Venus and the Moon

This evening and tomorrow evening at dusk, look toward the southwestern part of the sky for a lovely crescent Moon and the brilliant planet Venus.

Now gleaming at magnitude minus 4, Venus has ascended dramatically higher this month and now sets about three hours after the Sun.

No other star of planet can come close to matching Venus in brilliance.  In the image above -- from last night -- Venus is in the far top left of the image while the moon is near the horizon.  Venus is so bright that during World War II, aircraft spotters sometimes mistook Venus for an enemy airplane, even calling for antiaircraft fire.

In some parts of the northern hemisphere stepping outside to view Venus can be a frosty experience.  That is not the case in Florida this January where high temperatures have again topped 80° F (27° C) this morning.

Southeast breezes and high pressure continue across the Florida peninsula bringing temperatures at least 10° F (+5° C) above normal.  There exists only a slight chance of brief showers along the Martin and St. Lucie County Coasts, south of Cape Canaveral.

Dense fog mixed with smoke from wildfires continues to form, nightly.  The high pressure ridge axis over north-central Florida is producing light winds at night.  That, coupled with increasing moisture results in conditions favorable for late night and early morning fog along the central peninsula.

The fog generally burns off by 9:00 in the mornings.

Slightly cooler weather is forecast for the weekend -- though it will remain unseasonably warm. and very dry.  An arctic cold front will push into the northern Plains on Friday and will spread southeast. . . reaching the east coast on Sunday. . . but the cold air will largely bypass the Florida peninsula.

Drought conditions over Florida are now rated as abnormally dry to extreme.  In east central Florida we've had no measurable rain for the past 6 weeks.  These conditions are predicted to worsen through the spring as a moderate to strong La Niña event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean continues to influence our weather.

Above:  Precipitation probability forecast through April 2012.  Brown colors indicate below

normal precipitation forecast.