The U.S. Naval Observatory, the official time keepers for the world, are adding one second to 2008.  That’s right, the New Year will begin one second later due to the Earth’s slowing rotation.  But don’t fear, the Earth won’t be coming to a screeching halt anytime soon. 

The U.S. Naval Observatory  announced that it would add one more second on Wednesday December 31 2008 at 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds in order to remain coordianated with the Earth’s rotation and the worlds atomic clocks.  These clocks are extremely accurate and based around the world to maintain a Coordinated Universal Time, also known as UTC.  Atomic clocks are accurate to within a billionth of a second. 

The U.S.N.O. works with the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service to determine when extra time needs to be added to UTC.  They strive to keep the clocks synced to the Earth’s rotation by no more that 0.9 seconds.  This assures that UTC is in sync with the position of the sun above the Earth.  It also benefits other systems including the Global Position System (GPS) and the Internet based Network Time Protocol (NTP) which are dependent on exact timing. 

Since 1972 the so called leap second has been added at various times ranging from six months to seven years. 

Now, about the Earth slowing down……..

As you may or may not know, the Earth rotates on its 23 degree axis at approximately 1000 mph.  However, that speed can be slowed due to several reasons including the breaking action of tides, solar winds, space dust and magnetic storms, as well as excessive snow or the lack of snow a the polar caps.  All of these factors do contribute to gradually slowing the Earth’s rotation.  But never fear, I mentioned above we aren’t going to stop spinning for a long, long, long time

Happy New Year. 

A cold front will move through the Action News 5 coverage area tonight but with dry air in advance of the front and behind it the frontal passage will be dry.  As a matter of fact, we don’t even expect much in the way of cloud cover so the nighttime sky should be mostly clear.  With that you may want to do a little stargazing tonight.  Sure it will be cool but the night sky for tonight and the next couple of nights should provide a beautiful view.  A telescope will be helpful but even with the naked eye stargazers will enjoy a lovely show.  Here’s a map of the nighttime sky for the next couple of nights from Sky & Telescope Magazine.   So grab a blanket, head outdoors, and Look…..Up In The Sky…….

Ok, there’s only two days remaining in 2008.  Still, we’ll have a noticeable cool down on New Year’s Eve.

We’re keeping an eye on a cold front poised to push through the area over the next 24 hours.  High temperatures will return to near normal levels…back to near 50 degrees for Wednesday & Thursday.

Rain chances for Thursday night/early Friday are not exactly zero, but the odds are looking better that we’re going to be dry through the weekend.

And yes, that means the Liberty Bowl probably won’t be dealing with weather detrimental to attendance.

Welcome to our friends from East Carolina & the University of Kentucky.  The game should be good, and the Bowl scored a coup by getting this acclaimed artist to perform at halftime.  I’m expecting an afternoon temperature in the upper 40s, right on target for this time of year.

Check out our 7 DAY FORECAST for the outlook into the New Year holiday.  I’ll see you at noon & Ron‘s got you covered on ACTION NEWS 5 @ 5,6 & 10pm.

High pressure has been centered to our west for the past couple of days keeping a lid on cloud formation and keeping temperatures much cooler than Saturday’s 70+ degree temps.  That high will now shift south and east of the Action News 5 coverage area.  This will return a southerly flow to the Mid-South and help to push temperatures into the sixties Tuesday.  The warm up won’t last long though as another cold front is poised to move through the area Tuesday night.  There will be dry air in advance of the front and behind it so precipitation won’t be an issue with this frontal passage, however, cooler temperatures will settle in for the rest of the week as high temperatures will be about twenty degrees cooler Wednesday than Tuesday and will hold in the forties and lower fifties for the rest of the week and weekend. 

New Year’s Eve will be dry but chilly as temperatures will likely be in the lower thirties Wednesday night.  New Year’s Day will be sunny and dry but a chance for rain will move in late that night. 

As we move toward 2009 parts of our country are covered with snow.  The  map below shows current snow cover, but significant melting has taken place for many.  Just a few weeks ago the snow line was much further South but after a warm week much of it has melted away.  Notice Memphis is not one of the locations that is snow-covered.  Surprise…Surprise!

Have a great night and thanks for checking out our blog.  Feel free to drop us a comment.  We would love to hear from you.

Our storm team is still tracking the potential for strong storms tomorrow afternoon.  No severe weather is forecast overnight however.  Here is the latest risk area courtesy of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Notice the Mid-South is under a slight risk for severe weather.  It will be interesting to see if any areas are upgraded to a moderate risk overnight.  TIM VAN HORN will have all the latest details tomorrow morning on Action News Five Today.  Keep in tune to us over the next 24 hours and we will provide you with our latest analysis as we always strive to bring you the most accurate forecast in the Mid-South.

