Blogs
Outdoor San Diego
-
Rainfall, Gray Whales, Venus, and the Short-Lived Quadrantid Meteor Shower
By Jerry Schad - January 2, 2009, 11:14 a.m.
Highest Monthly Rainfall totals in San Diego are most likely to occur in January and February (nearly two inches each on average) according to weather-service statistics. If low temperatures accompany the typical Pacific storms of this period, there's a chance of snow in the mountains, including a very slim chance ...
-
The Fabled Green Flash, Liquidambar Trees, and Jupiter-Mercury-Venus and the Moon in the Southwestern Sky
By Jerry Schad - December 23, 2008, 2:27 p.m.
Liquidambar Trees, or sweet gums, the colorfully deciduous trees gracing front yards, parks, and campuses throughout the San Diego area, have been putting on a good show for the past month. The maplelike leaves of most varieties have turned from green to purple to red; the leaves of other varieties ...
-
Winter Solstice, Hiking to High Places, Ripening Palm Fruit
By Jerry Schad - December 17, 2008, 5:20 p.m.
Winter Solstice, the moment when the sun reaches its southernmost point on the celestial sphere, occurs this year at 4:04 a.m., Sunday, December 21. This event signals the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. With only about ten hours of ...
-
Poinsettias, Exceptional Tides, the Moon of Longs Nights, and the Geminid Meteor Shower
By Jerry Schad - December 10, 2008, 1:27 p.m.
Poinsettias, a favorite of backyard gardeners, are now exhibiting their scarlet, petal-like bracts, just in time for the holidays. The onset of 14-hour-long nights triggers their behavior: In San Diego this condition is met just before the date of winter solstice -- Sunday, December 21. Exceptionally High and Low Tides ...
-
Shorebird Watching, Earliest Sunset, Cross-Country Skiers, and Toyon
By Jerry Schad - December 4, 2008, 10:23 a.m.
Shorebird-Watching enters its most agreeable season this month, with migrant and resident birds sharing common winter grounds. Egrets, herons, terns, and a variety of other species provide endless entertainment as they go about the business of fishing and feeding in San Diego County's remaining coastal wetlands. Publicly accessible wetlands include ...
-
Rainbow Season, Fremont Cottonwoods, Venus & Jupiter, the Moon's Chesire Cat Smile
By Jerry Schad - November 22, 2008, 10:10 p.m.
"Rainbow season" arrives with the first rains of late fall. Scattered showers are best for rainbow watching: sunlight refracting and reflecting through the raindrops causes two bows to appear: an intense circular arc at 42˚, and a bigger, but weaker arc at 51˚ from the antisolar point (the point in ...
-
Atmosphereic Ice Crystals, Liquidambar Trees, and Sycamores
By Jerry Schad - November 19, 2008, 9:40 p.m.
Atmospheric ice-crystal effects are often observed, starting about this time of year, because of the frequent appearance of high clouds made of tiny bits of ice. The most familiar of these optical effects is the 22˚-radius halo, or ring, around the sun or the moon. Less often seen is a ...
-
Temperature Inversions, Tides, Sunrise/Sunset, and the Leonid Meteor Shower
By Jerry Schad - November 12, 2008, 10:24 a.m.
Low-lying temperature inversions commonly occur in San Diego as winter approaches. During the night and morning hours, a meterological condition often occurs in which the normal higher-you-go-the colder-it-gets trend is reversed. At such times cold marine air lies below a stable layer of warmer air originating from inland locales. Whenever ...
-
Santa Anas, Monarchs, and Acorns
By Jerry Schad - November 5, 2008, 12:56 p.m.
Santa Ana winds in San Diego County often reach their greatest intensity during November, particularly at the mountain passes, where dry air from a high-pressure area over the interior deserts swoops coastward toward a low-pressure area offshore. The subsiding air warms rapidly while it descends, resulting in 80˚-90˚ temperatures close ...
-
A Waxing Moon for Halloween -- Just Before Daylight Savings Time Ends
By Jerry Schad - October 30, 2008, 5:45 p.m.
