Mediarology: Got $5 Billion?

Apply directly to the forehead!

Raid the piggy bank, weather fans. Today's WaPo has a front-page business section article discussing the previously-announced potential sale of The Weather Channel. Landmark Communications, current owner of TWC, was founded as a newspaper company over 100 years ago in the Norfolk area, so the potential restructuring is viewed in terms of the decline of the printed word as a vehicle for news distribution. Landmark still owns the Annapolis Capital among its newspaper holdings.

TWC, one of the last privately held cable channels, is based in Atlanta and reaches about 97% of cable and satellite households in the U.S. The web site, weather.com, is in the top 20 sites by traffic, with 30 million unique visitors and $130 million in annual revenue. That's a lot of Head-On ads!

Potential buyers include Time Warner, Silver Spring-based Discovery Communications, News Corp., and NBC Universal. Industry estimates for the value of the cable and web properties are as high as $5 billion.

In hindsight, TWC's success appears forehead-slappingly obvious, but the early history of the channel was marked by a series of financial crises as the fledgling operation tried to find a market. The meteorologist with the original idea, John Coleman, walked away with $20 for his original 20 shares of Class A stock and turned over control to Landmark after being unable to raise $1 million to exercise an option and save the company from bankruptcy.

Raindrops Falling on Your Head

Now

Cloudy, cool. Following sunny skies this morning, clouds have overspread the Washington metro region this afternoon ahead of a low pressure area developing in the Mid-Mississippi Valley. By mid afternoon, rain and showers on radar had reached as far as the southern Blue Ridge and most of West Virginia. At 4pm, Charlottesville reported light rain had just begun, with only a trace accumulated. The rain will move into the area this evening, generally from southwest to northeast.

Temperatures are on the mild side for this time of year, reaching the upper 40s in most places. The daily highs were: National 50°, Dulles 48°, BWI 47°.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Rain, mild. Rain, developing this evening, will continue overnight, with temperatures nearly steady in the low to mid 40s. Rain will end tomorrow morning, with decreasing clouds in the afternoon and highs 50-55°, but turning colder late in the day and at night.

Scroll down for Camden's outlook through the rest of the weekend and New Year's Day.

Mediarology/Meteor-ology

One of the things the atmosphere does for you is to keep raindrops falling on your head at times, but it also keeps other, nastier stuff from falling and killing you. Today's SciFri on NPR reported that NASA's Near Earth Object Program is tracking a 50-meter wide asteroid, discovered when it was near the Moon, which is on its way to a 25% chance of impacting Mars. The object, if it hits on Jan. 30, could produce quite a show. Since the atmosphere of Mars is less than 1% as dense the Earth's, an object of that size could do some significant damage, creating a crater about half a mile wide.

Mars image from NASA/JPL

DC: Definitely Changeable

Now

Mostly sunny, mild. While yesterday's coastal storm has pulled away off New England, mostly sunny skies across the Washington metro region have helped temperatures climb above the forecast range, to the mid and upper 50s in most places. On the southern fringe of the area, Culpeper and Fredericksburg broke the 60° mark.

The double-digit above average daily highs were: National 58°, Dulles 54°, BWI 54°. Going into the last few days of the year, the month overall is now running about 1.5° above the long-term average. This keeps 2007 on track for a 4-way tie as the 12th warmest year in Washington records.

As Josh has already noted, a pattern of fast upper-level westerlies will keep things unsettled heading on into the end of the year.

NWS Precipitation Analysis above for the 24 hours ending 7am this morning shows half inch or greater amounts (green) to the southeast of DC and progressively lighter amounts to the north and west. The lightest blue area covering most of Frederick and Loudoun Counties represents less than 0.1", and inside the Beltway was generally in the range 0.1-0.25".

Tonight and Tomorrow

Partly cloudy, cool, then chance of rain. Lows tonight under variably cloudy skies will range from the mid and upper 30s inside the Beltway to 28-32° in the outer 'burbosphere. Clouds will increase tomorrow afternoon with a 30% chance of rain by evening and highs 45-50°.

Scroll down for Josh's outlook through the weekend and into New Year's Day.

Seminar Series

The PowerPoint slides from Fred Singer's presentation to this month's DC MIT Club seminar series, "The Great Climate Change Debate", have been posted to the Club web site. Prof. Singer "is a leader among those who have emphasized natural factors over anthropogenic causes to explain global warming."

Next month's lecture is "The Findings and Forecasts of the Climate Change Scientists", by Prof. Ronald Prinn, Director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. Having had no takers so far, PM Update's previous offer to host any TV meteorologist at the seminar series still stands, provided seats remain available.

DC: Dry Christmas?

Now

Cloudy, seasonably cool. Despite the impressiveness of west-of-the mountains radar echoes inspiring some model maligning in Comment-ville last night, the Washington metro area remains mostly cloudy, but dry, on this pre-holiday-weekend Friday. Temperatures have been very close to seasonable levels, in the low to mid 40s. Highs were: National 46°, Dulles 45°, BWI 43°.

A weak low-pressure area now off the Georgia/South Carolina coast will continue eastward, but easterly wind flow will keep clouds in over us as an area of rain approaches with a cold front from the west by the second half of the weekend.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Mostly cloudy, cool, some drizzle or showers. Lows tonight under mostly cloudy skies will be generally in the mid to upper 30s. Some drizzle or light rain is possible, along with patchy fog. Tomorrow will remain cloudy with some drizzle and a 40% chance of measurable showers. Highs will be 45-49°.

