, rising about halfway up the northwestern sky by 10:46 p.m. At that moment, it will be somewhere over central Pennsylvania, about 280 miles from viewers in Baltimore, moving northeast at 17,500 mph.

From there it will pass through the handle of the Big Dipper and race off toward the northeast, disappearing from view at 10:49 p.m. as it flies over New Brunswick, Canada.

Sure, it's a bit late. But hey, it's summer. Take the kids outside with you and let them try to be the first to spot the station. That's their money up there, too. Here's more on what they're doing up there.

Another week of cooler-than-normal temps

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:52:18 -0500

You could almost call it a "cool wave." But "cool" is probably not the best word to describe the slightly-lower-than-normal highs and lows in the NWS forecast for the next seven days. A "mild wave," maybe? Or a "pleasant wave"?

Whatever. It's welcome and it's saving us all money.

The real weather news is that we've slipped into this pattern of what meteorologists out at Sterling are calling "troughiness," as in, persistent low pressure to our north that is sweeping disturbances through the region, giving us plenty of clouds, with daily chances for scattered showers and thunderstorms.

And that seems to be keeping the temperatures in check. Highs for the next week will stall out in the low- to mid-80s. And the overnight lows will sink into the low- to mid-60s (maybe even some 50s in some places) - good sleeping weather if the humidity doesn't bother you. That's all a few degrees below the long-term averages for this time of year in Baltimore, which are in the 86/87-degree range on the top end, and 65/66 at night.

Baltimore seems to have been the focus of last night's rainstorms. One city church was struck by lightning. We could hear the thunder from the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, but only received a bit of the water. Here at Calvert & Centre streets, however, The Sun's weather instruments picked up 0.92 inch of rain. (The station was down for a few hours this morning after some computer reconfiguration. Should be back shortly.)

And that was close to the most reported anywhere in the metro area. Hamilton reported 1.13 inches to the CoCoRHaS network this morning. Towson reported 0.92 inch. Kingsville, in Harford County, had 0.86 inch. St. Mary's County also got a good deal of rain, though probably from a separate storm cell. BWI reported only 0.37 inch up until midnight yesterday.

Sunday still looks like the best weather day of the long weekend for Central Maryland, with no rain chances in the forecast, partly sunny skies and a high near 84. The 4th comes with a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, starting after 2 p.m. and continuing into the evening.

(SUN PHOTO/ Mauricio Rubio/Cooler-than-normal bagpipers in Catonsville parade 2008)

Storm risks decrease after tonight

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:51:30 -0500

Looks like the long holiday weekend will carry a risk of showers and thunderstorms clear through Saturday night, with a 30 percent risk that storms will impact the fireworks. Sunday's forecast, for now, comes with no mention of rain, so if the pyrotechnics are postponed, Sunday should be ideal. (That's what happened in 2007. Sun outdoors writer Candus Thomson snapped the pic at left at the Inner Harbor on the 5th. Amazing.)

But the highest chances for thunder and lightning come tonight, rated at a "likely" 70 percent. So far, all the convection on radar appears to be well to our west, just beginning to move into western Virginia at 4 p.m. But forecasters out at Sterling seem pretty confident things will fire up around the I-95 corridor by 8 p.m. EDT, and cross the Chesapeake by 10.

After tonight, rain chances diminish to the 20-30 percent range, save for 50 percent tomorrow night. That should allow us some sunshine, at least, and time to enjoy the mild, low-80s temperatures over the holiday weekend.

Headed for the beaches? Here's the Ocean City forecast. Looks like folks headed east will have fine weather after Thursday night. No rain in the forecast at all for the weekend, with highs in the upper 70s and low 80s. Perfect.

Going west? The forecast for Oakland, in Garrett County looks a bit wetter and grayer. But Independence Day itself looks good. Rain chances return for Sunday. Bring a book.

Small tremor jiggles Delaware Bay

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:23:52 -0500

The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting a small earth tremor at about 9:45 a.m. EDT this morning, measured with a magnitude of just 2.8. That's not likely to be felt by many, but is enough to detect and report.

The center of the shaking was pinpointed in southern New Jersey, on the eastern shore of the Delaware River near Pennsville, NJ, about 8 miles south southeast of Wilmington, Del.

The quake was centered about 3 miles deep. Here's a map. Anyone feel anything?

May, June without 90s ... Cool summer ahead?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:28:04 -0500

June ended at midnight last night without having delivered a single day in the 90s. May ended the same way. Baltimore - or BWI at least, the station of record for the city - has had just three days in the 90s so far in 2009, all of them in April.

So, does that mean we're in for a "cool" summer ? "Maybe," said Steve Zubrick, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service's Sterling forecast office. He's been crunching the numbers for the past few months, and found the following:

1. June 2009 had the fewest 90+ days (zero) since 1979. That's only happened six times since they began keeping official records for the city - in 1886, 1903, 1916, 1972, 1979 and 2009. The average number of 90+ degree days in June in Baltimore is 5.7. Last year we had nine. The record is 18, in 1943.

2. May passed without any highs in the 90s, too. The last time May and June both stayed out of the 90s was in 1979. That's only happened four times: in 1979, 1972, 1886 and 2009.

3. So how do summers with no 90-degree weather in June turn out? Zubrick said the coolest three-month (June-August) summer period on record for Baltimore was in 1903, which saw no 90-degree weather in June. The summer of 1886 was the 6th coolest, and also had no June days in the 90s. The summer of 1912 was the 12th coolest on record, and likewise had no June days in the 90s.

4. On the other hand, that latest long-term forecast for Baltimore for this summer, issued at the end of May, called for a cooler-than-normal June, but above-normal temperatures overall for the 90-day summer period. If they're right, we're in for a hot July and August.

5. As for rainfall, April, May and June together produced 19.74 inches of rain at BWI. That ranks as the second-wettest April-June period on record for the city.

For Zubrick's complete (unofficial and preliminary) report, read on.

(SUN PHOTO/John Makely 2006)