HOT

It's been so hot. And not just peaking in the middle of the day and cooling off around the edges, but just hot, all the time. The low temperatures are in the upper 70's and come right before dawn. Around 11PM last night the heat index was still 97F. Immediately after the sun starts to rise the temperatures climb. You can pull up Weather Underground and just watch the temperature go up. And up. It's sort of grimly entertaining. Unfortunately, the humidity is always 90-something % at that time so the heat index is astronomical. For instance, right now...

9:30 AM.
Temperature: 88.3F
Humidity: 80%
Dew point: 81F
Heat index: 107F
Wind: 0 mph

9:42 AM
Temperature: 88.7F
Humidity: 79%
Dew point: 81F
Heat index: 108F
Wind: 0 mph

That's a pretty uncomfortable situation. Note the dew point of 81F. The temperature is supposed to be 101 today (it was 100 yesterday) and the heat index will be much higher. The last few days the heat index has topped out at 112.

We're under an excessive heat warning and have been for a couple days. We're in good company: it extends over the entirety of Mississippi and Louisiana, most of Alabama and Arkansas, and half of Oklahoma and Texas.

Of course, it's worse in parts of Iran, where the heat index reached an unbelievable 164F yesterday. Lord have mercy!

Sprites

I was driving home from work after dark several years ago and watching the tops of some thunderheads directly in front of me. They were too far away to hear any thunder and I was only seeing the cloud tops, probably over Georgia. The lightning was lighting up the anvil and overshooting tops quite nicely and at one point I saw a vertical flash of light over the clouds. I couldn't imagine what it was. Only later I found out about sprites.

This is a great documentary with some super-slow motion captures of sprites. Mesmerizing.

Summer Lightning

The next two are subtle, but you can see the edge of the shelf cloud approaching.

Rare Wintry Mix

About once a winter we see something in the way of frozen precipitation. This winter (2014-2015) we hadn't seen anything yet, and with the daffodils blooming it seemed as though our chances were slim.

Yesterday the high was 82 and today we have barely nudged above freezing (it's currently 29 in the middle of the day). A more than 50 degree difference in the space of much less than 24 hours is quite extreme!

This morning the drizzle finally changed to a wintry mix and it's been going on for about 3 hours now. The children were quite excited.

Arizona: Just Too Hot

I've always thought Arizona was just plain old HOT. Too hot. Like too hot to be legal. But this confirms it: