First of all, did you not smile over the weekend as you watched it rain? It was great to see. Just since Friday, most places in central Alabama have seen rain, with some spots getting heavy amounts (2.89″ at BHM airport since Saturday morning, 0.51″ from observer Sid Coleman in Trussville). The chart below shows rainfall estimates based on radar and rain gauges (from SE River Forecast Center)
Also, with the clouds and storms around, not a single reporting station that I could find hit 100 degrees in Alabama this weekend. With plenty of moisture around, expect scattered showers and thunderstorms at least through mid-week.
As we approach Labor Day, we know that Summer is starting to wind down, and the days are already getting shorter. With sunset today at 7:20 pm CDT, we will have about 13 hours of daylight in BHM. On June 21, we had 14 hours and 22 minutes. We are losing about 2 minutes per day right now. But, it is changing much more quickly in the Arctic. In Qaanaaq, Greenland, they will have 20 hours of daylight today, but they had 24 hours of daylight up until last Thursday. They are now losing about 25 minutes per day.
The changing light pattern cast by the sun is illustrated well by “Geochron” style maps (seen in Tom Clancy movies). The ones below are from the U.S. Naval observatory. Left is June 21, right is today (Aug 27).
A different view of the changing sunlight angle is seen below, in an animation I put together using other images from the USNO. The top image (June 21) shows the Arctic in 24-hour daylight. The bottom (today) shows that area shrinking in the Arctic.
The air in the Arctic will cool rapidly in the coming 2 weeks, and some of that air will make it into Alabama in September!
