We're having a very odd winter. After bottoming out at -15°C just yesterday, the temperature in Chicago has climbed past 6°C and it's getting warmer. Here's one consequence, which you can compare to Thursday:
Today's forecast calls for rain and 8°C; the record for January 16 is 14°C.
...at least for a few days. From last night in Chicago:
And:
Here's the view at 11:30. Contrast with an hour earlier:
And here's 2pm:
4pm:
The first significant snowfall of Winter 2012 has started:
The National Weather Service says:
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM CST /10 AM
EST/ THIS MORNING TO 9 AM CST /10 AM EST/ FRIDAY.
* TIMING...SNOW WILL BEGIN BETWEEN 9 AM AND NOON AND CONTINUE
INTO FRIDAY MORNING.
* ACCUMULATIONS...SNOWFALL TOTALS OF 100 TO 200 MM ARE LIKELY WITH
LOCALLY HEAVIER TOTALS POSSIBLE.
* HAZARDS...IN ADDITION TO THE FALLING SNOW...WINDS WILL INCREASE
TO 25 TO 40 KM/H WITH GUSTS UP TO 55 KM/H BY AFTERNOON RESULTING
IN BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW...ESPECIALLY IN OUTLYING AND OPEN
AREAS. WIND CHILLS ARE ALSO FORECAST TO DROP TO -17°C TO -24°C
BY FRIDAY MORNING.
* IMPACTS...ACCUMULATING SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES WILL LIKELY
MAKE TRAVEL DIFFICULT FOR THE AFTERNOON COMMUTE TODAY...WITH
TRAVEL CONDITIONS BECOMING TREACHEROUS AND EVEN DANGEROUS IN
OPEN AREAS TONIGHT INTO EARLY FRIDAY MORNING.
As bad as that sounds, the NWS also predicts it'll be gone by Monday.
Hey, it's Chicago in January, and yesterday it hit 12°C. One or two days of snowfall is no big deal.
More photos as the snow accumulates...
The forecast for Chicago today calls for 13°C temperatures and sunny skies. This is the normal high temperature April 10th, not January 10th—that would be -1°C—and would be only a bit shy of the record (16°C).
Don't worry, January will arrive this weekend. The same forecast calls for -9°C Friday night.
This looks a lot like a shot from last February:
It's still cool. And it's only about five minutes old.
It suggests, however, that I might want to rent a really cool lens sometime. I used the same equipment (Canon 7D, 200mm), but shot hand-held at ISO-400, f/5.6 at 1/1000, then developed it differently than the one from 11 months ago. I also shot this one raw instead of as JPEG, which gave me a lot more flexibility in post.
Mostly, though, we have clear skies and a full moon, so what more reason do I need?
The Paris Observatory has announced a leap second between June 30th and July 1st this year:
A positive leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2012. The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be:
2012 June 30, 23h 59m 59s
2012 June 30, 23h 59m 60s
2012 July 1, 0h 0m 0s
... Leap seconds can be introduced in UTC at the end of the months of December
or June, depending on the [available rotation data].
Leap seconds occur from time to time because the earth's rotation on its axis doesn't stay exactly the same from year to year. Most years it loses about half a second; the last couple of years it hasn't lost as much, so the last leap second came just before 1 January 2009. Eventually, the earth will stop rotating on its axis relative to the sun, in much the same way the moon rotates once on its axis every time it orbits the earth. You've been warned.
This has an interesting side effect, by the way: UTC is now 34 seconds behind the earth, so clocks on things like orbiting satellites—think GPS—have "incorrect" values. Your hand-held GPS receiver will probably be a second slow after June 30th. Your computer, if it syncs up to an authoritative time service, won't.
Welcome to the semi-annual update of the
Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at
http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.)
Date
|
Significance
|
Sunrise
|
Sunset
|
Daylight
|
2012
|
4 Jan
|
Latest sunrise until Oct 28th
|
07:19
|
16:33
|
9:14
|
28 Jan
|
5pm sunset
|
07:07
|
17:00
|
9:52
|
5 Feb
|
7am sunrise
|
07:00
|
17:11
|
10:10
|
21 Feb
|
5:30pm sunset
|
06:39
|
17:31
|
10:52
|
27 Feb
|
6:30am sunrise
|
06:30
|
17:38
|
11:08
|
10 Mar
|
Earliest sunrise until Apr. 15th
Earliest sunset until Oct. 27th
|
06:10
|
17:52
|
11:42
|
11 Mar
|
Daylight savings time begins
Latest sunrise until Oct. 21st
Earliest sunset until Sept. 20th
|
07:09
|
18:53
|
11:45
|
16 Mar
|
7am sunrise, 7pm sunset
12-hour day
|
07:00
|
18:59
|
11:59
|
20 Mar
|
Equinox
00:14 CDT
|
06:53
|
19:04
|
12:10
|
3 Apr
|
6:30am sunrise (again)
|
06:29
|
19:19
|
12:50
|
13 Apr
|
7:30pm sunset
|
06:13
|
19:30
|
13:17
|
21 Apr
|
6am sunrise
|
06:00
|
19:39
|
13:39
|
10 May
|
8pm sunset
|
05:35
|
20:00
|
14:24
|
15 May
|
5:30am sunrise
|
05:30
|
20:05
|
14:35
|
14 Jun
|
Earliest sunrise of the year
|
05:15
|
20:28
|
15:13
|
20 Jun
|
Solstice
18:09 CDT
8:30pm sunset
|
05:16
|
20:30
|
15:14
|
26 Jun
|
Latest sunset of the year
|
05:17
|
20:31
|
15:13
|
2 Jul
|
8:30pm sunset
|
05:20
|
20:30
|
15:09
|
16 Jul
|
5:30am sunrise
|
05:30
|
20:24
|
14:53
|
8 Aug
|
8pm sunset
|
05:53
|
20:00
|
14:06
|
16 Aug
|
6am sunrise
|
06:00
|
19:48
|
13:48
|
28 Aug
|
7:30pm sunset
|
06:13
|
19:30
|
13:16
|
13 Sep
|
6:30am sunrise
|
06:30
|
19:03
|
12:33
|
15 Sep
|
7pm sunset
|
06:33
|
19:00
|
12:28
|
22 Sep
|
Equinox,
09:49 CDT
|
06:39
|
18:48
|
12:08
|
25 Sep
|
12-hour day
|
06:42
|
18:42
|
12:00
|
2 Oct
|
6:30pm sunset
|
06:50
|
18:30
|
11:40
|
13 Oct
|
7am sunrise
|
07:01
|
18:13
|
11:10
|
21 Oct
|
6pm sunset
|
07:11
|
18:00
|
10:48
|
3 Nov
|
Latest sunrise until 2 Nov 2013
Latest sunset until Mar 2nd
|
07:27
|
17:42
|
10:15
|
4 Nov
|
Standard time returns
Earliest sunrise until Feb 28th
|
06:28
|
16:41
|
10:13
|
6 Nov
|
6:30 sunrise
|
06:30
|
16:39
|
10:08
|
15 Nov
|
4:30pm sunset
|
06:41
|
16:30
|
9:49
|
1 Dec
|
7am sunrise
|
07:00
|
16:21
|
9:21
|
7 Dec
|
Earliest sunset of the year
|
07:06
|
16:20
|
9:14
|
21 Dec
|
Solstice,
05:12 CST
|
07:16
|
16:23
|
9:07
|
You can get sunrise information
for your location at wx-now.com.
Not just here, where we're looking forward to 10°C on New Year's Eve to complete a streak of 21 days above normal temperatures,, but also Northern Europe:
Britons getting ready to ring in 2012 can expect highs of up to 15°C after a year of unusually mild weather.
Forecasters said the past 12 months have been the second warmest for the UK after 2006, in which the average temperature reached
9.73°C. The average for 2011 was just a shade lower at
9.62°C.
It comes after the warmest April and spring on record, the second warmest autumn and the warmest October day.
The U.K. also had its warmest temperature in five years on June 27th, when Gravesend, Kent, hit
33.1°C. Pretty soon Britons will need air conditioners.
But there's no anthropogenic climate change happening. None at all.
There is no tomorrow for the island nations of Samoa and Tokelau:
At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 29, time in Samoa and Tokelau will leap forward to Dec. 31 — New Year's Eve. For Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in Tokelau, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, will simply cease to exist.
[Samoan] Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi earlier said it would strengthen trade and economic links with Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Being a day behind the region has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and nearly dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand, Australia and increasingly prominent east Asian trade partners such as China.
"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," Tuila'epa said in a statement. "While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand, and when we're at church on Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."
The islands move from UTC-10:00 to UTC+14:00, and will therefore be the first places on earth to enter 2012.