{"id":6036,"date":"2012-08-02T11:01:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T15:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=6036"},"modified":"2012-08-03T11:07:06","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T15:07:06","slug":"rosss-almanac-for-august-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2012\/08\/rosss-almanac-for-august-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"ROSS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ALMANAC for August 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Compiled by Kirk Ross<\/strong><br \/>\n<br \/>\nThis has been quite a summer so far. July 2012 will be remembered as among the driest \u00e2\u20ac\u201c number five on the all-time list for the United States. It was also a reminder that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably time I dropped my annoying custom of refusing to use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d until August. June and July were plenty hot, especially that string of days above 100. If the climate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to change, I might as well too.<\/p>\n<p>As extreme as the heat has been, the tropics have been fairly calm. You may recall that the season began with a couple of named storms before hurricane season officially started. Since then, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been quiet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c too quiet.<\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some indication that the season will start to busy up a bit. Texas, the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi Valley sure could use a soaker. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not quite as dry, but a little light tropical relief would certainly be welcome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>August<\/strong> is one of those months in which the extent of daylight changes at quick pace. We lose almost a full hour over the course of the month.<\/p>\n<p>Aug. 1 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sunrise: 6:24 a.m.; Sunset: 8:21 p.m.<br \/>\nAug. 31 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sunrise: 6:48 a.m.; Sunset: 7:45 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Full Moon \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aug. 1  Last Quarter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aug. 9<br \/>\nNew Moon \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aug. 17  First Quarter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aug. 24<br \/>\nFull Moon \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aug. 31<\/p>\n<p>The full moon in <strong>August<\/strong> is the Red Moon, Green Corn Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Grain Moon, Lightning Moon and Dog Moon<\/p>\n<p><strong>Planets &#038; Stars<\/strong><br \/>\nOver the month, three bright objects \u00e2\u20ac\u201c <strong>Saturn<\/strong>, <strong>Mars<\/strong> and <strong>Spica<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c slowly converge and then diverge low in the early-evening western sky. Look for Saturn about 5 degrees (half the width of a fist held at arm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s length) above Spica, a bright bluish-white star. Mars lies to the right (west) of Saturn and Spica until nearly mid-month, when Mars passes in between them, heading to the left (east). <strong>Jupiter<\/strong> and <strong>Venus<\/strong> dominate the eastern morning sky; Venus is the brighter and lower of the two planets. At mid-month Mercury pops up in the eastern morning twilight.<br \/>\n<em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAmy Sayle, Morehead Planetarium and Science Center<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Significant dates<\/strong><br \/>\nAugust is Water Quality Month, Catfish Month, Peach Month and National Picnic Month.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Aug. 3 is National Watermelon Day<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 U.S. Coast Guard Day and National Mustard Day are on Aug. 4<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Left Hand Day is Aug. 13<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 National Creamsicle Day is Aug. 14<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 National Bad Poetry Day is Aug. 18<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Kiss and Make Up Day is Aug. 25<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 National Dog Day is Aug. 26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Compiled by Kirk Ross This has been quite a summer so far. July 2012 will be remembered as among the driest \u00e2\u20ac\u201c number five on the all-time list for the United States. It was also a reminder that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably time I dropped my annoying custom of refusing to use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d until August. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[323],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-almanac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6037,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6036\/revisions\/6037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}