Trying to find the positives in all this

Thanks for spending a few minutes here catching up. Someone in our news department asked me the other day if I remember a time when our weather was so boring. Made me laugh for a minute, but what is happening right now in Kansas is stressful. However, its not the most "boring" weather we've had. I think the summer of 2011 and 2012 was much worse when we had 100° temperatures for 40-50 days. THAT was a boring, brutal stretch of weather. I hope we never have that again.

The one thing this weather has been good for lately is planet/stargazing. Clear skies are allowing for some great viewing. 

Meteor shower - not a very good one, but why not look

A much better meteor shower will be coming later this month (Orionids), with a peak expected around October 20/21

Mars - currently have a very close encounter with Earth (but still a whopping 32 million miles away) - It won't be this close to Earth until 2035. You can't miss it when looking into the southeast sky late into the evening. 

Venus - super bright in the morning sky (look to the east). It's visible until the sun comes up, which isn't happening until about 7:30.

Rain chances still on hold for now: my fear all along with Delta coming ashore is that it would rob us of a chance to get some rain with a STRONG cold front coming Sunday night. Models are now showing this trend (and have been for a few days). Any forecast of rain in the next ten days is a false sense of hope. I know it's a serious bummer (and I try my best to be optimistic), but there isn't anything we can do to change it and nothing coming through here looks to change it. We just have to sit back and wait and it could be a LONG wait. 

Isn't this crazy? As we watch Delta come on shore, the landfall will be within about 20 miles of where Laura hit the coast. Just incredible for them to come so close in the SAME season. Our hearts go out to those being affected by the storm. It is the 25th named storm of the Atlantic season, with the record standing at 28 (from 2005). Remember, hurricane season doesn't close until the end of November. And... it is 2020 after all. Stay tuned.