Daylight Savings Time ends this Sunday morning, November 2 at 2 a.m. With the resumption of standard time, midday (the time when the sun reaches its maximum altitude in the south part of the sky) will again be close to 12 noon on our clocks, rather than 1 p.m., as ...
-
Temps, Tarantulas, and Turning Leaves
By Jerry Schad - October 25, 2008, 11:46 a.m.
Local air temperatures should be declining most rapidly during this time of year, according to more than a century of local meteorological records. With every successive week, daily maximum temperatures are declining by about 3/4°F, and daily minimum temperatures are plummeting by about 1°F. (This gradual onset of fall/winter chill ...
-
Black Oaks, Floss Silks, and Orionid
By Jerry Schad - October 16, 2008, 11:56 a.m.
The tawny hues of the black oak tree are just beginning to highlight the slopes of San Diego County's higher mountains. Named for the dark coloring of its bark, especially when wet, the black oak (Quercus kelloggii) is the only deciduous oak native to the county. Associating with pines, firs, ...
-
October's Beach Sand, Low Tides, Full Moon, and Venus
By Jerry Schad - October 8, 2008, 9:38 a.m.
As the beach-going season winds down, San Diego County's coastline is padded by what is likely the deepest and widest accumulations of sand we'll see this year. Many stretches of the coastline are vulnerable to powerful waves associated with winter storms. This wave action can pull sand off the beaches ...
-
Dense Ground Fogs, Spider Webs, Chinese Flame Trees, and a Thin Crescent Moon
By Jerry Schad - October 1, 2008, 10:14 a.m.
Dense ground fogs are a trademark of the onset of autumn along San Diego's coastal strip. Fog materializes during the night and early morning hours when moist marine air that has settled in valleys and low areas is chilled below the dew point. These ground fogs are distinct from the ...
-
Return of the Santa Anas
By Jerry Schad - September 26, 2008, 11:02 a.m.
Late September signals the beginning of Santa Ana winds, which may continue intermittently through the winter. Early Santa Anas are often responsible for coastal San Diego's hottest and driest days of the year. Records show that 62 percent of the days at Lindbergh Field with 90-degree readings or higher have ...
-
Fall Officially Begins
By Jerry Schad - September 21, 2008, 3:49 p.m.
Fall officially begins at 8:44 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Monday, September 22 -- a good excuse to throw a "thank-God-it's-Monday-morning" party to celebrate the occasion and kick off the work week. At equinox, the sun shines directly down somewhere on Earth's equator. At 8:44 a.m. San Diego time this ...
-
Earlier Sunsets, Coastal Sage, and a Harvest Moon
By Jerry Schad - September 10, 2008, 11:36 a.m.
The time of sunset changes most rapidly this time of the year. This is mainly because the sun is swinging rapidly south along the ecliptic (its apparent path through the background stars). From the latitude of San Diego, the sun is now setting about 75 seconds earlier every day (equivalent ...
-
Summer Thundershowers, Chaparral, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and the Waxing Moon
By Jerry Schad - September 3, 2008, 9:26 a.m.
Summer thundershowers, having blessed the eastern margin of San Diego County with welcome, if spotty precipitation of late, have triggered a minor growth spurt among certain kinds of vegetation. In the desert, for example, the spidery ocotillo can grow an instant crop of green leaves after a storm, only to ...
-
Warm Water Temps, Low Tides, Diminishing High Tides, and Venus
By Jerry Schad - August 26, 2008, 1:25 p.m.
Warm water temperatures, into the 70s F over the past couple of months, won't last much longer. As fall approaches, shorter days and increasingly oblique solar radiation will mean that less and less energy will be supplied to the ocean waters offshore. These waters will soon be shedding more thermal ...
-
Thunderstorms, Shore Birds, Jasmine, and the Milky Way
By Jerry Schad - August 19, 2008, 7:18 p.m.
Thunderstorms have visited the Imperial Valley and parts of eastern San Diego County over the past several weeks. The seasonal arrival of moisture from the east and south, more or less typical for late summer, contributes to the greening of certain kinds of vegetation. On the desert floor, for example, ...