HOUSTON – How could you not see our beautiful, full super moon last night known as the sturgeon moon, as this is apparently a great time to fish for those rather not-so-good looking fish in the Great Lakes. Super moons are simply closer than normal in their orbit to Earth so appear bigger and brighter. This is the second super moon this year (July had one) and we have another full super moon at the end of this month, also known as a blue moon!
Having two full moons in one month is ‘somewhat’ rare -- this happens every couple of years (or once in a blue moon), but super blue moons only happen on average every eight years, but can be longer and the next one isn’t until 2037! Does it look blue? No, but it may have back in the 1800′s during a volcanic eruption, so that may be the origin of “blue moon.” I’ll blog more about that as we get closer to it.
That sky sure looks blue and it’s one hot sky this month. The American Model has our region in the 100s every day until mid-month when this heat dome finally moves away a bit, but then we are still in the mid and upper 90s. The latest Climate Prediction Center’s forecast for August shows both hotter and drier than normal:
And we need a few showers! Despite some solid rainfall in April and May, we’ve had virtually none in the last month and the summer has produced only about 6″ of rain...the last being on July 6!
Burn bans continue to increase across the area and we’re now at 160 counties including most of Southeast Texas:
As for what we can ‘normally’ expect in August, that is in the graphic below, but I’d take that one with a grain of salt. This month is looking droughty and hot:
And yes, that 109° is also the hottest on record for Houston (officially at Bush/IAH). Let’s hope we don’t exceed that one but it couldn’t certainly happen this year. Keep that in mind as school gets back in session!
So enjoy the skies at night -- the moons are fantastic and the Perseid meteor shower shows up August 13, which can be one of the best all year. Here is a sky guide for that one from space.com.
Frank
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