#MEwx Windy, rainy and warm with your wuote for today and another 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 cloudy skies with showers, then partly sunny this afternoon. Highs around 50°F with Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph gusting to 25 mph.

Tonight we’ll have partly cloudy conditions with lows in the lower 30s. Winds will be West around 10 mph.

The outdoor temperature is 47.8°F, the dewpoint is 47.2°F and the wind chill is 47.1°F.

We’ve received 0.54 inches of rain here over the past 24 hours.

Today’s sunrise is 7:11 AM, sunset is 4:02 PM and we’ll have 8 hours 51 minutes of daylight today.

Moonrise is 6:15 PM and Moonset is 9:39 AM. The moon phase is Waning crescent and is 95% illuminated. Our next full moon will be on January 13 and our next new moon is on December 30.

The wind is from the Southwest between 1.3 MPH and  4.0 MPH.

The Relative pressure is 29.62, the Absolute pressure is 29.42 and falling with a weather graphic indicating clouds and rain.

The Humidity is 99%, the UV index is 0 placing the average person at low risk and the solar radiation reading is 24.3W/m2.

Visibility is 10.0 Miles / 16.1 Kilometers where it isn’t raining with overcast and showers all over the place.

 

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”

Dr. Carl Sagan

 

 

The truth about salt or ice melt for you.

With my undying thanks to the Diamond Crystal Salt web site, I now know what temperatures salt is most effective at for melting ice.

AT WHAT TEMPERATURE DOES SALT MELT ICE?

At a temperature of 30 degrees (F), one pound of salt (sodium chloride) will melt 46 pounds of ice. But, as the temperature drops, salt's effectiveness slows to the point that when you get down near 10 degrees (F) and below, salt is barely working.

Commercially available ice melt materials include salt (sodium chloride), calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride. Each ingredient has its advantages

and disadvantages but salt remains the best choice for use at temperatures above 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9.4 degrees Celsius).

Sustained bitterly cold temperatures are fairly rare for much of the country, so in case that happens to you and all you have is salt to melt ice, what can you do?

Magnesium chloride and calcium chloride remain effective at melting ice even with bitterly cold temperatures.  For instance, magnesium chloride work down

to temperatures of -20 to -25 degrees.

The Diamond Crystal® product line offers several ice melt products that are effective at bitterly cold temperatures.  Jiffy Melt® Ice Melt Salt contains

a specially formulated blend of magnesium chloride and sodium chloride for quick-melting action at temperatures of -10 °F / -23 °C.  Flash Melt® Ice and

Snow Melt is the easy choice when temperatures get down to -25 °F / -31 °C as it contains calcium chloride that gives off heat as it dissolves, liquefying

ice.