The Earth is getting closer to the Sun.
Yup. You read that right! In fact, by the bone-chilling days of early January, Earth will be a full three million miles closer to the Sun!
But don’t be alarmed, because this will happen every year of your lifetime. The reason for the difference in distances over the course of the year is that the orbit of Earth is not presently circular around the Sun, it is elliptical. With a periodicity of about 100,000 years, it does become almost circular and then more elliptical again. With the current shape of our elliptical orbit, the furthest we get from the Sun is about 94.5 million miles. That furthest distance is known as Aphelion, and it just occurred on the 4th of July. So now we are getting closer, and by January 4th, the Earth-Sun distance will be about 91.5 million miles. The “closest to sun” date is known as Perihelion.
Aphelion: Farthest away. Perihelion: Closest.
These long summer evenings are so enjoyable! Daylight, though, is very slowly shortening, but the change has not really yet become perceptible, though soon it will. However, most of our climatologically warmest days are still ahead of us! Based on 30 year averages, which are recalculated every 10 years (we are presently using the 1981-2010 dataset), we are at our warmest time of year, with an average high of 76. That average high does not tick down a degree to 75 until August 10th.
We’ll want to be keeping an eye on the tropics this summer and early fall, as the tropical Atlantic should be more active than it was last year. When I lived in Bangor, back in ’99, the remnants of Dennis and then Floyd gave me a foot of rain in about a week’s time! And of course we remember the widespread wind damage caused by Arthur in early July of 2014 in both The County and Western New Brunswick.
I’d like to close with a public welcome to WAGM’s fairly recent arrival, Anthony Macari III. He is our morning meteorologist and holds a B.S. degree in meteorology from the highly regarded program at Lyndon State College in Vermont. I think you’ll enjoy his work. And if you are wondering where April went, she accepted a position at a station in southeastern Virginia. It’s a great part of the country, with some very interesting weather. She seems very happy there.
Ted Shapiro holds the Broadcast Seal of Approval from both the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association. An Alexandria, Va. native, he has been chief meteorologist at WAGM-TV since 2006. Email him at tshapiro@wagmtv.com.
