#MEwx Colder with sun, windy, your quote for today and another invormatifve weather tidbit

Good morning Augusta

You can find my personal weather station list with AMBIENT weather.com as KMEAUGUS22. That stands for Kennebec County in Augusta, Maine that first went on line in 2022. There is a 20 second delay between when the station reads the weather and when it hits the web.

This morning we have mostly sunny skies with Highs in the upper 20s. Winds are Northwest around 10 mph.

Tonight we’ll have mostly clear conditions with lows around 5 above zero. Winds will remain light and variable.

The outdoor temperature is 18.3°F, the dewpoint is 10.8°F and the wind chill is °F.

We didn’t receive any rain or snow here over the past 24 hours.

Today’s sunrise is 7:09 AM, sunset is 4:01 PM and we’ll have 8 hours 52 minutes of daylight today.

Moonrise is 3:02 PM and Moonset is 6:46 AM. The moon phase is a FULL MOON and is XX% illuminated. Our next full moon will be on December 15 and our next new moon is on December 30.

The wind is from the West Northwest between 2.9 MPH and  3.4 MPH.

The Relative pressure is 30.58, the Absolute pressure is 30.38 and rising with a weather graphic indicating clouds and sun.

The Humidity is 73%, the UV index is 0 placing the average person at low risk and the solar radiation reading is 23.2W/m2.

Visibility is 10.0 Miles / 16.1 Kilometers with some clouds and sun.

 

“The meek shall inherit the earth” ignores the fact that the meek don’t want it.

Author unknown

 

How do snowflakes form? Thanks to Weather.gov for the following

Q: How are snowflakes formed? 

A:  A snowflake begins to form when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a pollen or dust particle in the sky. This creates an ice crystal. As

the ice crystal falls to the ground, water vapor freezes onto the primary crystal, building new crystals – the six arms of the snowflake.

That’s the short answer.

 

The more detailed explanation is this: 

The ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) because they reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they

arrange themselves in predetermined spaces (known as “crystallization”) to form a six-sided snowflake. 

Ultimately, it is the temperature at which a crystal forms — and to a lesser extent the humidity of the air — that determines the basic shape of the ice

crystal. Thus, we see long needle-like crystals at 23 degrees F and very flat plate-like crystals at 5 degrees F.  

The intricate shape of a single arm of the snowflake is determined by the atmospheric conditions experienced by entire ice crystal as it falls. A crystal

might begin to grow arms in one manner, and then minutes or even seconds later, slight changes in the surrounding temperature or humidity causes the crystal

to grow in another way. Although the six-sided shape is always maintained, the ice crystal (and its six arms) may branch off in new directions. Because

each arm experiences the same atmospheric conditions, the arms look identical. 

Q: So, why are no two snowflakes exactly alike? 

A: Well, that’s because individual snowflakes all follow slightly different paths from the sky to the ground —and thus encounter slightly different atmospheric

conditions along the way. Therefore, they all tend to look unique, resembling everything from prisms and needles to the familiar lacy pattern.