Saturday looks like a nice summer day with warm temps and a bit of humidity, but nothing crazy. Expect lots of sunshine with some clouds around in the afternoon. We’ll stay dry.
We continue to watch Hurricane Isaias in the Bahamas. This storm is expected to undergo fluctuations in intensity in the next 2 days as it turns northwest then north up the Florida coastline.
It is possible that the storm moves up the eastern seaboard (or right along the coast) and moves into New England. It’s too early to talk about specifics as far as rain, wind and storm surge, but all three factors are on the table.
We’ll continue to watch Isaias closely. By the way, the storm is pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs.
As we turn the page into the weekend, the big story will be Hurricane Isaias as it inches closer to the Florida coast line Saturday afternoon and evening. A few models want to indicate a brief brush along the Space Coast, but we will have to watch to see how close or if Isaias makes a landfall. But the latest track from the National Hurricane Center does project a landfall along the Carolinas with potential for storm surge, heavy rain and hurricane force winds.
Locally for us, we will be hot and dry for Saturday as we watch a cold front approach the region by Sunday. This cold front will be very weak and lose most of it’s moisture associated with it. The front will help steer the hurricane away from the Georgia coastline. A secondary cold front is forecasted to move into the southeast by middle of next week and stalling out. This frontal boundary would help increase rainfall at least through the end of next week.
Although, we are tracking several frontal systems that will move across Alabama and Georgia they won’t effect temperatures at all. We will remain hot with mid to low 90s. Maybe a few days we will see lower humidity, but for the most part we will stay summer-like.
Lincoln, Nebraska — The new report from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows more Iowa counties now showing dry conditions.
The Iowa DNR’s Tim Hall says the negative outweighs the positive in the report.
He says the state had a little bit of improvement in one area — but mostly the state had degradation or increasing drought in other areas. He says the driest area continues to be in western Iowa, around Carroll, Greene, Guthrie, and Audubon counties and in the partial counties around there. He says there’s a little bit of D-2 drought in Plymouth County up here in northwest Iowa, which just spills into southern Sioux County. He says those two areas are the driest at this time.
Hall says the dry conditions have started to spread to the east, with exceptional dryness as far east as Linn County, and then also along the river. He says about half the state or maybe a little more is shown in some form of dryness and drought.
Hall says the impact of the dry areas can also be seen in satellite images of the crops. He says, “There’s a tool out there called VegDRI — which also comes from the drought monitor folks — and they’re actually looking at visual indications of stress in vegetation. And that VegDRI map lines up pretty closely with where we’ve seen the precipitation deficits.”
He says the good news for the western areas that are dry is the impact right now isn’t hitting water supplies. He says he thinks because of the exceptionally wet couple of years we had coming into this year, that we’re still doing okay on the groundwater side. According to Hall, right now it’s primarily an agricultural surface water phenomenon.
Hall says the precipitation deficit is a concern because we are soon going to be heading out of the wettest months of the year, and could be behind in groundwater going into the winter.
BERRYVILLE — A large portion of Clarke County officially is in a drought while much of the region remains abnormally dry due to a recent lack of rainfall.
The U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday showed most of eastern Clarke County, including the Bluemont and Millwood areas, is under a moderate drought. Basically, that means some damage to crops and pastures is occurring, and some streams, reservoirs and wells may be running low.
Portions of Warren, Fauquier, Loudoun, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Orange, Culpeper and Rappahannock counties, as well as the city of Fredericksburg, also are drought-stricken, the monitor shows.
It also shows that Berryville, Boyce and White Post, and areas west into central and southwestern Frederick County, including Winchester and Stephens City, are abnormally dry. That means short-term dryness is hindering farmers in planting crops and slowing the growth of ones already in the ground.
Ashley Hardesty of Harvue Farms, a dairy farm off Longmarsh Road in Clarke County, is becoming worried that corn growing there may not be able to produce enough silage to feed cattle throughout next year.
'Our corn is really suffering," Hardesty said, with stalks not growing as high as usual.
"It's really struggling to make ears of corn," she said, adding "it takes a lot of water make an ear."
The Mackintosh Fruit Farm on Russell Road has installed a drip-line irrigation system.
"I think we've got a handle on" the dryness now, said owner Lori Mackintosh. But for a while, the crops were withering significantly.
According to Mackintosh, apples were small and peaches were starting to fall off trees.
"Even leaves on some of the brambles were getting fried" in the heat, she said.
The Drought Monitor, which analyses surface and ground water conditions nationwide is a project of the National Drought Mitigation Center. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln are partners in the project.
Data collected by the National Weather Service (NWS) at its climatological reporting station in Martinsburg, West Virginia, shows that as of Friday evening, the region officially had received 19.41 inches of rain since Jan. 1. That was 3.75 inches below the normal amount of 23.16 inches through July 31. By this time last year, though, the region was extremely moist, having received 32.18 inches of rain.
Just since June, the region has received 5.31 inches of rain, which is 2.12 inches below the normal amount of 7.43 inches, the data shows.
Martinsburg, classified as abnormally dry, is the closest reporting station to Winchester.
