Better Late Than Never!

WHOA.  Seriously… I don’t know how this happened, but I completely forgot to write a weather blog tonight!  Please forgive me for my delay.  I was looking up a ton of information about supermoons, the full “Beaver” moon, King Tides and Patriots running back James White, plus other educational information about exotic cats… and the blog just completely slipped my mind.  Again, better late than never, right?!

I’m already seeing some amazing photos of the almost-full moon, and I really appreciate you sending them in!!  Here’s one of my favorites from @SteveDiGi71: j

The moon is officially full on Monday morning, which means that you can pretty much say it’s about as good as it gets for us tomorrow night!  Tomorrow is the perfect night to enjoy some football underneath “Nature’s flashlight.”  So, I’m blogging about another “supermoon,” huh?  Yeah – it’s true.  Actually, this is the the second of THREE consecutive supermoons!  We had one last month, and we’ll get another next month (December 14th).  However, THIS full moon will be one of the best, brightest and biggest (appearance-wise… the moon is not ACTUALLY growing) since 1948 – and it won’t be this “super” again until 2034.  You see, the moon is actually at the part of its elliptical orbit around the Earth that is closest to the Earth, which is called “perigee.”  When the moon is in perigee, it’s about 26,466 miles closer to Earth than when the moon is at “apogee,” when it’s farther away.

Now, I’ve also had a lot of questions as to why it’s called the full “Beaver” moon.  Here you go (from space.com):  “Algonquin Native American tribes as well as American colonists called the November full moon the Beaver Moon because “this was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.”

This brings us to the “King Tides,” or really more like the “highest of high tides” that we’re expecting for mid-week:  On Tuesday and Wednesday, because of the full moon, there will be astronomical high tides.  The tides are controlled by the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun and if you look at the graphic above, you’ll get a better idea of how that works.  The closer the moon is to the Earth, the more gravitational pull, the higher the tides.  However, we also have to add in another factor, and that is that we’re expecting a storm system to move up the coastline in this same time frame and bring us an onshore wind – which will make the already highest high tides even higher.  You get me?  For Boston, the high tides we’ll be watching will be Tuesday at 11:07am and 11:44pm, as well as Wednesday (to a lesser extent) at 11:59am.  We’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Finally, why was I looking up James White?  Well, he’s awesome – and he’s also the next challenger for “Who Did it Better?!”  We had a little friendly competition in an Ocean Spray cranberry bog, and you won’t want to miss it.  Make sure you tune in to “Today in New England” on #7News Monday morning at 6am, and then be sure to VOTE!!  I’ll need all of the support I can get, because it’s tough going up against a superstar like Patriots running back James “Sweet Feet” White!!

The forecast in a nut-shell:  Milder temperatures tomorrow, with mostly sunny skies and highs in the mid to upper 50s.  Even MILDER for Monday (a beauty) with mostly sunny skies and temps in the low 60s!  Rain expected during the afternoon/evening/overnight of Tuesday… but should clear out by Wednesday morning.  For the end of the week it looks like there’s a BOOST in temps on the way, taking us into the 60s for Friday and Saturday!  Say what?  Well, remember Christmas Eve last year when it was 69°??  Yeah, that happened too.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and GO PATS!  – Breezy