Warming Up!/Earth Week Activities/Just Wondering

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Jet stream begins to flatten and then trough over the western US by week's end. This means the Gulf moisture will flow into the southeast US and really warm up the eastern 2/3 rds of the country.

On Wednesday, look for several spots with isolated thunderstorms...very warm across the south and southeast with highs in the 80s and 90s. Cooler across the Great Lakes and northeast with highs in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Houston will be very warm on Wednesday with highs in the middle to upper 80s. Humidity increases substantially on Thursday through the weekend with temperatures staying mild to warm.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do warm-up or calentamiento, pronounced cah-lehn-tah-mee-EHN-tow. You are going to feel the calentamiento this week!

It was hot and humid on the June 23rd when we shot the big party scene for our award winning DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco. Well, right after shooting finished, we had a big thunderstorm with winds which ripped up the set. We sure did breathe a sigh of relief. You can see the party scene and all of the video by ordering your copy from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/,http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. Volume 2 is almost ready for release and Volume 3 will follow soon thereafter!!! For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, got to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
I attended part of today's Climate Change Seminar held at University of St. Thomas. The conference was put on by the Weather Research Center (Weather Museum) and the folks at University of St. Thomas. I really enjoyed what I heard. Here are some highlights:

John Hofmeister, CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy and former head of Shell Oil - The US and Europe only account for 20% of the world's emissions. No matter how much we are regulated, if other countries don't follow suit, we are wasting our efforts. He also recommended creating an independent (non-political) Federal Energy Reserve Board. He said otherwise we are never going to accomplish the goals we need--with administrations and elected officials changing every 2, 4 and 6 years. He said that if you talk global warming, you get opinions on 2 opposite sides of the spectrum. But, if you say, we need to lower pollution emissions into the air, most people will agree. To learn more about the grass roots effort he is behind, go to www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org.

Barry Lefer of the University of Houston reported that there is a consensus that "warming" is occurring. He did not go into any politics. He explained how ice cores from the ocean floor and Antarctica are showing co2 levels that clearly show the increases changes in co2. He explained that co2 is important even though water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas because water vapor recycles every few days while co2 only reduces by 80% in 300 years.

John Neilson-Gammon of Texas A & M said that 2 places have actually cooled--Texas and the southeast US. This has to do with El Nino/La Nina cycles.

Well, there is much more this week:

Wednesday, April 22nd - Free Museum Birthday/Earth Day Festivities at museum with yours truly (at 10 am) as emcee www.wxresearch.org/earthday

Friday, April 24th - Weather Museum Golf Classic at Wildcat Golf Course www.wxresearch.org

Sarah is so silly. She enjoys reading words backwards and usually the words are quite silly. But tonight she saw the word desserts and we discovered that backwards, that spells stressed. I guess if you eat too many desserts, you end up stressed.

Here's another thing I've been wondering. The first name of my Grandma Whitworth (my Dad's mom) was Yuba. Now, I wish so much I had asked her if she knew why her parents named her that. I have never met or even heard of anyone else named Yuba. Have you? I sure would like to know.

Today is Aggie Muster, a day we remember all Aggies who have passed away. I would like to especially remember my cousin, Bruce Whitworth, an Aggie, and his family.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman