* 60 is the number of minutes of daylight that we have lost in a very gradual process since the longest days of summer. Eventually that shows up in our daily temperatures because of less heating, of course.
* 91 is the average high temperature in Birmingham in the hottest part of the year from the last half of July through the first half of August.
* 86 is the average high for today, September 10, so we have dropped 5 degrees. The average high will drop 6 more degrees by the end of September.
* 54 is the average high for Christmas Day and 34 the average low.
* 23 degrees with light snow was the weather at Alert in extreme North Canada this morning. That is the northernmost weather station in North America.
* 82 was the number of days that the temperature dropped below 32 in a single winter in Birmingham and that was the winter of 1976-77.
* 83.63 inches is the most rain that Birmingham has ever received in a 12-month period. That happened between February 1961 and January 1962.
* 81 degrees below zero is the coldest temperature ever recorded in North America. It happened on February 3, 1947 at Snag in the Yukon area of NW Canada. The weatherman on duty tossed some water into the air and it fell as pellets of ice before hitting the ground. The Yukon Territory is that part of the world that I like to watch very closely for build-ups of arctic air in winter and especially when their sea level pressure reaches around 1050mb.
* 48,500 is the number of farms in Alabama according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Alabama office in Montgomery.
* 800,950,000 is the number of acerage in farms.
* 1,260,000 was the number of cattle and calves estimated in Alabama this year. Bottom line: you can bet that farmers and ranchers are extremely interested in weather, especially sudden major changes.
* 18 degrees was the low at Stanley, Idaho a few days ago. That qualifies as a hard freeze and it is a bit early in the season for that. But that does not mean that they will have an exceptionally cold winter. There is no distinct clue for that.
* 87 was the high in Austin yesterday and they expect the temperature to stay below 90 for the next several days with occasional thunderstorms. That is in some of the most severe drought area in Central and South Texas, so don’t you know that people are dancing in the streets. 1.34 inches of rain yesterday at Brownsville in South Texas. San Angelo had 1.72 inches.
LIGHTNING IS FRIGHTENING
I have permission to use a story one day from one of our daily readers in Upstate New York. A number of years ago, during a severe electrical storm, her neighbor lady was sitting on the throne. I hope I am telling this in a gentle way. A huge bolt of lightning struck her house and came through the plumbing and knocked her off the throne. Lightning is truly frightful. I am more afraid of lightning, alligators, 25-foot pythons and any snake over 6 inches long that anything else in the world.
