Well I got the chance today to make it down to the Mississippi River. WOW! The last time I was there my dog and I (he is a rottweiler named Brutus) ran along the river between the road and the trees that usually line the shoreline.  That area is completely under water now.  Memphis can thank the bluffs along the East side of the river that basically serve as natural levees.  Downtown Memphis would be flooded if not for these pillars of safety.  To compare, I drove across the new bridge into Arkansas just East of West Memphis.  The farmlands are completely flooded.  In fact, the water levels are incredibly high all the way to the levee just before you hit West Memphis.  The river is forecast to crest tomorrow and then gradually decline from there.  Let’s all be thankful we can “Call the City’s Bluff.”

If you have outdoor activities or are puttering around the interstate today, heads up!  It’s a bit windy.  This morning we’ve already encountered steady southerly winds at 20+mph, enough to push that wonderful smell of bread from the downtown factory for many miles up Danny Thomas/Highway 51.

 While I’m writing this, I hear the voice of Pat Sajak (game show host and a former Nashville weather guy) over my shoulder.  He sounds like the voice of my conscience, except he hands out more money.  Unfortunately, he’s not in the studio.  I think Kym Clark is preparing to do a satellite interview with him regarding “Wheel of Fortune.”

Back to weather matters…I’m expecting a high temperature in the upper 60s with plenty of sunshine this afternoon.  Winds will continue to push out of the south but not in such a pronounced way tonight.  We’ll have a low near 50 with a few clouds easing in.

It will be even warmer for the rest of the work week.  We’ll keep a close eye on that late Friday rain chance and whether it spills over into Saturday.  I’ll be interested to catch Dave’s take on how much of the weekend will be dry.  He’ll share his thoughts on ACTION NEWS 5 @ 5, 6 & 10pm.

Don’t forget, John (Bryant) has your first afternoon update on ACTION NEWS 5 @ Noon.  John graduated from Mississippi State and my 2nd degree is from there as well, so we talked about Sunday’s great game between the Bulldogs and the Memphis Tigers.  We’re having a tough time deciding if MSU laid out the blueprint on how to stay close against the Tigers or did the game become further proof that the U of M can win ugly (which is a trait of a champion) ? 

I welcome your thoughts. 

Have a great Tuesday!

Our weather team goes through several models before putting together a forecast.  Here is just one example of a model we analyze.  It looks rather confusing, but try to locate Memphis on the map.  Once you do, look for any pink or blue shading.  This shading denotes precipitation.  This is a map for the next 12 hours or so.  There are several different levels of the atmosphere that we observe but this level is what will occur on the ground.  Blue and green colors equate to heavier precipitation.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions.  jbryant@wmctv.com

This Good Friday begins with a full moon…..a “full worm moon.”  What does that mean?  Here’s the explaination from the Farmer’s Almanac:

Full Worm – March Moon: As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

It was a beautiful sight early this morning but you may have a tough time seeing it tonight as clouds roll in overnight in advance of a cold front that will move through the area.  During the day today well enjoy sunshine and highs in the low to mid seventies.  Skies will be mostly cloudy tonight but sunshine returns Saturday with afternoon temperatures about 10 degrees cooler than today.  Another front will move into the region Easter Sunday bringing more clouds and a slight chance for some light rain.  Temperatures behind that front will also be much cooler allowing afternoon highs to only reach the upper forties to near fifty and dipping overnight lows into the thirties. 

Next week will begin dry and cool but we’ll make our way back into the upper sixtie to near seventy Tuesday and Wednesday.  It looks like our next real chance for rain and thunderstorms will move into the area Wednesday night and Thursday. 

I keep telling everyone they can’t pinch me today just because I am not wearing green.  Our chroma key, the background we use for the weather maps, is green.  If I were to wear a green tie you couldn’t see it.  In fact, you might just see clouds moving across my tie!  Have a great Monday…Get ready for heavy rain late tomorrow into early Wednesday morning.  A Flash Flood Watch is in effect for this particular time period

I’m not suggesting a basketball theme here.  WOW!  The last two nights have really been active with several thunderstorm complexes that rumbled through the Mid-South.  I must say that I am thrilled the threat is non-existent for tonight.  We are already tracking a new system that could bring strong storms early next week but for now, let’s just all take a brief sigh of relief and sleep easy tonight!  Thanks for stopping by.

Hi….I hope you are having a good day so far..