The debate on the subject of “Global Warming” hasn’t gone away.  The players are the same, but the name of the game has undergone a change…”Climate Change” that is.

Whether you feel that Man is responsible for potentially catastrophic damage to our environment or you think it’s much ado about nothing, there are blogs that appeal to either side of the topical fence.

I don’t believe it’s appropriate to use this forum to push my opinion on political or semi-political issues, but I would like to share a couple of interesting blogs.  Each is passionate about one particular side of the topic or other.  Also, each blog lists other related blogs…you could read on for hours!

Here’s one blog that supports the “Climate Change” theory

and here’s one blog that hopes to debunk the “Climate Change” theory.

On the local weather scene, we’ll see a few showers today with temps zipping up to around 70 degrees with brisk southerly winds.

Keep a eye on our web site on Saturday as we could see a line of potent thunderstorms roar through the area.

I’ll tell you what I’m thinking about tomorrow’s weather today on our Noon newscast, then John‘s got an update on the weekend outlook on ACTION NEWS 5 @ 5, 6 & 10pm.

With High pressure building into the Mid-South Santa should have no problem delivering the happy packages this Christmas Evening.  It’s cool tonight in the Mid-South but after all, it is December and even these numbers are above normal.  In fact, it’s a near heat wave for Santa whose origin is the bitterly cold North Pole!

From all of the Action News Five Storm Tracking Team, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful rest of the Holiday Season.

If you’re wanting to track Santa, check this out right heeeeere.  GPS is a wonderful thing.  It was always difficult for me to figure out where this woman was located.  Comparatively speaking, keeping up with St. Nick is a breeze!

Speaking of…it’s been awfully breezy today with gusts up to 30+ mph.  Rain is expected to linger for the next few hours.  Although we started the day with temps in the 60s, I expect temperatures to dip through the 50s later this afternoon as a cooler air mass makes its entrance.

Winter officially began Sunday at 6:04 AM and wasted no time ushering winter temperatures into the Mid-South.  After reaching an afternoon high of only 29 Sunday, overnight lows fell into the teens.  Windchill temperatures this morning were in the single digits in many areas including Memphis which at one point had a windchill of 2 degrees.  Here is a list of morning lows from the National Weather Service Office in Memphis:
MAX/MIN TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION TABLE FOR THE MIDSOUTH
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MEMPHIS TN
619 AM CST MON DEC 22 2008

                              24HR  12HR    24HR
STATION                HIGH   LOW     PCPN

MEMPHIS                  30     14        0.00
NWS MEMPHIS          30     13        0.00
JACKSON                  30     12        0.00
DYERSBURG              27     10        0.00
SAVANNAH              30       9        0.00
HUNTINGDON          25       7        0.00
UNION CITY             23       8        0.00
PARIS                       22       6        0.00
JONESBORO             27      11       0.00
BLYTHEVILLE           29      13       0.00
WALNUT RIDGE       27      10       0.00
WEST MEMPHIS       28       14      0.00
TUPELO                  38        17      0.00
CORINTH               36        15      0.00

Most of the day ahead will be spent with temperatures below freezing but fortunately, a shift in wind overnight will bring warmer temperatures to the Mid-South for the rest of the week. 

Travel across the nation should be much better today than it was over the weekend as the northern half of the U.S. and both coast dealt with some not-so-travel-friendly weather.  It will continue to be cold across the continental U.S. as temperatures will range from the single digits in the Northern Plains to temperatures only in the sixties across much of Florida and fifties in the southwest.  Snow will fall over the Northern Rockies to the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and Southern California will have to deal with rain.  Dry weather will be in place from the Central Plains all the way to the East Coast today.  But the storm system that is bringing snow to the Northern Rockies today will move into the Plains and northern tier of the U.S tomorrow making for major travel problems.  Heavy snow is expected from northern Minnesota through the Great Lakes region.  Rain will fall from the middle Mississippi River Valley through the Mid-South and into Louisiana.  Another storm system will move out of the Pacific into Washington and Oregon bringing heavy snow to that area and rain into northern California.  The East Coast and the Southeast should fare well be the system moving through the nation’s mid section Tuesday will move into those areas Wednesday. 

Here’s a look at the surface map for today.  Notice the high pressure( blue H) over the Mid-South.  That is keeping us dry right now but it’s also keeping cold air over the area. 

The high rapidly moves east tomorrow returning a southerly flow to the area and warming things up a bit but it also allows the system to the west to move out of the Rockies making for the mixed bag of weather over much of the country.