So much for our early spring weather. After 10 straight days of way above avg. temps. (70+, often 80+), a little Jan. reality. Temps. Fri. will struggle just to reach 60 degrees & gusty north winds will make it feel colder. So pull out the sweatshirts, sweaters & coats again.
But we're really only going to see a glancing blow as temps. will moderate quickly for what will be a nice weekend. Highs Sat. will reach the mid 60s & push to near 70 Sunday. A dry cold front will roll through the area Mon. night-Tue. bringing another quick shot of chilly temps. Tue.-Wed. with a possible inland light frost/freeze.
The overall weather pattern for the Lower 48 looks to get more active deeper into the south later next week into the following week. Still early in the game on this pattern but indications are that we'll be wetter & possibly -- at times -- quite cold by late next week into the following week (last week of Jan.). Stay tuned!
From NASA:
Scientists are using new images of Earth’s dark side to gain insight on human activity and poorly understood natural events.
• Read an Earth Observatory feature about the study of nighttime lights - click here.
• Read a NASA press release about the new capability - click here.
• Download hemisphere views and animations - click here.
• Download the flat global map - click here.
• Interactively browse the city lights map at full resolution - click here.
• Download video of the Suomi NPP satellite - click here
Also from NASA:
Life Histories from Landsat: 25 Years in the Pacific Northwest Forest -- click here:
This visualization shows a sequence of Landsat-based data in the Pacific Northwest. There is one data set for each year representing an aggregate of the approximate peak of the growing season (around August). The data was created using a sophisticated algorithm called LandTrendr. LandTrendr analyzes 'stacks' of Landsat scenes, looking for statistical trends in the data and filtering out noise. The algorithm evaluated data from more than 1,800 Landsat Thematic Mapper images, nearly 1 Terabyte of raw imagery, to define the life histories of each of more than 336 million pixels on the landscape. The resulting trends identify periods of stability and change that are displayed as colors.
In these false color images, the colors represent types of land; for example, blue areas are forests; orange/yellow areas are agriculture; and, purple areas are urban. Each 'stack' is representative of a Landsat scene. There are 22 stacks stitched together to cover most of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. This processed data is used for science, natural resource management, and education.
The visualization zooms into the Portland area showing different types of land such as agricultural, urban, and forests. We move south to a region that was evergreen forest for a number of years (blue), then was clear cut in 1999 (orange), then began to regrow (yellow). A graph shows the trajectories for a particular location in the clearcut as the years repeat. The dots represent the original data from Landsat; and, the line represents LandTrendr analysis. We move over to the Three Sisters region to show an area of pine forest that becomes infested with bark beetles in 2004. Next, we move to the southern foothills of Mount Hood where a budworm infestation is in progress; around 1991, the worms move on to another area and shrubs start to regrow. Next we
move to the east side of Mount Rainier National Park to see another budworm outbreak followed by shrub regrowth. Finally, we move to the west of Mount Rainier where we can see widespread clear cutting outside of the park, but no clear cutting inside the protected park land.
