Wednesday was still quite warm, but a bit cooler than Tuesday, and gradually drier as a weak front passed through from the N and W. We had some nice fair-weather cumulus in the afternoon building in the afternoon heat. I still had a “rounded” high temp of 90° but at least with dropping dew point temperatures through the afternoon and evening. Overnight into Thursday skies have been partly cloudy with continued dropping dew points. Lows at sunrise will still be warm, around the 70° mark but with more comfortable dew points in the mid 50s. The Wednesday maximum temperature was 89.5° @ 1538, while the Wednesday minimum temperature was 72.2° @ 0453. The dew point temperatures dropped slowly most of the day, ranging from a high of 68° @ 0300 down to a low of 59° @ 1838. The barometric stayed about the same as yesterday – the highest value being 30.06″ @ 2324 down to a low of 29.89″ @ 0318. The relative humidity values lowered a bit on Wednesday, ranging from a high of 83% at 0426 down to a low of 42% at 1835.

Remember now you can get the VP2 data on Weatherlink. You can access the data through http://www.weatherlink.com/user/walrusman444 I am posting daily to weather underground. My ID is KMDROCKV200 and my station is called “Gardens of Traville.” Data is online, normally just about in real-time. The web address for my data on weather underground is: https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KMDrockv200#history/ I contribute daily to cocorahs as Rockville 2.8 WNW, Station ID MD-MG-115 on https://www.cocorahs.org/ Please remember that Weather Underground precipitation data reflects what is recorded automatically through the tipping bucket VP2 gauge. I actually use the data I post to cocorahs from my 4″ cocorahs gauge I read manually as my “official” precipitation total each day.

I had a busy day, started out with a shower and shave then laundry including my bedding. I worked hard on the trivia questions, and completed the set of 99 questions just a few minutes ago. I got the frozen salmon order from Alaska, packed in dry ice to start, but by the time I opened the box the dry ice was gone, but the salmon fortunately was still frozen so I put most of it away in the freezer and a few pieces in the refrigerator to hopefully cook very soon. I didn’t get a call from Tracy today, but did talk with Ray briefly in the afternoon and with Robin late at night – I helped keep her awake by giving her some of the trivia questions, which she actually did quite well at. I watched the great Yankees 9-0 victory over the Orioles during the evening, and a bit of the Nats loss to the Pirates 2-0 in the afternoon, over an unusual feed from Facebook streaming video. I got a few more votes in for the final AL and NL roster spots for next week’s all-star game before the voting was cut off at 1600. I had a nice couple of bowls of shredded wheat and sliced bananas and a bit of seafood salad later, but never got around to making dinner unfortunately. I did have my usual water, medications and supplements along with some prune juice.

Wednesday was sunny to partly cloudy and still quite warm, with highs around 90° with lows in the low 70s. Thursday should be mostly sunny and a bit “cooler”, with highs in the mid 80s and lows in the low-mid 60s. Friday the 13th should be partly cloudy with highs in the upper 80s and lows in the mid 60s. The weekend looks hot, as both Saturday and Sunday will have sunny to partly cloudy skies and highs in the low-mid 90s and lows around 70°. Monday should continue the temperature patterns in place over the weekend, but hopefully a 40 POP for PM thunderstorms will pan out and give us some much needed rain.

At 0538, Channel 4 radar is pretty clear within the 4-state mid Atlantic area, with the closest rain in coastal NC, and offshore into the Atlantic east of the VA/NC state line. Hurricane Chris is still churning out in the Atlantic, but it starting to pick up speed as it heads NE and staying out to sea till it might brush the Newfoundland coast in a couple of days.

At 0538, the data from the VP2 (coming from the ground radiation shield about 4 feet off the ground just under and out from the balcony) and the Lakewood WX Bug station are as follows:

Partly cloudy skies, warm and dry with continued lowering dew points

Station Relative Location Temp RH    DP     BP    Wind High/Low temp on Wednesday
VP2            Ground         69.9° 57% 54° 30.12″R NA     89.5°/72.2°

The total precipitation in the cocorahs gauge was 0.00″ through midnight Wednesday. The VP2 tipping bucket also had 0.00″. I think the generally greater amount in the VP2 tipping bucket rain gauge recently has been at least partially due to its proximity to a dense evergreen tree that frequently drips down and then blows the “catch” into the gauge. I mostly use this gauge to tell me when and how hard it rained. Marty will be visiting very soon and make some necessary changes to the rain gauges that should help improve performance.

Wednesday’s precipitation was 0.00″
July precipitation total is 0.02″
Year-to-date precipitation total 22.29″

WX Bug Lakewood 4500 ft, 69° 55% 52° 30.14″R ENE 2 G NNW 7
                            140° from station                      90°/73°
The Lakewood rain gauge recorded 0.00″ of rain on Wednesday. The precip records continues to report a July monthly total precip of 0.39″ with the 2018 year-to-date (YTD) amount at 34.79″. I definitely continue to believe that at times the disparities between the Lakewood WX Bug station precipitation amount total for the month and year and my cocorahs gauge based data is that the Lakewood precip values are estimated/adjusted from radar.

At 2400 obs Wednesday night the temperature from the VP2 was 77.7° RH 53% BP 30.06″R DP 59.2°
Mostly clear, warm, dry at 2400 Wednesday

Good morning from the clear, warm and dry home of the Walrus early on this Thursday.