The Berryville/Clarke County area is faring a little worse than Martinsburg. Austin Mansfield, a meteorologist at the NWS office in Sterling, said weather spotter reports indicate 15.81 inches of rain have fallen on the area so far this year, 7.56 inches below normal. In July alone, he said, 1.05 inches fell, and that was 2.24 inches below normal.
Daytime high temperatures in the 90s on most days since late June have worsened the dryness, the weather service reported.
"At this time, most of the impacts of this dry and hot spell are stresses to grasses, soils and some crops, especially corn," a drought report on an NWS website stated.
Conditions seem to be getting better.
Drought over parts of the region initially was indicated on July 23, according to the NWS, which reported that many areas have seen more than two inches of rain since then. More fell Thursday night through Friday.
Stream levels are recovering, and soil moisture now is near to above normal in many areas, the drought report stated.
Groundwater is starting to rebound but "it is always the last element to show improvement after a dry spell," the report stated, "and more rain is needed to start a true turnaround in groundwater levels."
Hardesty said Harvue's wells seem to have been affected little by the dryness.
The national Climate Prediction Center is forecasting above-normal precipitation for the region in August, "so that should help us out," Mansfield said.
For much of the first full week of August, frontal boundaries will be near the region, resulting in enhanced chances for rain. There also is the potential for tropical cyclone Isaias to move close to the region and further enhance precipitation, according to the weather service.
The most likely scenario, the NWS reported, is 1½-4 inches of rain through Aug. 6, with heavier amounts of rain over areas with moderate drought. Cooler temperatures and cloudiness should help any rain that falls stick around in the soil.
Yet "drought relief is not guaranteed," the weather service advised, because there is uncertainty over the path Isaias eventually will take and exactly where frontal boundaries will stall. So rainfall amounts lower than predictions are possible.
Hardesty said she's glad "we're getting some rain at a critical time" in the growth of Harvue's corn.
The corn will be chopped into silage from late August through early September. Hardesty added that Harvue won't know if enough silage for next year can be produced until after the chopping occurs.
Whatever is produced, "it will be a struggle" to make it last all year, she predicted. "We'll have to make it stretch," and maybe even buy some extra.
The NWS plans to issue its next drought update on Aug. 13 but may do so sooner if conditions change significantly. The next Drought Monitor update will be on Aug. 6.
July 31, 2020 at 05:07AM
https://www.winchesterstar.com/winchester_star/recent-rains-help-alleviate-dry-conditions/article_79981ae1-ea75-5eba-8817-21b6ebde8fbc.html
Recent rains help alleviate dry conditions - The Winchester Star
The new report from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows more counties now showing dry conditions.
The Iowa DNR’s Tim Hall says the negative outweighs the positive in the report.
“We had a little bit of improvement in one part of the state — but mostly we had degradation or increasing drought in other parts of the state,” Hall says. He says the driest area continues to be in western Iowa.
“It’s centered around Carroll, Greene, Guthrie and Audubon County and then in the partial counties around there,” Hall says. “Kind of that part of the state, there’s a little bit of D-2 drought in Plymouth County up in northwest Iowa. So, those two areas together are the worst parts.”
Hall says the dry conditions have started to spread to the east. “Now there’s exceptional dryness as far east as Linn County, and then also along the river,” according to Hall. “So we’ve got about half the state, a little over half the state is shown in some form of dryness and drought.”
VegDRI map shows drought impact on crops.
Hall says the impact of the dry areas can also be seen in satellite images of the crops.
“There’s a tool out there called VegDRI — which also comes from the drought monitor folks — and they’re actually looking at visual indications of stress in vegetation. And thatVegDRI map lines up pretty closely with where we’ve seen the precipitation deficits,” Hall says.
He says the good news for the western areas that are dry is the impact right now isn’t hitting water supplies. “I think because of the exceptionally wet couple of years we had coming into this year we’re still doing okay on the groundwater side. Right now it’s primarily an agricultural surface water phenomenon,” he says.
Hall says the precipitation deficit is a concern because we are soon going to be heading out of the wettest months of the year, and could be behind in groundwater going into the winter.
Pleasant and comfortable for the end of this week! Temperatures in the low 80s this afternoon with a nice breeze from the east. Mostly sunny skies with dry conditions into the weekend.
TONIGHT:
Lows in the upper 50s, near 60 degrees. Cool and comfortable. Clear skies. Dry.
TOMORROW:
Saturday brings more of the same. Beautiful weather to start with highs reaching the low 80s. Mostly sunny skies give way to afternoon cloud cover. Showers move in from the south, affecting Michiana after 4pm. Rain more likely into the day Sunday.
LIMA, Ohio - A pleasant and dry Friday is in store, but the weekend will bring rainfall our way. Temperatures will trend well below normal to start August.
Friday Forecast: We expect highs to reach the lower 80s this afternoon underneath a partly sunny sky. The weather remains very nice for the evening hours as well.
