The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Today's Chicago Tribune asks, "Who needs Florida?":

Balmier days are forecast to continue in Illinois over the next few days, a result of warmer air masses flowing in from the west and southwest and the effects of an El Nino year.
While no records are being broken—back in 1876 it was 65°F (18°C) on Jan. 2—temperatures in coming days are expected to remain mercifully above the historic average high of about 30°F (-1°C).

I find this funny because I'm sitting in shorts and a polo shirt by a pool surrounded by palm trees, a light 24°C (75°F) breeze cooling my sandal-clad feet, looking at Chicago's weather report, which tells me it's 1°C (33°F) back home—with a wind chill of -4°C (25°F).

I really can't answer the question "who needs Florida," but I can say the weather's a lot better here than in Chicago.

Happy New Year!

Weather Now is all new.

We're ecstatic to roll out a completely new visual design by Katie Zoellner. It's actually been lurking as a Beta site for several months. We didn't roll it out because not all of the features from our old site (see http://old.wx-now.com/) are complete. But today is the first day of a new year, which we thought an appropriate moment to finally give Katie's design some exposure.

(Nearly-)Total Internationalization

Notice the flags along the left side of this page. Is one of those flags from your country? Click on it. Almost everything on the site will automagically show up in your country's main language.

We're still working on a lot of the translations, and some of them are tragicomically wrong. If you find a mistranslation, please let us know. We have plans to add a few more languages (does anyone speak Japanese, Mandarin, or Hindi?), as well as to make the site better at guessing your preference.

Also notice that you can now change easily between International System (metric) and English measurements. The site will get better at guessing each visitor's initial preference here, as well.

Vastly improved flexibility

All of the data pages use XML and XSL to provide the data you're looking for. This gives us much more flexibility, and allows us to vary the content much more than we've done in the past.

Take the home page, for example. Each of the sections is independent of the others. Soon, you'll be able to mix and match them as you'd like, or choose from one of the themes that we'll offer.

Lots more under the hood

The Site now uses the Inner Drive Extensible Architecture™ throughout. The Idea™ underpins all Inner Drive Technology applications, of which this is our biggest demonstration.

Stay tuned

We have a lot more cool tools planned for the site, including a massive upgrade of the geographical gazetteer that holds all of our place information and some neat things to do with your mobile PC.

Sunrise chart for Chicago, 2007

It's time to update the sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.)

Notice that in 2007, Daylight Saving Time lasts a lot longer than in years past: from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. This actually makes the autumn a little darker, as you can see from the chart.

Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight
2007
4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 30 07:19 16:33 9:13
28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52
5 Feb 7am sunrise 06:59 17:10 10:10
20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49
27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:29 17:38 11:08
10 Mar Earliest sunrise until April 15th
Earliest sunset until Oct 28th
06:11 17:51 11:39
11 Mar Daylight savings time begins
Latest sunrise until Oct 21st
07:10 18:52 11:42
17 Mar 7am sunrise 07:00 18:59 11:59
18 Mar 12-hour day 06:58 19:00 12:02
21 Mar Equinox, 00:07 (Mar 21) UTC (19:07 CDT) 06:53 19:04 12:11
3 Apr 6:30am sunrise (again) 06:30 19:18 12:47
13 Apr 7:30pm sunset 06:15 19:30 13:15
22 Apr 6am sunrise 06:00 19:40 13:39
10 May 8pm sunset 05:35 20:00 14:25
16 May 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:04 14:34
15 Jun Earliest sunrises of the year 05:14 20:28 15:13
19 Jun 8:30pm sunset 05:15 20:30 15:14
21 Jun Solstice, 18:06 UTC (13:06 CDT) 05:15 20:30 15:15
27 Jun Latest sunset of the year 05:17 20:31 15:13
1 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:19 20:30 15:11
17 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54
9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08
17 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:48
29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17
15 Sep 6:30am sunrise; 7pm sunset 06:30 18:59 12:28
23 Sep Equinox, 09:51 UTC (04:51 CDT) 06:39 18:47 12:08
26 Sep 12-hour day 06:42 18:42 12:00
3 Oct 6:30pm sunset 06:49 18:29 11:39
13 Oct 7am sunrise 07:01 18:13 11:12
21 Oct 6pm sunset 07:10 18:00 10:50
3 Nov Latest sunrise of the year
Latest sunset until Mar 2nd
07:25 17:43 10:17
4 Nov Standard time returns
Earliest sunrise until Feb 29th
06:27 16:41 10:14
7 Nov 6:30am sunrise (again) 06:30 16:38 10:07
15 Nov 4:30pm sunset 06:40 16:30 9:49
2 Dec 7am sunrise 07:00 16:20 9:20
8 Dec Earliest sunset of the year 07:06 16:20 9:13
21 Dec Solstice, 00:08 (Dec 22) UTC (18:08 CST) 07:15 16:22 9:06

You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.

