* 86 is the percentage of top soil that has adequate or surplus moisture in the state of Alabama according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Alabama Field Office.Those numbers two years ago, during our severe drought were vastly different.
* 83% of Alabama pasture and range land is in good to excellent condition.
* 7.89 inches is how much rain Atlanta has received so far this September. (At the NWS at Peachtree City) They have received 44.82 this year as compared to 30.92 at this same time last year.
* 6.55 inches is the surplus so far this year. Remember, however, that other parts of the Atlanta Metro has received much more rain, especially in the last week, thus the historic flooding. It is truly a major flood disaster of the first order.
* 16,000 is the number of flood-related claims filed so far in the Atlanta area, 14,000 for home damage and 2,000 for water damaged cars and trucks. Those numbers will grow rapidly.
* 1 October is when the sunshine detector/recorder at Denver’s old Stapleton Airport will be disconnected. There will be no more reports of daily sunshine in climate publications. The sunshine sensor is almost 60 years old and difficult to maintain. At the USWB at Birmingham Airport, we had one of those in the early days. It was called a Triple Register. It recorded minutes of sunshine and each .01 of rain. First duty coming on the midnight shift was to change the chart and analyze.
* 1/2 of one percent is how much of the Lower 48 states was snow covered this morning. Of course, most of it was in the high Mountain West where there are special remote snow recorders (SNOTEL sites) to measure and transmit reports.
* 281 inches was the deepest snow this morning at Noisy Glacier, Washington in the Cascade Mountains, There was 137 inches at Sourdough Gulch, Washington, (I love those place names)
* 16 inches was on the ground today at Hannagan Meadow in the Sitgraves National Forest in East Central Arizona at an elevation of 9092 feet. We were visiting my wife’s aunt and uncle once at Alpine, Ariz., so I took off down a remote road to visit the site. I found a broad open meadow with a lone country store in the middle with an official USWB instrument shelter and raingage out front. I went in and chatted with the owner and got a soft drink. I asked for a Buffalo Rock just to get his reaction. His reply was,”we do not sell alcoholic beverages.” and, of course, he had never heard of Buffalo Rock. I explained that it was a delicious and delectable and healthy ginger ale soft drink.
* 51.42 is how much rain Birmingham Airport has received this year, an amazing excess of 10.65 inches. We are only 2.58 inches short of our average year’s supply so you can be assured that 2009 will end as a “wet year”
* 10.77 inches is how much rain we had at my place in NE Trussville just since last Thursday! At the height of that major flash-flood, James Spann and I were driving south between Starkville and Ackerman, Miss., to Pap’s Place where we put away several thousand calories! We watched the flood event unfold on radar via his iPhone, Maybe I should have one of those.
* 84 degrees is how much the old Birmingham thermometer plunged in February 1899 in our most famous cold wave! It was a balmy 74 on the 3rd and 4th but 10 below zero on the morning of February 13. There was ice-skating on the Black Warrior River at Birmingport. There were unofficial reports of -14 at other places around town. Too bad we did not have records at Birmingham Airport or Pinson at that time. Official records were downtown and well above ground level. I feel sure that Pinson would have reported about -16!
* 108 was the hottest temperature recorded in the Good Ole USA yestarday in Death Valley. (so, what else is new?)
* 25 was the coldest down here where 48 of our 50 states rub against each other. It was at Gunnison, Colo., In Alaska, the coldest was 18 at McKinley Park.
(This report is too long. I promise to shorten it next time Sorry, but I get carried away with stories like these)