WEEKEND: Confidence for rain this weekend has steadily increased since yesterday. Latest data now has spotty showers reaching the area by sunrise tomorrow, with spotty light rain expected during the morning hours. Showers will become more frequent during the afternoon and evening, but there should be several dry hours through the day. Isolated thunderstorms may join in the mix later in the day through Saturday night. Parts of our southern viewing area are under the marginal risk for severe storms. Threats would include wind or a brief spin-up tornado, but the severe concerns are quite low. Showers and storms will be most numerous Saturday night, then become more widely scattered Sunday. We may even see periods of sun Sunday afternoon. Not a "washout" of a weekend...but it has definitely trended more unsettled for our viewing area. Great news for the farmers, but perhaps not as ideal for weekend outdoor activities. NOAA even places our area in a slight risk for excessive rainfall Saturday night, meaning rainfall could be enough in isolated spots to produce some flooding. A broad 0.50" to 1" seems like a good estimate, but localized bands of higher totals can occur.
NEXT WEEK: Just as this system exits Sunday, another system quickly moves in from the northwest. This will keep us in an unsettled regime to start off the new week. It should be noted that Monday & Tuesday will not be washouts, and there will even be periods of sunshine. Best rain chances will occur during the afternoons. This system should pull away by mid-week, with increasing sunshine and a dry forecast returning. Highs will only be in the 70s, with overnight lows in the 50s many nights next week.
HURRICANE ISAIAS: The latest forecast has Isaias tracking from Florida's east coast all the way to the Northeast from late weekend through the middle of next week. This will bring rough seas, heavy rain, and strong winds for our nation's Eastern Seaboard. It is forecast as a category 1 hurricane for much of it's journey along the coast, eventually becoming a tropical storm as it reaches the Northeast. No impact at all for us in Ohio.
July 31, 2020 at 06:24PM
https://www.hometownstations.com/news/forecast-dry-friday-rain-returns-saturday/article_6e740420-d320-11ea-a4be-bfec08528750.html
Forecast: Dry Friday, rain returns Saturday | News - Your News Now
Line drying is a great way to save energy and make your laundry routine a little greener. Plus, there is nothing quite like the smell of sun-dried sheets or the sight of them flapping in the wind. Maine may not seem like an ideal place to line dry clothing because of the humidity and the icy winters, but Mainers have found a way.
“You don’t need bleach if you line dry, and your linens have the best smell,” said Natalie Allen from Midcoast Maine. “Watching a line full of white sheets snap in the wind on a sunny summer day is one of the most beautiful chores. Drying outside is economical, environmentally friendly as well as just plain satisfying.”
Here’s what you need to know to start line drying.
Setting up for line drying
If you are interested in line drying for yourself, the first thing you need to do is set up your apparatus. It can be as simple as two stakes in the ground with lines strung between them.
“I would probably recommend materials that are weather resistant — so, pressure treated wood, and a plastic-coated rope so it doesn’t grow mold from uncoated rope being out in the rain and heat,” said Morgan Harper in Berwick. “Don’t want that on your clean clothes!”
If you aren’t able to set up stakes, Allen said she is always on the lookout for a nice straight branch with a crook in it. Allen added that having a sturdy, notched pole on hand to help with line sag or to lift sheets a few extra inches off the ground is a must.
There is nothing quite like the smell of sun-dried sheets or the sight of them flapping in the wind. Credit: Courtesy of Jj Starwalker
Choosing a good location for your line drying apparatus is also important. Harper, for example, recommended that you don’t put it next to a duck or chicken coop, or under a tree where it might get covered in bird poop or other critters.
Line drying is not exclusively done outdoors, either. Kari Pfister, who lives near Bangor, said that she line-dries clothes in her upstairs loft.
“It works out well for us,” Pfister said. “In the winter, the wood stove makes them dry quickly. We just strung a line of paracord through some eyelets and it holds even the heaviest of our bedding just fine.”
Allen said that sometimes, she will line dry in her basement, using both lines and a folding rack.
“My dry basement has lines crisscrossing the ceiling,” Allen said. “Make sure you leave plenty of space for good airflow. Running a fan helps to keep the air from getting musty. We sometimes keep a rack in front of the wood stove for extra damp items.”
Not every item needs to be line dried, either. Even Mainers who love line drying will leave certain things to an electric clothes dryer.
“We have found that jeans and bath towels, for our preference, come out a bit too stiff on the line so we use our machine dryer for those,” Harper said.
To combat stiffness, you can also run a little bit of fabric softener or even a splash of white vinegar in with the wash before line drying.
Line drying in the winter
Most Mainers stick to drying clothing on the line during the warmer months — spring, summer and even early fall. On humid days, some will move their laundry inside, or pop them in the dryer for a shorter amount of time after allowing them to hang dry.
However, some Mainers also line dry well into the winter.
You can still line dry your clothes in the winter. Credit: Courtesy of Jj Starwalker
Jj Starwalker, a homesteader based in Corinth, said she will wait for “good drying days” in the winter, which she defines as having no precipitation and a bit of wind and sun.
“It is not necessary for it to be above freezing. Just hang quickly! The breeze and the sublimation of the water from the laundry to the air will make them relax as they dry,” Starwalker said.
Starwalker said she also hangs her clothes strategically in the winter, offering plenty of space between items, staggering the placement on my four lines and hanging in such a way that maximum surface area is exposed for maximum drying potential.
