Ticker for January 4, 2006

                
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January 4, 2006    January 4, 2006    January 4, 2006    January 4, 2006



Atmospheric Feats of Strength

Yesterday's high temperature of 87 degrees at Camargo was ten degrees
cooler than the 97 Camargo recorded exactly one-half year prior.

Both of these days featured pretty much wall-to-wall sunshine, with
two subtle but profound variations: (1) the sun rides much, much higher
in the sky on July 3rd, compared to January 3rd; and (2) on July 3rd,
the sun was employed by our hemisphere for almost five hours more than
it was yesterday.

These two factors add up to vastly different amounts of solar energy
reaching the surface on these crystal-clear days. On July 3rd, Camargo
and environs soaked up 27.98 MegaJoules per square meter of shortwave
shine.  Yesterday, despite its aforementioned crystal-clarity, only
11.56 units made it to the surface at Camargo.

And that makes yesterday's 87 degrees an impressive feat, worthy of
our respect, even if tinged with fire-weary contempt. In July, the
atmosphere often just opens its skies and lets our solar workhorse
push temperatures higher. Yesterday, it took real work to move warm
air into the region. The dynamics associated with these redundant
storm systems may not be producing much rainfall, but they are
certainly up to the task of yanking large airmasses about the
continent.

That said, we grudgingly acknowledge the atmopshere's Herculean
efforts, and wish it would just stop showing off, slow down a bit,
and bring us some rainfall.