For every up, there's a down...

Written by: Bob Metcalfe

Newton's Third Law of Motion said it best; "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Huh? For those of you not physics savvy, you might be sitting there scratching your head.

We live in a world where waves rule. You've been at the beach, maybe even over the last few days, and while you're there, you might have noticed the waves as they roll on shore. Now we all have been out swimming in the lake or an ocean and loved the days when the huge waves come rolling in. I think that bodysurfing should be our new national past time. But have you ever noticed that in between those huge rollers are extremely low levels of water? For all of those huge ups, we have to even it out with a down. This is one of the best demonstrations of the wave nature of our atmosphere. Weather systems and long term patterns are merely fluctuations in the waves of air and pressure across the Earth.

So why write about this now? Have you noticed the somewhat comfortable 70's we've had the past few days when our average should be around 80? It is July, and we haven't seen any signs of real "heat." Well just look west, in the picture above. Those are temperatures about a mile off of the surface, and they are reading upwards of 85 degrees in the desert southwest! That translates to temperatures well above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas at the surface. You'll often notice that our "cooler" weather in the east usually is the result of a big driving force from the west (since our weather patterns generally head west to east.) High pressure in the middle of the country is the culprit, pumping in the warm air from the Mexico area. But don't worry, our heat is coming over the next few days!