Morning Has Broken
Morning Has Broken was Originally Posted on September 17, 2011 by lavarock
Naw, not the Cat Stevens song. I’m talking about sunrise.
Morning here is a bit odd, yet not very different from some other places in the world. It is light for quite some time before the sun actually appears. You see I live on the west side of a mountain range. Well actually it is a large volcno, but for all intents and purposes, a mountain.
A few miles away they see the sun come up over the horizon. Because they are thousands of miles from the mainland (Mexico in our case because yes, we are THAT FAR south) they see the sun rise over the ocean, unobstructed. That light fills the sky for quite a while before I can see the sun.
I was watching the sun hitting the ground out to the west, slowly creeping towards the east as it rose higher in the sky.
Remembering that I have a GPS with sunrise and current time, I grabbed it and ran outside to a place about 1/3 the way up the property from the house. The GPS said that todays sunrise was 6:11am and it was now 7:01am and the sun was just barely visable above Hualali. That means that I don’t see the sun for 50 minutes after people just a few miles over the hill see it.
Sunset is a different thing and I see the sunset and I’m guessing people in Hilo don’t as it is hidden behind a 14,000 foot hill.
They get tons of rain over there and we get less, so it all works out.
Speaking of rain, it really rained last nigth and we are guessing we got about 2 inches. In an hour or so the sun will help dry things out though. Aslo, the ground here is very porous and at least on my farm there is no danger of puddles for any length of time.
Quick, which state has reached a higher record temperature, Alaska or Hawaii? If you answered Alaska you’d be right at 100 degrees. However, if you answered Hawaii, you’d also be right. Both states have recorded their highest temperature of 100 degrees. All other 48 states have recorded their highest temperature of 105 or higher.
As for lowest temperatures, Alaska has hit -80 degrees however Hawaiis low was a measly 12 degrees. I assume that is on Mauna Kea summit (14,000 feet up) because it is often 40 degrees there and just the other morning we had a light dusting of snow. I don’t know whether that is considered the last snowfall of the season or the first of the new season. We here just call it “neat!”
I found these and other amazing weather facts found at: www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/archives-weather-extremes.htm
You may notice that they keep refering to the 48 vrs all 50 states. That is because we are not contiguous. Alaska and Hawaii are far removed from the rest of the states.
Consider this, the approximate distance across the U.S. is between 2900 to 3500 miles, depending upon where you measure. That is almost the same distance from California to Hawaii. The only thing between them and us is water, temperature regulating water!