And another thing

I also forgot to mention, because it happened while my office DSL was down (cutting off my Web servers from the world), that this past Friday had the earliest sunset of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ordinarilly at a juncture like this I would write a dissertation on why the earliest sunset precedes the latest sunrise by four weeks, or why neither coincides with the solstice, but I'll spare you for now. No, the sun is setting later now, but the sun is also rising later, until January 4th, sorry to say.

Today's Daily Parker

Parker is at home this afternoon. Due to a mix-up with the dog walker, he got two walks today because I was home all morning dealing with people in the house, but he got no walks yesterday. This explains why he bounced off walls for three hours last night instead of his usual two.

Today's photo has nothing to do with any of that. It's just an average shot from two weeks ago, showing the eternal cuteness of Parker and the anything-but-eternal good weather that we had over Thanksgiving:

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and you're cursing the darkness, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But I'll keep you in suspense until Friday's Daily Parker.

Today's Daily Parker

This morning Parker hit a couple of huge milestones. First, as of today we've had Parker for three months. That's, what, almost two dog years? And my how he's grown:

And then, almost in celebration of the anniversary, Parker's universe changed overnight, causing at first some consternation, then glee. This morning Parker saw snow for the first time:

Anne reported that he first wouldn't go near it, then he probed it with his paw. At that moment there was a thunderclap, which rattled him. But after only a minute or two, he decided that it was kind of like the beach, and besides, he really had to go, so in he went.

All of this comes about because the first major snowstorm of the season has hit Chicago. By 6:00 CT (1200 UTC) we had 51 mm (2 in) of snow on the ground; now we have about 100 mm (4 in), and the storm still has more to dump on us. Here's the most recent radar image, clearly showing the center of the low off to our east, which means we've got stiff (30 km/h, 18 mph) north winds blowing snow down our necks:

Those of us old enough to remember the snowstorm of 1 December 1978 feel a little apprehensive. That day we got about 150 mm (6 in) of snow, followed by another 2.3 meters (90 in) over the next three months. The shopping center near my house had snowpiles as late as May 1st. This winter could easily be like 1978-79, because all the same conditions could exist: warmth, moisture, and a jet stream that stays just south of us.

In any event, Parker and the few stalwarts (Dexter, Louie, and Key) who showed up to the park this morning will have a lot of fun this winter. Anne and I will be picking up some extra gloves and long underwear just as soon as we shovel the car out.

Update: Anne, who quite justifiably is working from home today, just reported that Parker not only got to see snow for the first time today, but now he's seeing fire for the first time. Perhaps she'll send a photo?

Today's Daily Parker

Parker stayed home today, which is why today's Daily Parker includes perhaps more personal information than I generally share. I have a spare laptop, so I was able to set up the ParkerCam in our bedroom today. So here he is, in his Safe Place, proving that he's cuter than all get-up even when he doesn't know anyone is watching:

This shot is from earlier today. I didn't use a more recent shot because the little darling found a pair of my boxers, and that is simply too personal for this blog.

Finally, for you weather junkies, here's the current temperature map, which you can compare with one from this morning:

The cold front has arrived a little earlier than expected. I'm running around Chicago between meetings, and the temperature has dropped from 14°C (58°F) to 9°C (49°F) in the past hour. I should point out that I left my coat at home this morning, too. Brr.

Spot the cold front

The temperature is holding at 14°C (58°F) right now, but I have a feeling it's about to cool off considerably:

For comparison, it's 8°C (47°F) in Rockford, which is about 100 km (60 mi) from here; 5°C (41°F) in the Quad Cities (250 km, 150 mi); and already -2°C (29°F) in Des Moines, 450 km (300 mi) away.

The temperature change could be staggering. Kansas City has seen a 22°C (40°F) drop in the past 24 hours, from 20°C (68°F) to -2°C (29°F):

Yum-O!