The groundhog and the extremes

It’s colder than ever – we woke to our first snow here this morning, February 1.  So you’ll think at least one and a half times before going out in tomorrow’s dawn to see what the groundhog sees.

And see the end-note about enlarging this illustration.

The wealth of planets continues in the sky to the west of the Sun.  As the broad arrow on the celestial equator shows, if you are out an hour earlier Jupiter and Venus, though in a darker sky, will be that much lower, and Saturn and the exquisitely slender Moon will be yet to rise.  The numbers beside the Moon dates are its “age” at the time – hours from the New Moon instant.  Thus on Feb. 2 morning the Moon is 57 hours before New, which will be February 4 at 21 UT.

Whether you brave the cold or not, the groundhog will: his annual duty is to peer out at least far enough to look for his shadow.  If he has one, he will back into his burrow, to continue hibernating for the next six weeks.  They will be cold, under the clear sky that lets warmth escape upward.

A quiz question might be: Can you spell the name of that legendary groundhog?  Is it (my first attempt to remember) Punxsuwatawny Phil?  Not quite.  Spelling it backward, it’s Lihp Yenwatuŝxnup.

Right now, according to weather satellite maps, there is a great clear area over the central USA, fringed by cloud over the west and east coasts and Canada, and dubiously thin cloud over where Phil lives in Pennsylvania.  What I think is certain is that it’s very cold now.

Some, such as twittering Trump, use this to mock the idea of global warming.  “What the hell is going on with Global Waming [sic]? Please come back fast, we need you!”  This is oblivion of the plain science.  Heat is energy.  Added to the air and the oceans, it stirs activity, aggravates extreme weather of all kinds – killing chill in North America and Britain while Australians are dying as if in a furnace.  Record-breaking temperatures both low and high are increasing in number, but the record-breaking highs are increasing in number twice as fast.

__________

DIAGRAMS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format.  You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.  One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge.  Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it.  On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers).  I am grateful to know of what methods work for you.

This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.