“For example, this time of year, washcloths and cleaning rags are hung by a corner with one pin,” Starwalker said. “In the winter, each gets spread out, with two pins. Often even in the winter everything will get dry; [the] possible exceptions are heavy, lined jeans and sweats.”
Maine may not seem like an ideal place to line dry clothing because of the humidity and the icy winters, but Mainers have found a way. Credit: Courtesy of Jj Starwalker
Whatever doesn’t dry, Starwalker said she will hang on wooden racks indoors until they do.
Even if you are line drying in the spring or summer, though, choosing a good drying day is important.
“I prefer to do it on days with less humidity than we have been receiving lately,” Harper said. “A slight breeze is preferable.”
How browntail moths can impact line drying
Mainers who want to line dry their clothes have a new problem to face: browntail moths, whose itch-inducing caterpillars crawl onto laundry lines or drop from trees on clothing, sheets and other drying fabrics as they flutter in the wind.
“I’ve stopped line drying because of the browntail moths and the itching it causes,” Becky Choate from South Gardiner said. “I do feel like we have fewer moths this year than the last two summers, which is encouraging.”
Alexis Zimba from Saint George said that when she was pregnant, she got a browntail moth rash on her stomach that she blamed on a line-dried t-shirt that mingled with a moth. She said that location is important if you want to avoid browntail moths.
“[I] never line dried clothes again at that spot, and didn’t get re-exposed to the rash,” Zimba said. “Our clothes line was tied to a tree at one end, so that may have contributed, but still, I wouldn’t risk it now, other than on an enclosed sun porch or something.”
If you live in an area plagued with browntail moths, Choate added that strategically choosing what you line dry may help.
“I’m still only putting outer blankets on the line — nothing that touches our skin,” she said.
The sun has finally returned to South MS, and thankfully isn’t in a hurry to leave so expect plenty of clear and dry days. Expect tonight to be mostly clear and warm with a low near 76. Winds will remain light and southwesterly at 4 mph. A few clouds will move in as we head into the afternoon, but overall continue to expect much more sunny weather. Skies will average “mostly sunny,” but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was closer to “partly sunny” between 2-6 PM due to heating, but rain is not likely.
Since we no longer have our thick cloud cover and rain-cooled air to help out, it’s going to get uncomfortably hot again.
Expect the heat index to linger between 100-105 degrees through the weekend and into next week. This means long-term exposure can cause problems, but as long as you hydrate and take frequent shady breaks you’ll be fine. By next week things will have gotten back to “normal,” meaning average highs in the low 90s with around a 30% chance of heating-induced rain.
After another hot and humid day, temperatures this afternoon will struggle to reach 90, therefore I think that our heat wave will end at six days. Humidity levels will be lower this afternoon as well, so it's going to feel a bit better than it did yesterday with all the humidity.
Today features a weather system moving south of New England. This brings a lot of clouds and the chance of some showers on the south coast.
Saturday looks like a great beach day with temperatures getting well into the 80s. A few inland areas could also touch 90 once again. On Sunday, we'll see a blend of clouds and sunshine with an increase in humidity and still very warm conditions
We continue to see many areas lacking in rainfall, so the drought conditions remain. It looks as though the dry weather will continue through the weekend before we have to look at the chance for rain.
A tropical storm continues to organize itself well to the south; it will turn northward later this weekend and move along the coastline next week. When you see a tropical storm track you should think about the fact that the left side of the storm is the wet side the right side is the windy side. If the storm goes over Cape Cod, we would experience very heavy rain; if the storm takes a more inland track, then it would be windiest on the Cape and the islands.
There are still several days for the forecast to become refined, so there's a chance we see when it rain, but there's also a chance the whole thing just end up going out to sea.
You can follow my updates here and on Twitter @growingwisdom.
Friday: Lots of sunshine. Highs 85-90.
Friday night: Mainly clear to partly cloudy. Lows 65-70.
Saturday: Sun and clouds. Highs approaching 90, cooler on the Cape.
Sunday: Partly cloudy. Maybe a shower or two late in the day. Highs in the low to mid-80s.
Monday: A few showers possible. Sun and clouds. Highs around 90.
Tuesday: Partly cloudy with passing showers developing. Watching for a possible tropical storm. Highs near 83.
If it seems like the heat has been relentless this summer, that's because it has been. In fact, with just one day left in July, we’re on track to close out the month as the second hottest July on record. The weather is impacting local farmers.
"We've been doing significantly more irrigation than we've done in the past,” explained Jacob Conover, the Farm Manager at Silverman’s Farm in Easton. “Specifically with our blueberries and our vegetable crops."
Local farmers have been making up for Mother Nature's lack of rain by pumping out more water than usual, which works for some crops, but at Silverman’s Farm in Easton, tree fruit like apples and peaches don't have an irrigation system with any real means of watering other than rain.
"We're definitely going to see some effects of the dry weather when it comes to the fruit size and just the overall crop of the fruit," said Conover.
While some impacts are already visible, the dry hot summer could also have a long term effect.
