If you are looking for the latest possible sunset on the first day of summer, you should head out to Porter or Lewiston, and enjoy the setting sun over Lake Erie, when the sun will be setting around 9 PM. In contrast in Albany, the sun sets around 8:36 PM on the first day of summer.
The verdict isn’t in but the stakes are high – very high – for weather forecasting in the U.S. and for many nations who rely on our satellite imagery and data. The deployment of 5G technology has the potential to produce serious interference with the transmission of satellite data. An article in the Washington Post by Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang details some of the technical issues I’ve been seeing in the literature for quite some time. As most of you know, the wireless industry and the FCC are racing to deploy 5G technology.
Besides 5G’s advances in communications capacity, there are very big bucks on the line. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been warning about possible major negative impacts on its mission to provide accurate forecasts that protect lives and property. NOAA’s warnings have not been warmly received by the FCC or the wireless industry. Complexities abound.
Make no mistake: 5G technology is a national priority and could deliver information as much as 100 times faster than current microwave technology. There are obviously good reasons for the FCC to essentially partner with the wireless industry to get this 5G show on the road. But NOAA has abundant evidence this technology could set us back decades by interfering with the transmission of a broad spectrum of satellite transmission bandwidth. Some of the most critical data for all computer models and for near term detection of dangerous and severe storms is in this bandwidth. The low orbiting polar satellites, with their ever-shifting orbital paths, provide higher resolution detail as they circle the globe.
The bet was on, and it was over the fate of humanity. On one side was the Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. In his 1968 best seller, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich insisted that it was too late to prevent a doomsday apocalypse resulting from overpopulation. Resource shortages would cause hundreds of millions of starvation deaths within a decade. It was cold, hard math: The human population was growing exponentially; the food supply was not. Ehrlich was an accomplished butterfly specialist. He knew that nature did not regulate animal populations delicately. Populations exploded, blowing past the available resources, and then crashed.
he 12 months ending in April 2019 were the wettest year-long period in U.S. records going back to 1895, according to the monthly U.S. climate summary issued Wednesday by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Averaged across the contiguous U.S., the total of 36.20” made the period from May 2018 to April 2019 the first year-long span ever to top 36”. The old record for any 12-month period was 35.78”, from April 2015 to March 2016.
Warm and dry this summer? I'll believe it when I see it and I'm choking on the dust of the dirt roads.
As we head into the month of May, the days finally get longer and warmer.😎 The next sixteen weeks will mostly just be a memory of winter, the cold dark days are long gone.⛱ Summer still has a lot of time left so don’t fret — indeed it will only get nicer with later sunsets and warmer temperature over the next eight weeks as summer heads our way. 🏄
| Week | Date | Dawn | Sun- rise |
Sun- set |
Dusk | Day | Avg High | Avg Low | Record Hi | Record Low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | May 1 | 5:17 am | 5:48 am | 7:56 pm | 8:26 pm | 14:07 | 65 | 43 | 86 (2001) | 28 (2008) |
| 1 | May 8 | 5:08 am | 5:39 am | 8:03 pm | 8:35 pm | 14:24 | 67 | 45 | 91 (1936) | 26 (1968) |
| 2 | May 15 | 4:59 am | 5:32 am | 8:11 pm | 8:43 pm | 14:39 | 69 | 47 | 93 (1900) | 31 (1977) |
| 3 | May 22 | 4:52 am | 5:25 am | 8:18 pm | 8:51 pm | 14:52 | 71 | 49 | 97 (1911) | 33 (2002) |
| 4 | May 29 | 4:47 am | 5:21 am | 8:24 pm | 8:58 pm | 15:03 | 73 | 51 | 93 (1931) | 34 (1956) |
| 5 | Jun 5 | 4:43 am | 5:18 am | 8:29 pm | 9:04 pm | 15:11 | 75 | 53 | 97 (1925) | 39 (1990) |
| 6 | Jun 12 | 4:42 am | 5:17 am | 8:33 pm | 9:08 pm | 15:16 | 77 | 56 | 95 (2017) | 38 (1972) |
| 7 | Jun 19 | 4:42 am | 5:17 am | 8:36 pm | 9:11 pm | 15:19 | 79 | 58 | 94 (1995) | 38 (1950) |
| 8 | Jun 26 | 4:44 am | 5:19 am | 8:37 pm | 9:12 pm | 15:17 | 81 | 59 | 99 (1952) | 39 (1979) |
| 9 | Jul 3 | 4:48 am | 5:23 am | 8:36 pm | 9:11 pm | 15:13 | 82 | 61 | 102 (1911) | 44 (1978) |
| 10 | Jul 10 | 4:53 am | 5:27 am | 8:33 pm | 9:08 pm | 15:06 | 82 | 61 | 100 (1936) | 47 (1963) |
| 11 | Jul 17 | 5:00 am | 5:33 am | 8:29 pm | 9:03 pm | 14:56 | 83 | 62 | 99 (1900) | 45 (1974) |
| 12 | Jul 24 | 5:07 am | 5:40 am | 8:23 pm | 8:56 pm | 14:43 | 83 | 62 | 96 (1941) | 45 (1985) |
| 13 | Jul 31 | 5:15 am | 5:47 am | 8:16 pm | 8:48 pm | 14:29 | 82 | 62 | 98 (1917) | 49 (1978) |
| 14 | Aug 7 | 5:23 am | 5:54 am | 8:07 pm | 8:38 pm | 14:13 | 82 | 61 | 102 (1918) | 46 (1994) |
| 15 | Aug 14 | 5:31 am | 6:01 am | 7:57 pm | 8:28 pm | 13:55 | 81 | 60 | 97 (1988) | 44 (1941) |
| 16 | Aug 21 | 5:39 am | 6:09 am | 7:47 pm | 8:16 pm | 13:37 | 80 | 59 | 98 (1916) | 42 (1977) |
