The British media, never happier than when the weather goes awry, responded with barely concealed relish.
– British journalist Moya Lothian-McLean writing in the New York Times
So it did get to 40 °C (104 °F) in London, today. Here is a pair of front pages, reporting about the heat apocalypse.
Let’s see .. Hottest Day in History? Hottest day in recorded history, I guess. Earth’s surface temperature was an estimated 400 °F (200 °C) shortly after the planet had formed. And Britain is not really burning, of course— only 0.0000000001% of Britain.The Hamburger Morning Post says ‘Heat Wave. Today was as hot as it had never been before’. Below the headline, it says: 38 °C (100 °F) forecast for Hamburg +++ This is how it is measured +++ Why some parts of the city are particularly affected +++ Fewer parking lots, more trees: governments want to change cities
There’s so many different worlds So many different suns And we have just one world But we live in different ones
-From the song ‘Brothers in Arms’ by Dire Straits (1985)
Well, so I had to check the ‘Met’ home page (short for the Meteorological Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather service), for an official reading of the high temperatures there today.
Looks like the high was 37 °C (99 °F) at 15:00.
So: extremely warm, but not quite 40 °C.
All-time record highs were reached in many other locations in the UK and in Europe, though.
Cartoon by Christian Adams (Instagram @adamstoon) in today’s Evening Standard newspaper, a commentary on the extremely warm temperatures in London today. Best I can tell, the ‘CLOSED’ sign is a reference to train operator Southeastern Rail explaining (this is some years ago) that delays in the trains in south London were due to ‘the wrong kind of sunlight’—the angle of the winter sunlight on the dispatch monitors in the trains. There are also reports just appearing online now of anunexpected solar flare that had erupted on the sun, and that a solar storm (magnetic field disruptions) is expected on Wednesday July 20.
Here’s a diagram that shows the radiation that the very cool, very cold mirrors and lenses of the James Webb Telescope collect.
The James Webb telescope collects mostly infrared radiation with some from the visible spectrum vs. visible spectrum only, for Hubble.
I took my notebook computer in to the repair shop in Redmond today.
The right (built in) speaker is crackling badly.
I could bypass the little built-in speakers with external ones, but it’s a cheap fix to fix to install a new speaker, and then the machine would be good to go as-is.
I’m westbound to Seattle, crossing Lake Washington via the State Route 520 toll bridge. It was $2.70 to cross eastbound, and $3.40 for this crossing, so $6.10 total. That’s OK, it’s nice to have a new bridge. (It opened in 2016 at a cost of $4.6 billion). Way out in the distance cloud cover is rolling in from the coast— a weak front that will bring the highs for the weekend down to the low 70s (low 20s °C). We’ve had pleasant, mild summer weather so far.
The display window at the Red Balloon toy store on 15th Avenue has some really cute nightstand lamps for kids.
I assume that’s what these are—or would they be out on the dresser, and not by the bed? I would have a tough time to choose between the zebra and the robot.
June’s inflation came in at 9.1%.
It seems that the Fed will definitely raise the Federal Reserve rate another 75 basis points at the end of July, and it could very well be 100 basis points (1.0%).
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) number for the second quarter will come out just the day after the interest rate hike.
GDP growth in Q1 was -1.6%.
Goldman Sachs now says the GDP growth number for Q2 will come in at 0.7%.
The Atlanta Fed is way more pessimistic: its latest forecast for Q2 GDP growth is -1.2%.
A negative Q2 number would mean we are in a recession: two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
It seems we need to have our recession sooner rather than later, so that inflation can be tamed.
So far in 2022 we have had Jan 7.5% | Feb 7.9% | Mar 8.5% | Apr 8.3% | May 8.6% | Jun 9.1%. [Graph from Wall Street Journal]
adjective
in the form of a cloud or haze; hazy.
“a giant nebulous glow”
(of a concept or idea) unclear, vague, or ill-defined.
“nebulous concepts like quality of life”
One can see why astronomers are excited about the pictures from the James Webb telescope, when you put them next to pictures of Hubble (launched 30 years ago in 1990).
The Webb telescope works with infrared light and can peer through cosmic dust to provide pictures with more detail and depth.
Below are pictures of the Carina Nebula (a nebula is a gigantic could of gas and dust), located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
The nebula is some 8,500 light-years from Earth with a radius of 230 light years.
Top: Image taken with Hubble telescope. Bottom: Image taken with James Webb telescope. The Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula in an area with New General Catalogue (NGC) number 3324. The brown stuff is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity above it, from where massive, hot, young stars emit intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds. [Description and images from NASA website]
I love packaging that has multiple languages on.
The fine print makes for free little language lessons that come with the product.
Little Butter Biscuits, Organic. My friends bought these cookies for me in Brittany, France, where they were actually made as well (‘Produit en Bretagne’). The packaging comes with a nice cartoon (are the lady & pooch just content, or are they a little haughty?) .. and there are descriptions of the cookies in French, English, German, Spanish and Dutch .. and Arabic! Whoah. Nicely done.
It was a lovely day here in the Pacific Northwest, and not too warm: 77 °F (25°C).
The 6 o’clock Nightmare Show (NBC’s Nightly News) reported that the Yosemite wildfire threatens a grove of giant sequoias.
We have been blessed with clear skies here so far.
