Fay Will Hopefully Bring Drought Relief

Tropical Storm Fay is inland and did do some damage.

There have been a few tornadoes with some cars overturned in Stuart, FL. (Martin County)

The storm will slowly drift north and plaque northern Florida, southern Georgia and portions of Alabama over the next 5 days.

Fay may actually move into the Atlantic side of Florida (near Orlando) and make a second landfall between Daytona and Jacksonville sometime of Thursday. Or even on the Georgia coast.

There isn't really any major weather feature to steer the storm so the actual track remains very undefined at this time.

It isn't all bad news however -- remember this part of the world really needs the rainfall, especially Georgia and Alabama and vicinity.

So Fay could be a blessing but could also be an unwanted pest if she lingers for several days.

Just keep up with all the latest forecasts if you live or need to travel to this region over the next few days.

Did you see the Florida map today on CoCoRaHS? Wow a lot of rain, with over 8 inches from one observer near Sun Valley in Palm Beach County. (north of Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area)

Another observer in the same county had 7.64 inches.

Amazing to me! I am sure I experienced that at some point during my 19 years in Arkansas, but after living in the high deserts of Colorado for so long now -- when I think of 8 inches of rain if it fell here, I see widespread destruction.

Denver's annual precipitation (including rain and melted snow) is just a little over 15 inches.

Today's Weather Lesson

Ok it's been a few days since our last lesson when we talked about energy, both potential and kinetic.

There is a law you learn in science about energy that states energy is neither created nor destroyed. It merely changes from one form to another.

Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy (or speed) of all the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, where higher temperatures mean faster average speeds and colder temperatures mean slower speeds.

The warmer the air, the further apart the molecules are, so it is less dense and rises.

The colder the air, the closer the molecules are, so it is more dense and sinks.

Temperature tells you how hot or cold something is relative to a set standard value.

Another type of energy we hear about it called heat. This is the energy being transferred from one object to another due to a temperature difference between the two objects.

Once heat is transferred, it is stored as internal energy.

In the atmosphere, heat is transferred by conduction, convection and radiation.

Tomorrow we'll discuss temperature scales and some important types of heat to weather. (latent heat and specific heat)