I wanted to show something the storm prediction center posts each day…They put out a map that depicts where the threat for severe weather might be.  There are many days there is no threat anywhere in the country.  This map is for tomorrow and as you can see, all of the Mid-South is in this risk area.  Keep in mind however, the keyword here is slight.

Thanks for stopping by…I hope you have a great rest of the day

I could get used to weather like this!  It’s a treat to wake up and head to the office and have 3 a.m. temperatures in the 50s. 

Today’s entry is brief.  Someone I went to high school with and haven’t seen in about 15 years is coming by the station on another matter, and I want to catch up with them before they leave.  So on to business…

It looks like 70s are back today with a bit of sunshine…then things change thanks to a surface low to our west.  I must admit to being selfish and hoping the next rainfall does stay away until after the Tigers game.  Any precip should move in from Arkansas then head east.  It will be mild tonight, perhaps just dipping into the mid 50s.

There’s a second low that has grabbed our attention here in the PINPOINT 5 STORM TRACKING CENTER.  Its late Friday arrival could bring us some strong to severe storms in the evening hours.  We’ll keep you updated on ACTION NEWS 5 & wmctv.com.

 I know for many of us Daylight Saving Time seemed to come early this year.  (By the way, there is NO “S” at the end of Saving)  Congress passed a law a few years ago to push this up a few weeks with the goal of energy efficiency.  But why do we really have it and where did it come from?  Read below for the history…

 History of Daylight Saving Time

 Daylight Saving Time is a change in the standard time of each time zone. Time zones were first used by the railroads in 1883 to standardize their schedules. According to the The Canadian Encyclopedia Plus by McClelland & Stewart Inc., Canada’s “[Sir Sandford] Fleming also played a key role in the development of a worldwide system of keeping time. Trains had made obsolete the old system where major cities and regions set clocks according to local astronomical conditions. Fleming advocated the adoption of a standard or mean time and hourly variations from that according to established time zones. He was instrumental in convening an International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington in 1884 at which the system of international standard time — still in use today — was adopted.”

In 1918, the U.S. Congress made the U.S. rail zones official under federal law and gave the responsibility to make any changes to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only federal transportation regulatory agency at the time. When Congress created the Department of Transportation in 1966, it transferred the responsibility for the time laws to the new department.

The American law by which we turn our clock forward in the spring and back in the fall is known as the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The law does not require that anyone observe Daylight Saving Time; all the law says is that if we are going to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must be done uniformly.

Daylight Saving Time has been around for most of this century and even earlier.

Benjamin Franklin, while a minister to France, first suggested the idea in an essay titled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” The essay was first published in the Journal de Paris in April 1784. But it wasn’t for more than a century later that an Englishman, William Willett, suggested it again in 1907.

Willett was reportedly passing by a home where the shades were down, even though the sun was up. He wrote a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight” because of his observations.

Willett wanted to move the clock ahead by 80 minutes in four moves of 20 minutes each during the spring and summer months. In 1908, the British House of Commons rejected advancing the clock by one hour in the spring and back again in the autumn.

Willett’s idea didn’t die, and it culminated in the introduction of British Summer Time by an Act of Parliament in 1916. Clocks were put one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) during the summer months.

England recognized that the nation could save energy and changed their clocks during the first World War.

In 1918, in order to conserve resources for the war effort, the U.S. Congress placed the country on Daylight Saving Time for the remainder of WW I. It was observed for seven months in 1918 and 1919. The law, however, proved so unpopular that it was later repealed.

When America went to war again, Congress reinstated Daylight Saving Time on February 9, 1942. Time in the U.S. was advanced one hour to save energy. It remained advanced one hour forward year-round until September 30, 1945.

In England, the energy saving aspects of Daylight Saving were recognized again during WWII. Clocks were changed two hours ahead of GMT during the summer, which became known as Double Summer Time. But it didn’t stop with the summer. During the war, clocks remained one hour ahead of GMT though the winter.

From 1945 to 1966, there was no U.S. law about Daylight Saving Time. So, states and localities were free to observe Daylight Saving Time or not.

This, however, caused confusion — especially for the broadcasting industry, and for trains and buses. Because of the different local customs and laws, radio and TV stations and the transportation companies had to publish new schedules every time a state or town began or ended Daylight Saving Time.

By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time through their own local laws and customs. Congress decided to step in end the confusion and establish one pattern across the country. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any area that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a local ordinance. The law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April.