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Highlands Today

Finally Some Good Rain

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By Raleigh Whiteman | Highlands Today

Published: July 3, 2008

I would bet that there are very few who would complain about the nightly rain we have been receiving the past week. I have just finished checking the water level and found that Lake Grassy has risen almost eight inches in the past week.

At this rate of eight inches of rain every day for a week, we need at least five solid weeks of everyday downpours to fill Lake Grassy, which is still about 40 inches low.

I find it very curious that June is the month that rain again starts falling regularly here in the Heartland while most of the country follows the rule of the song that has the lyrics, "April showers will bring May flowers."

Season For Rain
The weather forecasters on TV point out daily now that the sea breezes from the East and West coastlines will be converging over the state during the day hours and regularly forecast scattered showers mainly in the evening hours.

Trying to find out why these sea breezes seem to converge mostly during the summer months, I searched on the Internet and found several pages that pointed out other pages and references until it seemed to point out mainly that weather is chaotic. It's because of the tilt of the earth, an average 23.5 degrees, as it makes it way around the sun and the sun heats the surface and oceans differently causing air currents to shift and rise. When the surface is heated it causes air to rise and the earth's rotation makes the wind circulate counter-clockwise and causes low pressure areas. The upper jet stream shifts as the low-pressure area affects their movements. I have determined that whatever the weather, it is well organized chaos with thousands of variables.

Forecasting Weather
Most long-term predictions are base upon past repeated seasons. Lately short-time predictions are determined by observations received from satellites.

Seasons happen due to the yearly revolution of the earth around the sun and the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution. In upper regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the amount of sunlight, which may cause animals to go into hibernation or to migrate, and plants to be dormant.

The northern hemisphere is closer to the sun at times of the year than the southern, it is exposed to more light causing summer to come into action at different times as the earth revolves.

Two Seasons In Florida
Here in Florida and most tropical areas it is more common to speak of the rainy versus the dry season, because the amount of precipitation may vary more dramatically than the average temperature.

The cycle of seasons in the polar and temperate zones of one hemisphere is opposite to that in the other. When it is summer in the northern hemisphere, it is winter in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa. It must be very confusing to the kids south of the equator when they see Santa arriving in a snow sled.

In other tropical areas, a three-way division into hot, rainy and cool season is used. In some parts of the world, special "seasons" are loosely defined based upon important events such as a hurricane season, tornado season or in California, the wildfire season.

A Weather Poem
Whether the weather be fine, Or whether the weather be not, whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot, we'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

Raleigh Whiteman, of Lake Placid, is a contributing writer to Highlands Today. You can reach him on the Internet at rwwhiteman@comcast.net

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