"It can effect sort of the longevity of the plants,” said Andy Billipp of Eddy Fam in Newington. “And you know that stress can come out in either less resistance to pests and disease which generally hit a little later in the summer."
But our local farmers are resilient and so are their employees. The heat is bothersome to more than just the plants. It can make for some difficult conditions at the Eddy Farm Stand in Newington.
"That is a no frills structure down there. So it's basically a little shed. There's no power, no running water or anything like that," said Billipp. "They've been working out in 95 degree heat and everyone has a positive attitude no one's complaining. I mean it is a thing we have to keep in mind you know making sure everyone is staying hydrated."
While battling the heat and changes to business amid COVID-19, local farmers are still getting creative and finding ways to deliver the fresh products you love most. In just a few weeks, Silverman’s farm will be inviting shoppers to the big top.
Irv Silverman of Silverman’s farm explains, "It will give people a lot more space outside to get all their fresh fruits and vegetables without going into the market where we are pretty strict on how many people can go in."
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - A change of pace Thursday where clouds were present over much of Michiana all day. This kept us in the low 80s for highs and some of us even saw a few sprinkles. Overnight we will drop into the lower 60s as some of the clouds will be hanging around the region. A sprinkle early this evening is possible but then things dry out as the main areas of rain stay to the South.
Friday will feature a mix of sun and clouds throughout the day with temperatures topping out near 80 degrees again. We will remain dry through at least the first half of the weekend. Temperatures also remain constant near 80 until Monday. A little bit of a cooler air mass moves in and brings the chance for some showers with it. The system will move our way Sunday afternoon and then stick around bring the chance for showers and a rumble of thunder through Tuesday morning. Temperature for the middle of next week look to drop into the mid to upper 70s. A nice cool off in store after the heat and humidity the past few weeks.
THURSDAY NIGHT: Clouds hanging around, but we remain dry! A more refreshing air mass on the way in making it feel comfortable. Low of 60
FRIDAY: A warm afternoon on tap with clouds and peaks of sun. Lower dewpoints making it feel very comfortable! High 80.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Another refreshing night. Partly cloudy and feeling comfortable. Low of 60.
SATURDAY: Warm with some sunshine. Our cooldown begins on Sunday! High of 82.
When Air Force veteran Michael Emery went to pick up his dry cleaning from First Virginia Cleaners for the first time since the outset of the pandemic, he knew the economic fallout of the shutdown hit close to home.
The store at 2929 S. Glebe Road was dark, the air conditioning was off and owner Chantra Chet had tears in her eyes as she explained to him how poorly business was going. That’s when Emery, the longtime customer of Chet’s, knew he had to act.
Emery, an Arlington resident, created a GoFundMe campaign to support the store, which is located in the Arlington Ridge Shopping Center. Revenue at the dry cleaning business has plummeted as much at 80%, according to Chet, as office workers stay at home and formal wear stays in closets.
“It’s really helped me a lot,” Chet said of the fundraiser. I don’t know how I can thank him for what he did for me.”
The GoFundMe’s goal is currently $20,000, but Emery said that number was ambitious. He feels that even raising enough to pay for a month of her rent would be a success.
So far, Emery has posted to different community Facebook groups around the neighborhood to garner support. His fundraiser has reached a wide audience, and he’s even received donations from other states. Since the fundraiser was launched on July 9 it has collected more than $3,000, with contributions still growing.
This is not the first time Chet has faced adversity. She moved to the United States from Cambodia as a refugee from the Khmer Rouge in 1982, despite not speaking a word of English, and has been working in the community for more than 35 years. She was able to buy her dry cleaning business after working there for 14 years and has been running it ever since.
Right before the pandemic, Chet had spent her entire life savings on purchasing a second location to house all the dry cleaning equipment, according to Emery, adding that when the coronavirus pandemic hit, her business was “decimated.” He noted that because business was struggling, Chet could no longer afford air conditioning or electricity. To make matters worse, her landlord increased her rent to $9,000 per month.
Dry cleaners around the country are suffering a similar fate. What had been considered a safe, steady business is not among the industries hardest hit by the pandemic.
“There were no proms this year. No bridesmaids. No men in tuxedos. All that, gone,” one owner told CBS News. “We’ve been through every economic downturn. But this?”
A software provider to the industry said that dry cleaning revenue is still down about 50% on average, and was down even more earlier in the pandemic, according to the article.
Emery described Chet as very warm and friendly, especially to her customers.
“Once you peel back the layers you see that she is incredibly hardworking and patriotic, and just very caring,” he said. “She is the embodiment of the American Dream.”
Emery hopes Chet can gain support either through donations or more business.
“At a time when people are so politically divided… I feel like she represented everything that is good about this country,” said Emery. “This felt like something very small that I could do.”
After a seasonable day, a few showers and isolated thunderstorms linger until just after sunset. Mostly to partly cloudy skies remain tonight with lows falling back into the low to mid 60s. By tomorrow sunshine does return with a few spot showers possible, mainly in the mountains. Most look to stay dry. Highs on Friday peak in the low to mid 80s once again.
