Muggies for Muggles: They're Baack!

Now

Hot, humid, scattered showers. You don't need to be a weather wizard to notice that the muggies are back in town after a very brief hiatus. As Jason's dewpoint plot showed earlier, soup's on in the National Capital region. The increased juiciness was good for only a trace of precipitation around lunch time at both National and Dulles. The PM Update mobile unit observed a few drops near the northern portions of the Beltway in MoCo, but they could have been easily counted individually.

At mid afternoon, radar showed showers scattered from near Baltimore northeastward toward Philadelphia and across central New Jersey, but that activity has continued to diminish south of the Mason-Dixon line. Temperatures in the area currently range from the upper 80s to low 90s.

Mugginess will persist, and chances for showers and thunderstorms will increase for the next couple of days, but an extremely fine weekend for July continues to be shaping up.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Hot, humid, chance of showers. Hazy, warm, and humid conditions will continue through this evening, with only a 20% chance of an isolated shower or thunderstorm and lows in the mid to upper 70s in the city and low 70s to near 70° in the 'burbs. Tomorrow will again be hot and humid with a 40% chance of showers or thunderstorms in the late afternoon or evening. Highs will be in the range of 90-96°.

For the outlook through the rest of the week and into the weekend, scroll on down to Jason's post below.

Mediarology

The first half hour of today's Kojo Nnamdi show on WAMU-FM discussed the management situation at the National Hurricane Center. Among the guests was the Miami Herald's 30-year veteran hurricane reporter Martin Merzer. If you missed the live broadcast, you can feed your audio device at the show's website.

Political Science

Continuing with the theme of tropical festivities, tomorrow's joint hearing regarding NHC by 2 subcommittees from the House Committee on Science and Technology will include oustee Bill Proenza in Panel I and ouster NOAA Adm. Lautenbacher in Panel III. At post time, the C-SPAN schedule did not indicate whether the hearings would be broadcast, but a webcast is scheduled on the committee website.

Today's Miami Herald article, "U.S. House to review storm-center probe", previews the hearing. The HouChro's SciGuy asks, "Where are the forecasters?" and has some earlier discussion as well.