* 93 was the high in Montgomery today as Alabama begins to heat up as summer gets underway.
* 111 was the high in Wink, in West Texas this afternoon. They had 114 yesterday.
* 6% was their relative humidity at the time with strong south winds. That is what I call “blast-furnace” weather. Believe me, you will bake in that kind of weather. I stopped to fill my car with gasoline one afternoon at Shamrock, Tex., in the east part of the Panhandle (19.9 cents per gallon) It was in the 1960s. The temperature was about 104 with strong south winds and blowing dust. A thunderstorm suddenly broke loose and huge drops of rain became little mud-balls as they fell through the thick blowing dust. There were spats of mud on my windshield and in my hair! Those little things that you don’t forget.
* 106 was the temperatuire in Pecos, Texas this afternoon with strong south winds and the humidity 6%. Tis another place I remember. Spent the night there one night in 1957 and there was a howling dust storm during the night. When we awoke next morning, our motel door was half blocked by big piles of tumbleweeds and the new 1957 Chevrolet that we were riding was half covered with tumbleweeds.
* 100 was the late afternoon temperature today in Roaring Springs, Tex., and I remember standing by our national weather wire one night when on duty at NWS/Birmingham and I saw a Flash Flood Warning come across for Roaring Springs! Get the connection?
* 31 was the temperature on the NW side of Hudson Bay in Canada late this afternoon. Had to go that far north to find sub-freezing.
* 28 with light snow late today at Alert, the northernmost weather station in North America at the very top of Canada.
* 105 is the forecast high for tomorrow in Baghdad.
* 28.79 inches is how much rain Birmingham has received this year.
* *10.28 inches is all we had received on this same date last year.
* 3.27 inches is our SURPLUS! EXCESS! as of today. Don’t get too comfortable. With temperatures in the 90s and little or no rain it can get extremely dry quickly, especially because the wet topsoil is probably not very deep.
* 2.92 inches is the deficiency for Anniston as of today. Birmingham is in sort of an island.
* 3.99 inches is the shortfall for Tuscaloosa Airport
* 2,555 feet below sea level is the lowest elevation on earth. It is under the tremendous ice cap over Antarctica. The ice is more than 11,000 feet thick in places and the unbelievable weight of the ice has depressed the surface of the earth that much. The big question that my little persimmon-sized brain wants to ask: What if all that ice could melt instantly–in just a few hours? Would the earth bounce back somewhat like a rubber fall and cause a huge earthquake or would a volcano quickly erupt?
Small minds want to know…life goes on…