The sun is setting as I stroll by Jamjuree’s, the Thai restaurant on 15th Avenue. Four young people had just crowded into Liberty Bar behind me, and Hopvine Pub ahead is hopping as well. The street block up ahead is still in rough shape with Coastal Kitchen still closed. The empty building in the distance on the left (old QFC store) is clean again after the latest round of graffiti had been scrubbed from it. That little white blob in the sky is the moon, on its way to becoming 2022’s largest supermoon, this Wednesday July 13th (it will be at its closest point to Earth for the year).
Wimbledon 2022 is about to wrap up with the Ladies’ Singles Final and the Gentlemen’s Singles Final on Sunday. (That’s right. Ladies and gentlemen only. No hoi polloi, plebeians, women on the loose, or scoundrels are allowed.)
As for the gentlemen— Carlos Alcaraz (19, 🇪🇸 Spain) had lost against Jannik Sinner (20, 🇮🇹 Italy) in the round of 16, then Sinner lost against Djokovic (35, 🇷🇸 Serbia) in the quarterfinal, after being two sets up to none.
At the bottom of the draw, Nadal (36, 🇪🇸 Spain) took out Taylor Fritz (24, 🇺🇸 USA) in five grueling sets, but injured an abdominal muscle in the process.
So Nadal had to forfeit his semi-final match against Nick Kyrgios (27, 🇦🇺 Australia).
So now we have a Djokovic-Kyrgios showdown for Sunday, which will be very interesting. Kyrgios is very talented but very volatile. He has beaten Djokovic both times in their two previous meetings, which should boost his confidence.
English singer Sir Cliff Richard (81) is a regular attendee at Wimbledon. This was his getup today—looking dapper in a tailored Union Jack blazer lined with strings of different buttons, completed with a little buttonhole red rose. The blazer was ostensibly to show support for British No 1 Cameron Norrie, who was taking on Djokovic in the semi-final. Norrie won the first set, but then Djokovic took control of the match and won the next three sets). [Getty Images]
Whoah, said my brain as I spotted the bright red moving truck on the street while I came down the stairs. Someone must be moving out.
Yes, confirmed my neighbor next door: it’s the pink house further down.
They have lived there for 30 years. The time has come to leave the big old house for something smaller, and with support at hand.
My little rosebush has produced its first bloom for the summer.
Is there any flower more famous than a rose?
Roses were probably cultivated in Asia first, some 5,000 years ago.
The Chinese philosopher Confucius wrote of growing roses in the Imperial Gardens about 500 BCE and mentioned that the emperor’s library contained hundreds of books on the subject of roses.
Seattle photographer Tim Durkan took these spectacular photos of last night’s fireworks— the first Seafair fireworks show on Lake Union in 3 years.
He uses slightly longer exposures that make the fiery blooms look even better than in real life, I suspect.
Facebook: Tim Durkan Photography
Instagram: @TimDurkan
Twitter: @TimDurkan
The colors in fireworks come from the salt compounds of barium, copper and strontium.
Blue is hard to create: the copper compounds for the blues do not hold up well in high heat. The search is still on for other compounds after all this time!
It rained a little bit today, enough to make the streets and sidewalks wet, but not much more.
I found this Polestar (plug-in electric car) here on 15th Avenue.
Polestar 2 is made by Volvo, and it competes with the Tesla Model 3. They are still a very rare sight on the streets here in Seattle, though. The styling is somewhat plain/ conventional, maybe, but hey: the car does not look like an angry lizard. This is the Long Range Dual Motor AWD model with a range of 260 miles and 300 kW of power. Pricing starts at $48,000, one would probably end up at $53,000 or so. The white color is called Snow and the 19″ alloy wheels are standard.
I wandered over to Volunteer Park after dinner and took a few pictures.
The renovation project at the Seattle Asian Art Museum has been completed, but the museum is open only Friday-Sunday for now.Here is the Museum’s sleek new brick-and-glass exterior, seen from the back.Lots of green (and a ‘green’ car—the black Tesla).I missed the little concert that celebrated the unveiling of the new stage at the Volunteer Park Amphitheater lawn. A technician was just loading the last few pieces of equipment onto a truck. It’s been a long road to get the project completed. Per Seattle Met magazine: ‘Volunteer Park Trust hired architects for the project in 2015 and persisted through a concrete worker strike, exceedingly rainy weather, and pandemic-related supply chain holdups’.An obligatory picture of the greenhouse of the Volunteer Park Conservatory (constructed 1912).A food truck sporting the letter sequence 314 PIE with the characters morphed into shapes that make it into a palindrome. I like it. In addition, the truck has a custom Washington State license plate ‘PIE’.Picknickers enjoying the last of the daylight. The truck in the background is called ‘The Concert Truck’ and belongs to the Seattle Chamber Music Society.
A diagram that shows civil, nautical and astronomical twilight. Only when the sun has sunk 18° below the horizon at night, is it completely dark.
The days are long here in the north, and the twilight lingers.
It takes until midnight before the sky is completely dark.
Looking west to the Space Needle from 14th Avenue on Capitol Hill at 9.58 pm last night, during nautical twilight (see below). Civil Twilight is from 9:10 pm to 9:50 pm Nautical Twilight is from 9:50 pm to 10:46 pm Astronomical Twilight is from 10:46 pm to 12:00 am
The pair of woodpeckers that I see around here in summer, were at my house late afternoon (they are Northern flickers).
One of them was rolling around in the dirt, taking a dust bath.
Dust baths are part of a bird’s preening and plumage maintenance routine.
The dust that is worked into the bird’s feathers, absorb excess oil, which can then be shed so that the feathers don’t become too greasy or matted.
The dust can also bring relief from lice, feather mites or parasites.
The picture quality is not great— I had to use the digital zoom on my iPhone.