This weekend’s forecast is looking dry to start. A sunny Saturday is in store with highs in the mid to upper 80s. Shower chances return on Sunday. Overall a seasonable start to August. However, July looks like it will go down as the hottest month on record for Burlington, VT with the overall average temperatures for the month at 77 degrees. So far this season, Burlington has seen eighteen 90+ degree days.
July 31, 2020 at 04:49AM
https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/weather/weather-blogs/weather-blog-showers-diminish-tonight-with-a-mainly-dry-end-to-the-week/
Weather Blog: Showers diminish tonight with a mainly dry end to the week - Local 22/44 News
When PJ Harvey started releasing records in the early Nineties, her raw lyrical depictions of sex and violence made people uncomfortable; it wasn’t often you heard a young, female artist (or a male one for that matter) sing something like “I’ll make it better/I’ll rub ’til it bleeds.” But Harvey wasn’t trying to play alt-rock Alice Cooper. She came about her strong stomach honestly, working as a teenage farm hand in England’s West Country. “I used to ‘ring’ all the lambs’ tails and testicles,” she told the NME. “I’d clear up dead [stillborn] lambs when they came out in bits — because sometimes they’d decompose inside the sheep and you’d take them out bit by bit.” So she never winced when she sang, “I’m happy and bleeding for you” on Dry’s “Happy and Bleeding,” or when fetishizing the dismemberment of her lover on Rid of Me’s “Legs,” or even while conjuring the image of oral sex with Robert De Niro in 4-Track Demos’ “Reeling.”
“I like to humiliate myself and make the listener feel uncomfortable,” she told Spin in 1993. “That [is] the ideal package.”
Even now, nearly three decades after the jerking rhythms of her debut single “Dress,” and its whimsical tale of trying to impress a man by putting on one particularly ill-fitting frock, catapulted her from her home village of Corscombe (population then: 600) onto the world stage, her earliest recordings still sound gloriously perverse. It’s a different hue of shock rock, one that feels more believable and human, like your own personal nervous breakdown, a strangely appealing elixir of whispers and screams.
Harvey recently kickstarted a series of reissues with her band’s 1992 debut, Dry, and the mostly solo demo recordings she made for each of its songs while at art school the previous summer. At the time, there was a stark contrast between Polly Jean Harvey, the singer and guitarist, and PJ Harvey, the three-piece band. Listening now to how raw her music was and how mordant her wit was on the newly rechristened Dry – Demos (which originally came out on a limited-edition Dry bonus disc in 1992 with the title Demonstration), it sometime sounds like a different album. But it also foreshadowed the intimate sounds and inner-voice poetry that has defined her later work.
Without drums or tight production, songs like “Victory,” “O Stella, and “Hair” have more in common with the blues artists who inspired Harvey growing up than the alternative scene she was lumped in with. Although she was a Pixies fan who played sax in local indie bands and had a brief moment of rebellion in the Eighties when Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet ruled her world (“Soft Cell singing ‘Tainted Love’ is probably one of my favorite songs of all time,” she once told Rolling Stone), Harvey was most interested in the records that belonged to her sculptor mother and stoneworker father than those on Top of the Pops. Her heroes were the same bluesmen who inspired Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page: Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker. The rock artists she cited in interviews were fellow blues students: Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Captain Beefheart. When the BBC prodded her in ’92 to name some current artists that moved her, the only one she summoned was th’ Faith Healers, whose drummer, Joe Dilworth, was her boyfriend and, after their breakup, became the focus of her ire on 1993’s Rid of Me.
“There was so much of that feeling in blues music whether it was good or bad,” she told Spin in 1995. “That feeling, that roughness … I thought, ‘Yeah, you can have both. You can be young and have this incredible ‘guts’ to what you’re doing. You can say strong things. You don’t have to sing about the washing up or the kitchen sink — you can think about really important things in a really honest way.'”
On “O Stella,” she sings to Stella Maris, the Virgin Mary, whom she calls her guiding light. She strums acoustic guitar on the demo recording, working her way through the riff’s unusual rhythms with little guitar accents thrown in here and there as she repeats the lines “I think I see her smiling” and “A place for heroes only,” driving them into listeners’ brains. The Dry version is faster, electric, and awe-inspiring — a completely different vibe with her bandmates, bassist Steve Vaughan and Rob Ellis, reining in her rhythms. The “Oh My Lover” demo features even trickier acoustic guitar, and Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan (whose “Highway 61 Revisited” she later covered and whose evasiveness in interviews she mirrored) echo through her playing as she sighs her lyrics; the Dry version is practically doom rock by comparison with its plodding bass. Her slide-guitar work on “Victory” and “Happy and Bleeding” shows her Elmore James influence, though the 4-Track Demos version of “Ecstasy” is where it drops jaws. Musically, the demos feel like a shadow world — her id — compared to the band’s extraversion.
Her words feel even more cutting here, like a journey into the horror and humor that defines her poetic aesthetic. “It’s not just [about] extremes of loud and quiet,” she told the NME in 1992, “as a writer, I want extremes in the lyrics, too.” With her voice competing mostly only with acoustic guitar on Dry – Demos, the way she takes the Biblical story of Mary of Bethany cleaning Jesus’ feet with her hair on “Joe” makes a line like “Lay my enemies out in lines/Come in close and I’ll wash your feet/With my hair I’d mop them dry” stick out in a way it didn’t on Dry’s funk-metal miasma. On their own, the words could also easily fit on her more musically restrained works like Is This Desire? or Let England Shake.
And “Sheela-Na-Gig” — another tongue-in-cheek yarn like “Dress,” about a disinterested suitor, paired with a “sheela na gig,” the name of the British Isles’ many stone statues depicting women with wide grins spreading open their vulvas — sounds more like a giddy folk song than the album version. “He said, ‘Sheela-na-gig, sheela-na-gig, you exhibitionist,'” she sings in the chorus, before ironically quoting South Pacific’s “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” and the comedy of it is also more apparent on the acoustic version where the words are more on exhibit. She yodels a little at the start of “Water” and coos, “Ease myself into a body bag,” on “Plants and Rags.” “For me, [artists] want to make people listen that little bit harder,” she told the NME. “You want them to think, ‘There’s something not quite right about this… What is it?'”
After linking up with Ellis and Vaughan — after a few years playing in Bristol artist John Parish’s quirky, almost XTC-like group Automatic Dlamini — the trio developed the songs into the powerful laments that made Dry a hit. But in the context of Dry – Demos, as the topless photo on its cover suggests, the active ingredients are Harvey’s own crude vulnerability and her instinct to magnify it and shine it through the lenses of characters, metaphors, and obtuse expressionistic rock. Those qualities are what made Dry one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite records and it made Courtney Love respect her, but it was also brawny enough to make fans out of Jon Bon Jovi and Steven Tyler. “Basic, raw, noisy, simple, exciting, stomach wrenching,” were the words Harvey herself used to describe her own music in a 1992 BBC interview before smiling and adding, “indigestion making.” When she asked Steve Albini to record Rid of Me, the notoriously prickly engineer said he too the gig not because he liked them live but because “I thought her guitar playing was cool.” If Dry were more refined or quaint, you wouldn’t be reading this.
The PJ Harvey trio ratcheted up the extremes on Rid of Me with slashing guitar and venomous lyrics, and the video for their biggest hit, “50ft Queenie” — in which Harvey struts around her bandmates in a leopard overcoat and brags, “Ah come on, measure me/I’m 50 inches long” — made her a star. They cranked up the perversity on “Rid of Me” by having Ellis sing “Lick my legs, and I’m on fire” in a creepy falsetto. “It really did scare me,” Harvey said of the song in a 1993 NME article, explaining she wrote it when her boyfriend left her. “I couldn’t listen to it for a while. I couldn’t play it to anyone. … I was too embarrassed, like, ‘What on earth would people think of me if I played it to them?'” It also featured the song “Dry,” which had come out on the “Dress” single but was held back as an album cut long enough to milk extra viciousness out of the line, “You put it right in my face but you leave me dry.”
“I don’t find [my lyrics] shocking myself particularly,” she told the BBC in 1992, at the time she was writing Rid of Me. “I’m always looking to write something that is gonna shock myself. In fact, I think I really have now, but what people seem to be finding shocking at the moment, I don’t think it is at all. I think it’s very tame.” So what was shocking for her then? “Listening to something that I’ve written and feeling physically sick or really uncomfortable about it.”
Ultimately the PJ Harvey band imploded when Harvey and Ellis stopped speaking on tour, and as a stopgap, she released 4-Track Demos, another collection of her raw solo recordings that rivals Rid of Me in its rawness. Unlike the Dry demos, these recordings were electric and brutal. “It’s blistering, and it’s just a bunch of fucking demos,” Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce said of the record.
Harvey has so far teased one demo, “Down by the Water,” from 1995’s To Bring You My Love — her fourth LP and first solo album, which introduced John Parish and Guitar Player wordsmith Joe Gore as her new guitarists, so she could sing more — and it shows a much more unified vision for the sound of the record. She sings her verses over fuzzy bass and whispers, “give me my daughter,” like she does on the studio version, but it’s sparser and feels more claustrophobic. The Love demos, which will come out September 11th, give another view of how Harvey, who has always been reluctant to talk about her music, reveals herself. (What’s missing in her demos reissues, though, is some of the connective tissue in her songwriting — the “Dry” demo, bluesy lost tracks like 1993’s “Claudine, the Inflatable One” and “Primed and Ticking,” her penchant for covering the Stones’ “Satisfaction” solo and once with Björk, though diehard Harveyologists have probably already picked those, ahem, dry.)
But for all the naked gore of her early demos, what’s to come may be even more fascinating. The “Down by the Water” demo is a portrait of a sea-change for her, when it seemed like she had moved on from her past after saying she wanted a career that was as varied like David Bowie’s and threatened to retire fan favorites like “Sheela-Na-Gig” and “Dress” (though she didn’t); they will provide a fuller picture of an artist who has always thrived in shadows. “I’ll never give the people what they want,” she told Rolling Stone in 1993. But at the same time, what she may not have realized is that she always has, simply by spilling her guts.
