Tropical Storm Andres in East Pacific

The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season formed early Monday morning off the Southwest coast of Mexico. The East Pacific hurricane season begins earlier than our Atlantic season, on May 15. However, Tropical Storm Andres is a little late to kick off the Eastern Pacific season this year. This is the latest into the season for the first named storm to form in 40 years. Still, better late than never, right? Although...I'm sure there are a lot of folks on the Western coast of Mexico and Southern Baja hoping Andres merely brushes past them instead of making a direct landfall.

Tropical Storm Andres is expected to strengthen to hurricane status by Tuesday, as the storm continues to move over very warm ocean waters. You can keep up with the latest on Andres here.

As of Monday morning, there is still no tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Basin. We have yet to see our first named storm of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season. However, we have at least already had our first tropical depression of the year, Tropical Depression One from May 28-29. You can read a summary of that storm here.
--Carrie

Crunching The Numbers

Today was the Summer Solstice, which is the longest day of the year (14 hours and 45 minutes). This is over five hours longer than on the shortest day of the year (Winter Solstice). I've compiled all the data and put it into table form.

Can you tell today was a quiet weather day? :)

Summer Begins Today!

Summer officially began this morning at 1:45 AM. The Summer Solstice is the time period when the Sun's most direct rays are over 23.3°N. It is also the longest day of the year - days will now shorten for the rest of the year.

There is a common misconception that the Earth is closest to the Sun during summer. It's actually the opposite! On July 4th, the Earth will be at its farthest point from the Sun - roughly 95 million miles (called the Aphelion). On January 4th earlier this year, the Earth was at its closest point to the Sun - approximately 91 million miles (called the Perihelion).