Welcome to Central Standard Time! On this new reality sunrise is at 6:03AM, with sunset at 4:53PM. We’ll have 10 hours and 49 minutes of daylight today, as the days continue to grow shorter. We’ll lose 48 more minutes of daylight by the Winter Solstice, December 21st.
After a chilly start in the 30’s again this morning, get ready for a great Fall day today. Clouds will increase Monday and Tuesday, but a warming trend will take us into the 70’s by mid week.
The big event of the week is another strong cold front, which will bring rain to the area by Thursday evening, and much colder air Friday, which will set the stage for another cool Fall weekend next week.
TODAY: Sunshine, blue sky, nearly perfect. High in the mid 60’s . Light NE wind. Chilly again tonight. Low near 40.
NEXT FEW DAYS: A minor disturbance in the northern Gulf will increase clouds Monday and Tuesday. Although a few showers could tease SE Alabama Tuesday, for most of us it will be dry through mid week. Look for a warming trend. We’ll be back in the 70’s Tuesday through Thursday. Risk of rain creeps into the picture Thursday daytime, but the best chance of rain will be Thursday night, as another strong cold front moves through the state. Friday, there could be some showers early with the front, then it will turn sharply colder.
GFS ENSEMBLES: It’s always fun to peer into the future. As we look at the next 16 days, on the raw model temperature plot for the US model, we are not looking at specific numbers, just trends. This is not a forecast. Having said that, we see a warming trend this week, then the Cold Front brings in colder air for the weekend. Another cold front delivers another shot of chilly air around Nov. 12th or 13th.
DROUGHT MONITOR: In case you’re wondering, the latest Drought Monitor Map showed a big improvement from the week before. In fact, it should look a lot better next week, because this latest map does not include all the rain we got last Thursday.
THE NEW TIME: The new time already has me screwed up. J I tossed and I turned last night. I couldn’t sleep. So, I got out of bed and came into the living room, at what I thought was 3AM. It was, of course, 2AM. Doh.
In this day and age, many clocks in our world are smart. They automatically change. BUT, we’ll all probably discover clocks that do need changing today, and for the next few days. Like the stove. The car. The alarm clock in my bedroom. A couple of clocks in my office at work…
I hope your body quickly adjusts to the new time. It’s so wild that the sun will set well before 5:PM here, due to the fact that we are the extreme eastern end of the Central Time Zone. As close as Columbus Georgia, sunset this evening is at 5:53 EST.
We’ll go through this time change ritual again on Sunday, March 8th, when we Spring Forward. There’s talk that someday, maybe soon, the law will change and we’ll just stay on Standard Time all year.
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I will have a video update for you first thing tomorrow morning at 4:45AM. Have a nice Sunday!
–Rich