Summer Sun, Something's Begun...

It seems we've been experiencing "summer-like" weather for weeks now, but alas, you can finally stop saying "summer-like" and just call it "summer!" That's because two minutes ago at 7:28 a.m, the northern hemisphere officially entered into the summer solstice – and the longest day of the year – okay, maybe not the longest but you do have more daylight today than any other day of the year!

During the summer solstice, the sun angle reaches it's highest point on the horizon as it hovers above the tropic of cancer located at about 23.5 degrees north.

Much like The Northeast Quadrant reported on the vernal (spring) equinox, throughout history, man has marked the onset of summer in different ways:

• The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light
  
• The Celts & Slavs celebrated the first day of summer with dancing around bonfires to help increase the sun's energy
  
• The Druids' celebration of the day as the "wedding of Heaven and Earth", resulting in the present day belief of a "lucky" wedding in June
  
• The English celebrate the day at Stonehenge and Avebury, where thousands gather to welcome the sunrise on the Summer Solstice

As for me and many others, we'll be celebrating summer by vacationing, heading the beach, lying out in the sun, enjoying the outdoors, playing sports, and most importantly, tracking hurricanes!

So in conclusion, stay cool, enjoy today and enjoy summer! Starting tomorrow through the first day of Winter on December 21, there will be a gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. But that doesn't mean it'll get cooler – climatologically, the hottest part of the year is yet to come... we'll look towards the last week of July/first week of August for that!

Readying Earth for 2013 Solar Storm

A report released a couple years ago by the National Academy of Sciences warned that a solar activity storm could could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

A statement recently released by a representative at NASA states that the sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we can expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. That combined with our expanding sensitivity to solar storms as a result of our society becoming more technologically dependent, could create significant societal and economic impacts in coming years.

Solar storms occur when an eruption or explosion on the sun's surface sends radiation or electrically charged particles toward the Earth. Minor storms can interfere with radio signals. A large one can release as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs. In fact, a large solar storm in May 1859 wreaked international havoc as telegraph wires spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous fires. The event even offered up an unexpected display of the Northern Lights as far south as Rome, Havana and Hawaii! Experts say the modern day equivalent of such a storm could leave millions of people without electricity, running water or phone service.

Well, there is hope...

The Space Weather Enterprise Forum kicks off today in Washington, DC and on the forefront of its agenda is the next peak of solar activity expected in 2013, and how planet Earth will respond.

The Forum, which is part of the National Space Weather Program (NSWP), falls beneath the overall national interagency initiative to prepare the country, and ultimately the world, to deal with technological vulnerabilities associated with the space environment. Some of the agencies involved include NOAA, NASA, USGS and FAA.

To help keep us safe and to avoid that which is stated above, the Forum will focus on critical infrastructure protection to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, avoid, mitigate, respond to and recover from potentially devastating impacts of space weather events on our health, economy, and national security.

Study Implicates Sunspots in Hurricane Forecasts

Sunspots may predict hurricanes as well as global warming and cooling, says a recent study conducted by Florida State University.

The study, which was presented to the American Meteorological Society and published in the scientific journal, Geophysical Research Letters, indicates the probability of hurricanes hitting the United States increases dramatically during low points of the 11-year sunspot cycle, such as we are currently experiencing.

Sunspots have long been implicated in the global climate. During periods of high sunspot activity, which occurred throughout the Medieval Warm Period, global temperatures rose. During the low points in sunspot activity, such as in the Little Ice Age, temperatures declined.

How does this affect hurricanes? Well, years with few sunspots and above-normal ocean temperatures, as is the case now, spawn a less stable atmosphere and, consequently, more hurricanes. When that happens, the differential creates more atmospheric instability and stronger storms, energizing what might otherwise remain tropical storms into hurricanes. Years with more sunspots but still above-normal ocean temperatures yield a more stable atmosphere and thus fewer hurricanes.

So here's the breakdown in numbers...

• The chance of at least one hurricane hitting the United States spikes to 64 percent in the lowest sunspot years, compared to only a 25 percent chance in peak sunspot years.
  
  
• Chances of three or more hurricanes hitting the United States increase from 20 percent to 40 percent in years when sunspots are in the lowest 25 percent, compared with years when they're in the highest 25 percent.

Interestingly, there are a whole bunch of predictors hurricane experts have been looking at when issuing their extreme forecasts for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, however, sunspots was not one of them. To that extent, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) is considering using sunspots cycles as a predictor in future forecasts as they continue to see more evidence.

Vernal Equinox - March 20

Vernal Equinox begins Saturday, March 20 at 12:32 p.m. EST

“Equinox” comes from the Latin “equal night.” An equinox occurs when the Sun crosses the celestial equator, making the length of time of daylight equal to (or nearly equal to) the length of nighttime.

Due to the sun's angle and path across the sky during an equinox, days are longer than nights the further you are from the equator. Furthermore, the sun takes longer to rise and set farther from the equator because it does not set straight down - it moves in a horizontal direction.

Cultures around the world mark the vernal equinox in different way. Here’s just a few:

• The March equinox marks the first day of various calendars including the Iranian calendar and the Bahá'í calendar.
• The Jewish Passover usually falls on the first full moon after the Northern Hemisphere vernal equinox, although occasionally (7 times every 19 years) it will occur on the second full moon.
• World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling, celebrated every year on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn equinox in the southern.
• In Annapolis, Maryland, boatyard employees and sailboat owners celebrate the spring equinox with the Burning of the Socks Festival. Traditionally, the boating community wears socks only during the winter. These are burned at the approach of warmer weather, which brings more customers and work to the area. Officially, nobody then wears socks until the next equinox.
• Wiccans and many other Neopagans hold religious celebrations of "Ostara" on the spring equinox.
• In Japan, (March) Vernal Equinox is an official national holiday, and is spent visiting family graves and holding family reunions.