Results tagged “earthobservatory”

Ooh, take a look at this pretty satellite image. It was taken last Monday by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer onboard the Terra satellite. You can see the sharp snow line from Sandy Hook, across the Rockaways, and out to Sunken Meadows State Park, left by the Valentine's Day storm. Central Park shows up as a snow covered playground, while four days after the storm the snow has disappeared from Midtown. You can see the entire northeastern U.S. on larger original image on NASA's Earth Observatory.

Today marks the seventh, and last, consecutive day of rain. It was a good run –3.31 inches fell in Central Park, but the streak itself falls well short of biblical standards. There's still enough moisture around to keep a few clouds in the sky today, but the threat of rain, and that stupid stationary front, have disappeared. Somewhat sunny and mild weather tomorrow will bring a little weather variety into our lives. Enjoy the sun while you can because it looks like Ernesto, or what will remain of Ernesto, is going to give us some clouds on Friday and possibly heavy rain and winds on Saturday. It is too soon for Gothamist to have confidence in the details, but Labor Day weekend is beginning to look like a total washout, with Saturday looking especially unpleasant. In the meantime you can amuse/prepare yourselves by watching any number of Weather Channel reports from the beaches of Florida letting us know that tropical storms are rainy and windy.

Yesterday saw a weather double-triple. High temperatures reached 100 degrees at LaGuardia and Newark airports, both records. JFK also set a record high, albeit only 97 degrees. The cool spot was Central Park as the thermometer at Belvedere Castle only got up to 95. Hot as it was yesterday, today looks to be a little bit warmer. Yes, warmer. It barely cooled off last night –this morning's low in Central Park was 87– so it won't take much heating to surpass yesterday's temperatures. We are likely to score a quadruple-triple, with all four official local observation spots reaching the century mark. It should be hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. If you decide to make a sidewalk omelet, take a picture and submit it to Gothamist Contribute.

Yesterday the bedrock blasting tests at Ground Zero went off without anyone really noticing. Tishman Construction is clearing the way for the Freedom Tower's foundation, and project manager Mel Raffini explained to NY1 that the blasting means there won't be "2,000 hours of drilling and chopping with a huge jackhammer. Versus this which takes several seconds. A total of fifty to sixty blasts, production blasts, which we expect to do in the next two months equates to about fifteen minutes total with a noise that many people didn't hear it." Well, just because there won't be drilling at Ground Zero doesn't mean all the residents will be free of noise - there's always another development or roadwork that leads to some jackhammering at 7AM on a Saturday morning.

It is not the natural state of a New Yorker to look up at the sky. The skyscrapers block our view and we need to be alert to what our fellow pedestrians are doing. Gothamist has tried to get people to look at the halos, sun dogs and iridescent clouds with limited success. Luckily there are meteorological phenomena to see on the ground. On our way to work in the morning Gothamist walks up the 116th Street stairs in Morningside Park. The top set of stairs are made of pink granite slabs. The mortar between the steps has long since disappeared so air and water move into the cracks (take note Parks Commissioner Benepe!). When it gets cold after warm days when water has seeped into the cracks these little frost patches appear on the steps.

At 1:35 EST this afternoon the sun will reach its lowest declination, -23.45°. Winter solstice will have arrived. Pagans rejoice! Are there any Saturnalian festivities taking place? Starting tomorrow, the length of daylight gets longer until next June. It is just a coincidence, but also starting tomorrow we should see warmer weather. Our high temperatures will be several degrees higher tomorrow and reach into the mid-40s by Friday.

In case anyone has forgotten what fall temperatures are supposed to be, today is your reminder. Today's high and low temperatures will be a degree or two below the November 11th normals of 54 and 42 degrees. Tomorrow will start off chilly, but we'll be back above normal in the afternoon. By Sunday we'll be back into the 60s, nearly ten degrees warmer than normal.

"Rain or no rain is the question," so states this morning's forecast discussion. One of the models forecasters use has a low pressure system moving much further up the coast on Friday than the other models. If that scenario plays out we could get dumped on. Don't be surprised if the forecast changes a lot in the next day or two.

Whoa, the Weather Service is getting very specific on us for this afternoon:

The Northeast sure looks cold in this true color image taken Monday by NASA's MODIS sensor (see the whole chilly image on the Earth Observatory). It looks cold because it is cold and it is going to be colder for the remainder of the week. Windy too! That old blowhard Mr. Wind Chill is going to be in town through Friday. Wind chill only pertains to exposed flesh, so you should be fine if you cover up all your body parts.

As Gothamist Leslita mentioned, New Orleans is especially at risk from tropical storms because it is surrounded by water and is below sea level. As the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer image of New Orleans (whitish area to the left) and the Mississippi Delta above graphically shows, there's not much difference between land and water along the Gulf Coast (story and high res image covering a larger area on NASA's Earth Observatory). Mobile is particularly vulnerable because it sits at the head of a small bay where the storm surge may get concentrated.

Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman, no wait, it's Spiderman, no wait, it's Underdog, no wait, it's a whole lot of dust and aerosols! Led by scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, research has shown that the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface decreased by 1.3% from 1960-1990. The cause of this dimming is the ever increasing amount of made-made aerosol particles in the atmosphere. The aerosols reflect and absorb incoming solar radiation. They also alter the optical properties of clouds, making them more reflective. The cooling effect of the aerosols is counteracting the warming effect of increased greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. In other words, were it not for the aerosols the climate would be warming faster than it currently is.