Raccoon Rescue?

I was alerted this afternoon by a sharp-eyed neighbor to a raccoon (Procyon lotor) in one of my oak trees that she thought needed to be rescued. In fact the raccoon was only trying to escape the oppressive heat. It was literally 92° F. (33.33° C.) in the shade. He had wedged himself into some branches high up in the tree.

When I looked around there were several other raccoons that had taken refuge from the heat high in the oak trees. Most of them were above the ponds perhaps 30-feet off the ground where there might have been some slight breeze (there was none on the surface). When the camera flashed they kind of moved their paws a bit. . . as if to wave. . . or maybe stretch a bit. . . but otherwise they were unimpressed with my gawking.

I left them some ice water and cookies and retreated into the air-conditioning. One of the little guys made his way down and sat in the ice water while devouring the cookies. . . the others couldn't be bothered on such a hot day. . . and it is still 2 months until summer.

Click on either image for a larger view.

Meanwhile in the tropical Atlantic. . .



First Atlantic tropical disturbance of 2011.

As a reminder that hurricane season is not that far away, an area of disturbed weather has formed in the Atlantic near 23N, 80W, about 700 miles northeast of Puerto Rico. This system is under a hefty 60 knots of wind shear, but does have a surface circulation. The disturbance's heavy thunderstorm activity has been removed well to the northeast of the surface circulation center by the high wind shear. The storm is expected to move northwest into a region of lower wind shear on Thursday and Friday, and should begin building more heavy thunderstorms during the next three days. The storm is not a threat to any land areas, and will likely be ripped apart by high wind shear this weekend. It has perhaps a 10% chance of becoming a subtropical depression before then. Climatology argues against this storm becoming the first named storm of the year; there has only been once named April storm in the Atlantic since 1851, Tropical Storm Ana of 2003.