July 18, 2010 - Hot Spot
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

About a month ago, the Earth in its travels through space reached a position relative to the sun that allowed the Northern Hemisphere to begin a time when the sun climbed higher in the sky and took longer to travel from sunrise to sunset. This also allowed for a more direct heating of our part of Earth. With more intense energy heating both land and water, temperatures in the northern hemisphere have continued to rise little by little. We have reached what is typically the hottest days of summer. From now through July 29th we normally experience the hottest temperatures of the year. After that date, the Earth begins a slow cooling process that takes us inevitably toward winter. This cooling is never a smooth process. There are spikes of warmer temperatures in what is typically a bumpy ride through the annual cycle of weather.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.