10/18/2013 Daily Update: Warm and Breezy Friday, Wildfires Ravaging Australia, Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Tonight

Good morning everyone and Happy Friday!

Showers passed overnight and setting the stage for a warm, sunny day, breezy at times with the gusty westerly winds.

TODAY: Sunny with highs near 70. Winds from the W at 5 to 15 mph, with gusts over 20 mph.

TONIGHT: Clear with lows in the lower 40s. Calm winds.

TOMORROW: Partly to mostly cloudy skies with highs in the mid 60s. Winds from the SW at 5 to 10 mph.

Another round of showers anticipated for Saturday night, after that a cool surge works its way in for the start of next week.

ATLANTIC TROPICS

• Nope, nothing. While the U.S. government shutdown has presumably ended, the shutdown in the tropics remains.

NATIONAL WEATHER

• Breezy but sunny for the Northeast. A few showers for northern areas.
• Showers passing through the Southeast, warm conditions in place for Florida
• Cooler air infiltrating the Midwest and South
• Dry and mild for the West

WORLD WEATHER

• Typhoon Francisco is a Category 4 beast with sustained winds up to 145 mph, gusting at 170 mph. It is located just west of Guam, where they felt the impacts on the eastern side of it yesterday. Francisco is a long-range threat for Japan, arrival time is mid-week or so. Good news though, is it is supposed to weaken over cooler waters and higher shear by the time it reaches there. Nonetheless, it follows at the heels of Wipha and going to cause headaches one more time.
• More rain approaching the U.K., snow and wind for northern Europe.
• Almost 100 wildfires are burning in New South Wales, Australia destroying dozens of homes, forcing hundreds of evacuations, and killing one person. This is early for wildfire season in Australia where usually they start around December when summer begins. Prayers out for those affected. You can monitor the situation via the links provided. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-17/live-blog3a-nsw-bushfire-emergency/5028762 and http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=683).
• Storms for Northwest Australia and a few for Queensland as well.

A picture is worth a 1000 words. Beautiful. (Credit: CIMSS)

Picture of the wildfires in New South Wales encroaching Sydney
(Credit: NASA http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82189&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image)

EARTHQUAKES

• There were no earthquakes rated at or above M6 yesterday or so far today.

SPACE WEATHER

• Tonight is the penumbral lunar eclipse show of the Hunter's Moon. The faint eclipse will peak at 7:50 pm EDT and clear skies are optimal conditions for viewing. The best seat of the house is in Africa, Europe, and Asia. See the map for details on locations.
• Sunspot 1861 produced a M1.2-class solar flare yesterday at 15:41 UTC. The CME appears faint and not Earth-directed anyways. The newcomers are magnetically stable so far, the lone source for moderate M-class flares being 1861 which is disappearing from the Earth-facing visible disk soon. M-class flare chances are at 30% in the next 24 hours.

Map of the penumbral lunar eclipse tonight
(http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OHfigures/OH2013-Fig04.pdf)

1861 about to disappear from view, the most likely area
to watch for a moderate flare. (Credit: SpaceWeather.com)