“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy,” Exodus 20:8-11.
Weather Headlines
Rain chances slowly increasing
Best rain chances come at the end of the week
Watching the holiday weekend forecast
Meteorologist Mark’s Wx Vlog
Seven-Day Forecast
Daily Forecast
Today & Tomorrow: Partly to mostly sunny, with just a chance for an afternoon/evening shower or storm.
Tuesday & Wednesday: Partly cloudy, with a 50% chance for a mainly afternoon/evening shower or storm.
Thursday & Friday: Scattered showers and thunderstorms likely.
Saturday: Mostly cloudy, with scattered showers.
Hay Weather Forecast
Forecast Discussion
The first half of the weekend is looking more unsettled. An area of cool low pressure may sit over Kentucky and spin clouds and cool rain showers our way from the north and northwest. Sunday and Monday are looking better, but that’s too far out to say for certain. It continues to look like a cool holiday weekend. Stay tuned.
Meteorologist Mark’s Wx Concerns
Almanac for Yesterday
Tropics
The area of low pressure closest to the Southeast is not expected to develop into anything too strong. Atmospheric and surface conditions are simply not favorable. However, some development is possible before it reaches the coast Monday evening and there is a chance, albeit slim, that it could even become a tropical storm.
Another area of interest is much, much farther away. Conditions are not favorable for development at this time, but they could become favorable over the next week or so, as the system moves toward the Caribbean. It is, in my opinion, certainly worth watching.
Sun & The Moon
Planting by the Moon in June
On This Day in Wx History
1901 – There was a rain of fish from the sky at Tiller’s Ferry in South Carolina. Hundreds of fish were swimming between cotton rows after a heavy shower!
It is believed that the storm spawned a weak tornado that ingested the fish. As the tornado dissipated before reaching Tiller’s Ferry, the fish would have been dropped from the sky. Bizarre, to say the least! Instances of fish falling from the sky have occurred in other places, too.
Yesterday’s National Temperature Extremes
High: 122° at Death Valley, California
Low: 32° at Berthoud Pass, Colorado, Big Piney, Wyoming, and at Peter Sinks, Utah
Today’s Tennessee Weather
It’s a hot day across our beautiful state, with just a chance for an afternoon shower or storm for those of us across Middle and East Tennessee. That rain chance is at about 30%.
Drought Monitor
The drought monitor is updated each Thursday.
Before the Sunday Story….
I’d just like to share something with you blog readers that I shared on Facebook about my new job. I shared this on Facebook Thursday evening.
I was hired by Adult Education on June 1. Since then, I’ve been teaching solo at the Crossville campus. It’s located at the Career Center and is a unique blend of students. Classes are going very well there.
Then, there’s my inmates at the Fentress County jail. I will teach them solo for the first time next week. I’m ready, but I’m a little nervous, to be honest. They are complicated people, I’ve decided. The men inmates are taught separate from the ladies. The men seem to have kinda buddied up to me (for the most part). The women are more reserved. I get that.
The room I teach in is concrete and white walls. The high ceiling makes it feel more open, but it’s not that much of an improvement. If anything, the high ceiling just makes for more white block wall. It’s a far cry from any classroom I’ve ever taught in. A far, far cry. It’s surely a far cry from any university classrooms I’ve taught in. This is different. I’ve never been in a classroom that had a “help” button that would send guards my way, if needed. Yeah, this is different.
I’m never to wear orange. That’s fine, though. There’s enough of that in the room. Don’t turn your back to them. No pens. No pencils with metal. No staples. No this, no that…Don’t do this…don’t do that… I’ve learned a LOT this month.
I saw a female inmate cry this week in class and that was hard to see. I won’t go into what she was crying about. We talked to her and the tears stopped. I then said something clever and she smiled. We moved on with the lesson.
One thing is for certain, these folks sure have shown me how much I take for granted. I look at their files and there’s so much I don’t understand. I just keep hearing this voice in my head and heart saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
I had them write down their goals and I was impressed. I was actually surprised. One gentleman looked at me after he saw me read his goals and said, “I know, I know. Aint gonna happen when I’m dumber than a sack of hammers.” I’ve got my work cut out for me.
I wondered what it would feel like the first time I walked in the jail this month. I wondered what it would feel like to see my “classroom” for the first time. I wondered a lot of things. I wondered what my students would look like, what they would say, what they would be like. It’s all OK and I know, beyond the shadow of any single doubt, that I’m right where I’m supposed to be in this season of my life.
It’s almost funny, actually. One minute you think you’re going to be a college professor and the next minute you’re teaching in a classroom with inmates wearing orange and you’re steps away from a help button.
And it’s never felt so right.
Sunday Story
The Atmosphere
I was speaking to summer camp kids at Allardt Elementary recently and a student asked, “How does the atmosphere keep the earth warm?” What a good question!
Our atmosphere is unique. No other planet has an atmosphere that even remotely resembles ours. Without this atmosphere, life on earth would not be possible.
The atmosphere consists of layers of gasses. The heavier ones are closest to earth. Those consist of water vapor and oxygen, just to name a couple. Gravity is able to hold these heavier gasses nearer to the surface, while the lighter gasses are allowed to float higher into the atmosphere.
The gasses of the atmosphere act like a greenhouse, keeping our planet warmer than it would otherwise be. We can see what a planet like ours would look like without an atmosphere when we look at Mars. We are so similar in so many ways, but the absence of a thick atmosphere leaves Mars uninhabitable.
We do know that Mars may have had an atmosphere at some point. There is ample evidence of running water having once flowed across that planet’s surface. Any atmosphere that may have once existed, keeping that water safely on the surface,has all but vanished.
The Greenhouse Effect, as it’s called, keeps our planet comfortable. With no atmosphere to trap some of the sun’s heat, all that heat would escape back to space at night. That would send temperatures plunging more than 100 degrees below zero across our planet. I guess you could say our atmosphere acts like a blanket.
The delicate balance of gasses is why you hear so many atmospheric scientists stressing the importance of not causing a man-made imbalance of those gasses. That atmosphere keeps us safe and we want to protect it as best we can!
Thank you for sharing your experience of teaching at the jail. It sounds like you are providing them with hope & light ..