Tonight: Mainly clear and cool.
Low: 54 Wind: Light NE
Friday: Sunny to partly cloudy and seasonal.
High: 80 Wind: North around 5
We will have a couple more days of comfortable weather before a little warm-up on Saturday. After that, it looks like a hint of Fall will be in the air.
If you have enjoyed the comfortable weather so far this week, you will enjoy the conditions again through tomorrow. We will have sunny to partly cloudy skies today and tomorrow. The humidity will be low. Winds will be light out of the northeast at 5 to 10 mph today and out of the north at around 5 mph tomorrow. High temps should reach the upper 70s this afternoon and top out around 80 on Friday afternoon.
On Saturday, the wind will shift more to the southwest and this will warm the temperatures up just a little. Highs should reach the low 80s as skies turn partly cloudy in the afternoon. A strong cold front arriving from the north Saturday evening will generate a 50% chance of scattered showers and storms. Even though it is a strong cold front, there will not be a lot of other ingredients to produce damaging storms, so the threat of severe weather looks minimal.
The front will finish its move through Northcentral Wisconsin on Sunday and this will keep the clouds and chance of scattered showers around. Temperatures will also be much cooler, only reaching the low 70s.
Hopefully we will get a little rain over the weekend, because it does not look like there will be much chance of rain next week, until perhaps Friday. From Monday through Thursday the weather looks dry and quite cool. High temps will only be in the 70 to 75 range from Monday through Wednesday with some Northwoods locations only in the 60s. Lows could drop into the 40s on a couple of night. By Thursday, the weather will turn a little milder with high temps rising into the middle and upper 70s.
Have an excellent Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew, 4:30 a.m. 30-July-2020
On this date in weather history: 1988 - A dozen cities in the north central and northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Downtown Baltimore, MD, hit 103 degrees, marking a record eight days of 100 degree heat for the month, and ten for the year. The high of 101 degrees at Billings, MT, marked a record seventeen days of 100 degree heat for the year. Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the northeast, with nearly fifty reports of large hail or damaging winds in Pennsylvania and New York State. A tree fell on a car at Erie, PA, injuring four persons. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
PORT WASHINGTON, NY — State environmental regulators proposed Wednesday removing a Port Washington dry cleaning site from the state's Superfund program, saying it's no longer dangerous for public health or the environment.
The Chez Valet Cleaners Site on Manorhaven Boulevard, near Shore Road, has been on the state Department of Environmental Conservation's registry of inactive hazardous waste disposal sites for years. The dry cleaner operated at the complex from the 1970s to 2006. The site consists of a one-story building constructed in 1926 that covers about 6,500 square feet. The northern space was occupied by Chez Valet Dry Cleaners and the other space was utilized by a salon. A parking lot covers the remaining portions of the property and a residential property neighbors the site to the north.
Beginning in 2004, investigators found perchloroethylene, or PCE, pollution in the soil vapor and groundwater at the site, environmental regulators said. PCE is a nonflammable liquid frequently used by dry cleaners and to remove grease from metal. Most people can smell the chemical when it is present in the air at a level as low as 1 part per million in the air.
Breathing in high levels of the chemical for a short period of time can cause dizziness, drowsiness, headache, and incoordination, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. At higher levels, people can fall unconsciousness or even die.
Long-term exposure at low levels of the chemical can lead to changes in mood, memory, attention, reaction time and vision. Furthermore, studies suggest that exposure can lead to a higher risk of getting bladder cancer, multiple myeloma or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Animal studies have shown the chemical affects the liver and kidneys, and changes brain chemistry.
The chemical can be released into air, water and soil and breaks down very slowly, allowing it to travel long distances in the air.
In 2011, a sub-slab depressurization system/soil vapor extraction system was installed at the Port Washington site to remediate it.
State regulators listed three reasons to remove the Manorhaven Boulevard site from its hazardous list.
Remedial and mitigation actions were taken to address potential contamination exposures in
groundwater and soil vapor
Data shows the potential for exposures to residual site contamination is "no longer a concern" and further actions are not necessary.
Groundwater contamination fell below groundwater standards and multiple years of indoor air and sub-slab vapor monitoring indicated that exposures from soil vapor intrusion into the indoor air of the on-site building are "no longer a concern."
Regulators invited the public to comment on its proposal to remove the site from the registry. Public comments will be received before a decision is finalized.
The public comment period will end Aug. 28. Those who want to provide written comments can send them to Brian Jankauskas, P.E., Project Manager, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Environmental Remediation, 625 Broadway, 12th Floor, Albany, NY 12233-7015; brian.jankauskas@dec.ny.gov; or call (518) 402-9626.
The agency said it will remove the dry cleaning site from the list on or after Sept. 27 if no new or additional information is presented during the public comment period that changes its proposal.
Photo courtesy of New York Department of Environmental Conservation.The Link Lonk
July 30, 2020 at 10:41PM
https://patch.com/new-york/portwashington/dec-remove-port-washington-dry-cleaning-site-superfund-list
DEC: Remove Port Washington Dry Cleaning Site From Superfund List - Port Washington, NY Patch
