Ticker for May 12, 2000

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
May 12, 2000       May 12, 2000       May 12, 2000       May 12, 2000


Western Panhandle Gets Smoked

Yesterday, neither Kenton nor Boise City were the Mesonet's "sunniest"
location (the site which observes the greatest total daily solar
radiation).  Yesterday's trophy went to fellow panhandle station Hooker,
which soaked up 31.7 megajoules per square meter of rays.

Kenton and Boise City are regular champs in the category, but it's not
unusual for another station to replace them at the top of the list.
However, the reason behind yesterday's also-ran finish was definitely
unusual.  Kenton and Boise City weren't obscured by clouds or haze,
but by smoke from the massive forest fire hundreds of miles away in
Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Here's a satellite image of the smoke plume (courtesy of NOAA):



Cold Front Spells Relief

The season's first real heat wave is being subdued today, thanks to a
southbound cold front.  Temperatures in the 60s and 70s prevail behind
the front, representing 24-hour changes of 30 degrees in some locations:




New Ticker Feature

Finally, thanks to a suggestion from a Ticker reader, we've added daily
Mesonet records to each Ticker e-mail message.  Those of you who frequent
the Ticker home page have seen this feature for a while now, but we're
including them in the e-mail messages now.  They're located just below
the Ticker message (look down!  really, it's there!).