Sunday, October 5, 2008

5 October 2008

Jonathan D.W. Kahl and Kevin Horwitz, writing in 2002 in BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) say
High and low temperatures are featured prominently in virtually all weather forecasts. These forecast elements ae usually defined as the maximum and minimum temperatures, respectively, occurring in a 24-h period beginning at midnight on the specified day. At a midlatitude location such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, daily high and low temperatures are generally expected to occur in the late afternoon and early morning, respectively. The highs typically lag a few hours behind the daily maximum solar elevation, whereas the lows typically occur around sunrise.
Their article relates to the confusion that can result in interpreting weather forecasts when you don’t know what definition the forecaster uses for the term he employs. They site “low” as an example, one that I have previously mentioned. In checking with five media outlets they found that two of them use the term to mean the low temperature during the 24 hour period between midnight on one day and midnight on the next. The remaining three ourlets use it to imply the “overnight low” which roughly menas the low temperature between sunset on one day and sunrise on the succeeding day.

I don’t know which definition of low the NWS uses in their short and long term forecasts.

To depict the relationship I graphed the Central Park hourly climate data for sunrise Friday through sunrise today.


Spaceflight Now reported today that NASA has fixed 14Nov08 as the target launch date for STS-126.

The HST Servicing mission will probably not occur before February with Discovery serving as the on deman launch rescue craft for Atlantis. This will delay the 12Feb09 launch of Discovery for a "high priority" mission to ISS. There is a possibility that the HST mission will be delayed to May09. Atlantis will be moved back to the VAB then Endeavour will be moved from Pad 39B to Pad 39A. There is no word of what trickle down effect beyond STS-119 this delay may cause, nor is there any information on why Endeavour needs to be moved from Pad 39B to Pad 39A which they were scurrying to get repaired so they could launch Atlantis.

Expedition 18 is still on schedule to launch to ISS from Russia early next Sunday morning, 12Oct08.

DateTime
EST		Event
12Oct080301Soyus TMA-13 Launch of Expedition 18 to ISS
20Oct08 Atlantis moved from Pad 39A to VAB
21-22Oct08 STS-126 Flight Readiness Review
23Oct082020Soyux TMA-12 Undocks from ISS with Expedition 17
2346Soyus TMA-12 lands in Kazakhstan
25Oct09 Endeavour moved from Pad 39B to Pad 39A
29Oct08 STS-126 Countdown Dress Rehearsal
30Oct08 STS-126 Executive Review
11Nov08 STS-126 Launch Countdown Begins
14Nov081955STS-126 Launch
16Nov081710STS-126 Docks with ISS
18Nov08 STS-126 Spacewalk
20Nov08 STS-126 Spacewalk
22Nov08 STS-126 Spacewalk
24Nov08 STS-126 Spacewalk
27Nov081049STS-126 Undocks from ISS
29Nob081418STS-126 Lands at KSC
Feb09 ? STS-119 HST Servicing Mission
? STS-127 ISS Mission


I saw a guy at the library today who had on a brand new lime green T-shirt with Lincoln Stargazer across the chest. I didn't catch what was on the back. He got out of the library before I had a chance to talk to him. It looked like he was early college-age. I should have been wearing my TeleVue cap. Maybe we would have connected.

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