An interesting thing has happened over the last 6 years. I no longer get sad on a rainy day. Just the opposite – I am usually grinning from ear to ear – even when my outdoor activities are ruined. The reason is because rain has been so infrequent during the last 6 years. Now, everytime it rains, I see it as time for celebration. The only time I might get a bit depressed by rainy or cloudy weather is in the late Fall or late Winter after 3 or 4 days in a row. Of course, a nice sunny day makes me happy, but 6, 7, or 8 in a row makes me nervous and anxious. I hate to see the lawns turn brown and the farmers/gardeners worry about their crops. It is a strange turn of events, to cheer an all-day rain, but after experiencing a significant period of drought in each of the last 6 years, perceptions are bound to change. Did you know this: If you add up all the missing precipitation (in Wausau) from the last 6 years it totals about 35 inches. That means we are averaging nearly 6 inches below normal every year since 2003. No wonder some wetlands, reservoirs, and wells are going dry. I certainly would not mind above normal precipitation this growing season – a.k.a. a “wet year”. I have been waiting for a wet year to improve the wild blackberry crop – which has been suffering. During the last couple of years I could hardly find enough blackberries for a pie. One drawback to wet weather that I know most people will complain about is bugs, particularly mosquitoes. We have been spoiled with very low numbers of mosquitoes over the last 6 years.

So today I am smiling. My apologies to anyone who had to work the holiday weekend and now has Tuesday and Wednesday off. So far in Wausau we have picked up about .70 inches of rain (through 9:30 am) and there is a possibility of another inch or so tonight. If we do end up with another inch or more tonight, amazingly, we will end up with above normal rainfall during the month of May. Up until today, we had been running about 1.5 inches below normal. Our weather watcher Marianne from Scandinavia noticed this turnaround and reminded me that it happened the same way in April – below normal precipitation for most of the month then a deluge at the end.

Periods of rain will continue into Wednesday morning then dry up during the afternoon. More sunshine on Thursday will warm temps back up into the 70s, making it the best day too get outside this week. The next chance of significant rain will be on Sunday. With the heavy rain today and perhaps more tonight, the snow left on Rib Mountain might melt a little quicker. I drove out there this morning to check it out (couldn’t use the sky cam because of the rain and fog). There are still 2 large patches of snow on the western slopes. If we get an inch of rain tonight, it will do a number on the remaining snow, but I still think the final melt is a few days away. I will definitely be making a trip to the slopes later this week for an up-close inspection.

Technology News:

I have been following the LED lighting story for a couple of years now and you probably remember a blog series I did entitled “A True Revolution in Lighting”, explaining the benefits of using this new lighting technology. I featured one company that was attempting to commercialize standard LED bulbs but failed (Polybrite). They could not produce the bulb at an affordable price, thus they sell (probably very few) bulbs online for $50 a piece. Yikes! Like everything, mass manufacturing and “economies of scale” are generally needed to bring down the price of an innovative or disruptive new technology. With LED lights, there have been many breakthroughs in recent months but this one might be more important: Obducat’s New Lithography System Provides Energy and Environmental Gains. Obducot has developed a fully automated lithography system that turns out LEDs. Perhaps this development will impact LED lighting applications at the bottom line – the most important considerations for consumers. Lighting uses up 10 to 20 percent of the world’s energy. LED lighting could easily cut that percentage in half.

In other news, another development in cloaking – yes cloaking, like in Star Trek cloaking. This time the cloaking was performed by manipulating an optical waveguideinstead of creating a new metamaterial. The waveguide method could cloak bigger objects (although still very tiny) and perform over a broader range of wavelengths.

And now for something completely different. Climatologists and Oceanographers are using some unique methods to keep track of and learn more about ocean currents. Tracking debris has turned up some valuable insights. Have you ever found some odd piece of junk washed up on the beach? If so you might be able to find out how far it has traveled and how long it was in the ocean. Kind-of like finding an unintentional ”message in a bottle”. Each piece of debris tells a story.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought, Science

Sorry, I forgot to include the link to the US Drought Monitor in yesterday’s blog post. Here it is. Also here is the Wisconsin image. Notice the severe drought area shrinking, leaving most of our area in moderate drought. With another chance of rain late today and a couple chances next week, hopefully we will see these areas of drought shrink even more. One thing I am hopeful for is full streams, rivers, and reservoirs. So many wetland areas have been so dry over the last few years. It is about time water levels start returning to normal. Maybe this is the year. I am also looking forward to more moisture this year in order to produce a better crop of berries. Blackberry picking has been rough lately. I haven’t seen a bumper crop since 2002.

Other than a slight risk of severe storms this evening, the only threat from mother nature over the next few days will be frost Sunday morning. Temps could even drop below freezing in town. I will be taking my sensitive plants inside.

Space News:

A couple more news items I was unable to get to yesterday: While all the news in on the repair of Hubble, Herschel and Planck launched on Wednesday without much fanfare. It was a risky launch because both satellites were launched on the same rocket. Could you imagine the disappointment if the rocket crashed. Both of these satellites are important instruments for science, studying the early origins of the universe and galaxies. Another satellite that has begun operation is Kepler. It could bring some very exciting news in coming months as it is searching for extrasolar planets. Here is Kepler’s first image.

Hubble, Kepler, Herschel, and Planck will likely deliver exciting data and new insights over the next few years. The successful launches (and repairs) are a bright spot for space enthusiasts and hopefully dull the pain of hearing that NASA might abandon plans for a moon base. This was not too much of a surprise to me considering the US debt and budget deficit. Human space exploration is fairly low on the budget totem pole right now.

Despite declining space budgets, you’ll be happy to know that scientists have devised several ways to protect the earth from a deadly asteroid strike. The top 6 proposals are listed here.  Ultimately, the only way for humans to survive existential threats is to spread out through space. Remaining on the planet earth is a precarious situation for society as a whole.

Lastly in the space category, another Lunar X-Prize competitor I forgot to mention earlier in the week – Astrobiotic. They have much bigger plans than winning the Lunar X-Prize. They plan future exploration elsewhere in the solar system.

I was planning on a big AGW post today, but there is just too much to cover, so it will have to wait until next week. Instead, how about an update on LED lighting. If you remember back to early 2008, I was quite excited to hear about a potential product offering from Polybrite. It was an LED lightbulb that fit in a regular light socket. I titled a blog post about it: “A True Revolution in Lighting”. It would have been a revolution if the price would have come down. I tried to contact the CEO of the company to find out what happened but I got no answer. All I can figure is that they could not find a partner to mass-manufacture the bulb and thus the price ended up too high for the retail market. They wanted to sell the bulb for $15. Instead, you can buy it online for $50. Yikes! No wonder it is not in Menards or Walmart. Despite this failure to deliver by Polybrite, the industry as a whole continues to make advancements.

- LEDs built with a shroud of quantum dots emit light that is much closer to real sunlight. The bulb looks great, but costs about $100. The manufacturers want to get it down to $65, but that is still probably not viable in today’s economy.

- Non-blinking nanocrystals could make for brighter LED lighting.

- Exciton polaritons show promisein making cheaper and more efficient lasers and LEDs.

Have a good weekend. Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought, Science, Space