Longest day approaching

WEATHER TIDBITS

Day 16 in the gloom room and counting.

I’ve been here in Laguna since 1958 but I’m never ready for this

time of year ever!

The 2003 gloom season has been relentlessly brutal on us.

You can sleep a healthy 10 hours at night and still wake up

drained.

Or at noon it still looks like it’s 6:30 a.m., all damp and gray,

chilly and clammy.

I’m looking at the Amtrak schedule to see when the next one comes

so I can walk up on the tracks right in front of it while it’s racing

at 80 mph plus.

Now I see why Seattle has such a high suicide rate.

I mean, the way my life is going it would take only a few more

days of this gloom to put me over the edge -- seriously! But then,

who’d write Tidbits as bad as I do?

No sign of a let up. This layer extends from coastal Oregon all

the way to the tip of the Baja Peninsula and out to sea about 1,500

miles, or roughly the size of the Continental U.S.

We actually received measurable precipitation from the

6,000-foot-thick marine layer 0.07 inches on Monday pre-dawn and

another 0.03 inches today (Tuesday).

That extra 10th of an inch pushes our season total to 16.98 inches

-- that’s from four gauges strategically placed in different

locations in Laguna.

While we’re struggling to kiss the 70 degree mark here, it’s 116

degrees in Death Valley and 98 degrees at Joshua Tree.

One thing good about this persistent coastal eddy is that the

moisture is keeping the natural scrub oak, sages and chaparral from

getting too crispy. Plus the surface visibility today has got to be

at least 75 miles. You could see the sand cliffs on Catalina today

and San Clemente Island was clearly visible (52 miles offshore).

On June 10 in 1979 it was 101 degrees in Laguna with flying

spiders with big ol’ silk-like streamers hanging everywhere.

We’re almost at maximum sun time now. On Tuesday the sunrise was

at 5:51a.m., sunset 8:02 p.m. The longest day is 14 hours 26 min.

5:42 a.m. to 8:08 p.m.

In San Francisco it’s 5:31 a.m. to 8:21 p.m.

In Seattle 5:12 a.m. to 8:49 p.m.

In Juneau, Alaska 4:07 a.m. to 9:53 p.m.

In Fairbanks, Alaska 2:53 a.m. to 11:07 p.m.

Hottest June temps:

June 24, 1990 -- 103 degrees

June 16, 1981 -- 101 degrees June 22, 1976 -- 101 degrees

June 23, 1973 -- 101 degrees

June 10, 1979 -- 101 degrees

June 12, 1979 -- 100 degrees

Highest temp. ever -- Sept. 22, 1939 -- 106 degrees. Three days

later a category one hurricane found it’s way up here.

Stay tuned!

* DENNIS McTIGHE is a Laguna Beach resident. He earned a

bachelor’s in earth sciences from UCSD and was a U.S. Air Force

weather forecaster at Hickman Air Force Base, Hawaii.