Scroll down for Camden's outlook through the rest of the weekend and into next week, including the vanishing chances for a white Christmas.

Christmas Climatology: Whitest and Wettest

Climatologically, there is only about a 10% chance of 1" or more of snow on the ground on Christmas in Washington. Since 1929, there have been only 8 such occurrences. The largest amount was 7" in 1966, with 5" and 4" in 1962 and 1963, respectively. That was the only time it happened in consecutive years. The most recent was 1989, with 2". The wettest was 1.41" of rain in 1945.

Blast From the Past: Meteorological Mystery

The winner of the virtual T-shirt in yesterday's Meteorological Mystery contest is Augusta Jim, who recognized that the low temperature can occur any time during the day, including right before midnight, so the Dec. 20 record low of 2° and the Dec. 21 record of 1° were in fact one event. You can read his explanation in yesterday's Comments section.

An Honorable Mention for creativity goes to Havoc.

Mediaorology

The dcrtv blog is reporting today that meteorologist Steve Rudin, formerly of channels 9 and 5, was spotted on News Channel 8 this morning.

In other weather media news, dcrtv reports that news station WTOP's audio has replaced classical music as background on WJLA-7's Doug Hill Weather Now digital channel (Comcast 204), and WASH's adult contemporary sound is accompanying WUSA-9's Live Doppler 9000 HD (Comcast 203).

And, in case you missed it, the results are in for the "Battle Of The Local Media Hotties": Channel 4's Chuck Bell beat out Channel 7's Adam Caskey by 1 vote. If we had only known earlier that nerdiness was so hot!

Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday to all of our site visitors and their families from Update Central.

DC: Developing Cloudiness

Now

Sunny, seasonable. Despite light northwesterly breezes behind a weak cold front, bright sun has helped push temperatures to seasonable levels in the Washington metro area this afternoon. Highs were a little warmer than originally expected: National 49°, Dulles 46°, BWI 47°.

If you didn't get out and enjoy the sunshine today, you'll have to wait several days as more unsettled conditions develop into the weekend.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Increasing clouds, cool. Clouds will increase tonight with lows 32-35° in town ranging down to the upper 20s in the 'burbosphere. Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy with highs 42-47° and a 20% chance of light showers or drizzle developing, especially westward toward the Blue Ridge, as a storm system scoots by to our south.

Scroll down for Josh's outlook through the the weekend and into next week, including the prospects for a white Christmas.

Blast From the Past: Meteorological Mystery

As noted in "Today in Weather History" to the right, Dec. 20, 1942 was the beginning of a cold spell in which the modern Washington low temperature record was set for December, exceeded only by the -7° and -13° on Dec. 30 and 31, respectively, in 1880. The month as a whole went on to be about 5° below the long-term average, but it barely made it into the top 30 coldest Decembers, averaging 6.5° warmer than 1989, which is tied for second place. By comparison, the monthly low in 1989 was 5°.

An excerpt from the early-morning (1:30am) weather map for Dec. 20, 1942 is shown above. The temperature at Washington is 21° with light snow ahead of a low pressure area centered in the Tennessee Valley. Moderate snow extends back into the Midwest, with heavy snow at Chicago. Washington went on to receive 3.7" of snow for the day.

The Meteorological Mystery is: How could the reported low temperature for the day drop to 2°? The original map notes, "This map was not released until 7 days after above date." Was it a ruse to confuse the enemy in war time? Was it an "urban cold island" at then brand-new National Airport? Was it a conspiracy by the World-Wide Global Warming Gang? The first correct and complete explanation wins a CapitalWeather.com T-shirt (IF we ever have any CapitalWeather.com T-shirts!). Members of CapitalWeather.com and professional meteorologists not eligible. The answer will appear in a future PM Update.

DC: Dry Clouds DeCreasing

Now

Cloudy, cold. Following some very light sprinkles and flurries this morning, most of which did not reach the ground, persistent overcast has kept afternoon temperatures from varying more than a degree or so from yesterday's. Daily highs were: National 42°, Dulles 41°, BWI 41°.

More sun but similarly cool temperatures are likely tomorrow after a weak cold frontal passage, with the next precipitation probably not on tap until the weekend.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Decreasing clouds, cold. Clouds will decrease overnight with lows in the low to mid 30s in the city and the mid to upper 20s in the 'burbosphere. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with highs in the mid 40s.

Scroll down for Dan's outlook through the rest of the week and into the weekend.

Climate Corner

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center issued its preliminary annual report on the climate of 2007 last week. It states that "2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S., since national records began in 1895 . . ." and that

The global annual temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces for 2007 is expected to be near 58.0°F and would be the fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Some of the largest and most widespread warm anomalies occurred from eastern Europe to central Asia.

Closer to home, unofficial CapitalWeather.com estimates show the 2007 Washington average through the first half of December of 58.9° to be in the top 10% of warmest years, tied with 1953, 1959, and 1999 for 12th place in 137 years of records. Before getting too anthropocentric about that statistic, however, it's important to note that DC's 61.4 square miles are only 0.0017% of the total area of the U.S., which in turn is a small fraction of Earth's overall land area. Total land area itself is only about 30% of the total planetary surface. Interestingly, however, DC's annual average is within about 1° of the worldwide average, making Washington in some strictly symbolic sense representative of the entire planet's temperature.