Finally, after Thursday morning, the cold period will be over!  I think we are all happy about that, especially when you think about what the cold has done to your electric bill.  In fact, I’m a little nauseous about getting mine in a few weeks.  Highs Thursday will be in the upper 50s to near 60 with mid 60s possible by Friday.  With the milder air comes the chance of rain, which we haven’t had in a while.  I think a good soaking is on the way this weekend with many of us seeing an inch or more of rain.  Since we haven’t seen any rain in a couple of weeks and with all of the dry air around, our ground should be able to hold this without any major problems.  We will continue to monitor the trends but at this time I don’t expect any flooding problems.

I’m sure you have been astonished by the footage coming out of Haiti after the massive magnitude 7.0 earthquake Wednesday afternoon.  This appears to be the strongest earthquake to ever hit that area and has caused extensive damage.  Some reports show the possibility of more than 100,000 fatalities.  There are some theories about strong seismic activity and low total solar irradiance.  Over the past couple of years, sunspots have almost disappeared and our sun has pretty much fallen asleep.  In the past, some scientists say you can correlate increased seismic activity with low total solar irradiance.  I’m no expert on this, so I can’t really form an opinion, but it is something I’ve heard of and was discussed in geology while I was in college.