# What's your Christmas weather forecast?



## ZEROPILOT (Dec 24, 2021)

Here it's clear with a high of 81
Not very Christmassy


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## jaizei (Dec 24, 2021)

74 today, 83 tomorrow


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## TeamZissou (Dec 24, 2021)

Came to St. Augustine for Xmas. Should be about 75 tomorrow.

Went down to the beach today and spotted a gopher tortoise burrow, and luckily a juvenile occupant was warming his backside. He eventually heard me and darted back inside. He was gone in a blink. Hoping to spot another on this trip.

The photo is a bit blurry since the camera focused on the grass:


Merry Christmas!


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## mark1 (Dec 24, 2021)

56 christmas day ...... the weather been great for my electric bill ........ some of these turtles are looking like they think winter might be over .....


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## Yvonne G (Dec 24, 2021)

52°F and rainy (Central Calif, Clovis)


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 24, 2021)

TeamZissou said:


> Came to St. Augustine for Xmas. Should be about 75 tomorrow.
> 
> Went down to the beach today and spotted a gopher tortoise burrow, and luckily a juvenile occupant was warming his backside. He eventually heard me and darted back inside. He was gone in a blink. Hoping to spot another on this trip.
> 
> ...


You're in the right spot.
Sandy scrub areas.


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## jsheffield (Dec 24, 2021)

Jamie


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## Ink (Dec 24, 2021)

I think here it's going to be mid 60's. Nice.


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## Toddrickfl1 (Dec 24, 2021)

Suppose to hit 70 here and be the warmest Christmas we've had in a while.


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## Maggie3fan (Dec 24, 2021)

We have been in the low 30's with heavy rain all day...it's supposed to start snowing around midnight tonight and continue until next Wednesday. My house is full of animals and food...I'm ready....


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 24, 2021)

maggie3fan said:


> We have been in the low 30's with heavy rain all day...it's supposed to start snowing around midnight tonight and continue until next Wednesday. My house is full of animals and food...I'm ready....


Too cool.


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 24, 2021)

jsheffield said:


> View attachment 337997
> 
> 
> Jamie


I've never had a white Christmas.
Back in South Carolina it never seemed to snow until late in January. And even then it wasn't much


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## TaylorTortoise (Dec 25, 2021)

40s going up to 52 during the day


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## TaylorTortoise (Dec 25, 2021)

Merry Christmas everyone!!


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## Tom (Dec 25, 2021)

Its been dismal here for over a week now, and looks to continue. Daytime highs only reaching the 50s and overnight lows in the 30s. We've hit freezing a couple of times already. We usually have a few days like this once in a while over winter as our winter rain storms blow through, but this has been dragging on for far too long. Its making me miserable. Definitely NOT good tortoise weather.


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 25, 2021)

Tom said:


> Its been dismal here for over a week now, and looks to continue. Daytime highs only reaching the 50s and overnight lows in the 30s. We've hit freezing a couple of times already. We usually have a few days like this once in a while over winter as our winter rain storms blow through, but this has been dragging on for far too long. Its making me miserable. Definitely NOT good tortoise weather.


No. Not at all. But Merry Christmas


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## TheLastGreen (Dec 25, 2021)

A nice 27C (81F) and sunny, UV is high above 11. A massive rain storm just swept over the sky and it looks a dark blue, rain or hail is coming. A few hours later, and it's raining, merry christmas!


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## Gillian M (Dec 25, 2021)

TaylorTortoise said:


> Merry Christmas everyone!!


Merry Xmas.


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## Gillian M (Dec 25, 2021)

Terribly cold weather here in Jordan. Temperature dropped to only four degrees C (about 39 degrees Fahrenheit), with lots of rain. It even snowed in some parts of the Kingdom.


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## TeamZissou (Dec 25, 2021)

Had a much better day tort spotting by the beach. Saw this adult perched outside a burrow on a dune:











Then, I saw another youngster tooling around the dune. This one was probably about 6”. Both were less than 100 feet away from the burrow from yesterday.


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## Yvonne G (Dec 25, 2021)

TeamZissou said:


> Had a much better day tort spotting by the beach. Saw this adult perched outside a burrow on a dune:
> 
> View attachment 338017
> 
> ...


Great pictures. The sand seems to not bother them at all.


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 25, 2021)

Yvonne G said:


> Great pictures. The sand seems to not bother them at all.


You usually ONLY find Florida Gopher tortoises in sandy areas.
Scrub brush areas with sun.


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## Maro2Bear (Dec 25, 2021)

A balmy, overcast 63F (17C) here in Maryland. We really could use some rain as its been uncharacteristically dry for a good month.


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## Tom (Dec 25, 2021)

TheLastGreen said:


> A nice 27C (81F) and sunny, UV is high above 11. A massive rain storm just swept over the sky and it looks a dark blue, rain or hail is coming. A few hours later, and it's raining, merry christmas!


UV index of 11? What are you measuring that with? Mid day summer sun here is UVI 7-8 with a Solarmeter 6.5. I've never seen 11.


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## TaylorTortoise (Dec 25, 2021)

TeamZissou said:


> Had a much better day tort spotting by the beach. Saw this adult perched outside a burrow on a dune:
> 
> View attachment 338017
> 
> ...


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## TheLastGreen (Dec 25, 2021)

@Tom I use a weather app, the predicted UV was 8-10, but it reached 15. You can't be longer tham a few minutes outside or you'll get burnt


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## Tom (Dec 25, 2021)

TheLastGreen said:


> @Tom I use a weather app, the predicted UV was 8-10, but it reached 15. You can't be longer tham a few minutes outside or you'll get burnt
> View attachment 338030


This must be a different scale than what we are using with our Solarmeter 6.5s.

@Markw84 can you shed some light?


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## Maro2Bear (Dec 26, 2021)

Our UV index here on a dark, dreary Wintry Maryland day is just less than 3.0









Glenn Dale UV Index, MD 20706 - WillyWeather


Glenn Dale UV Index updated daily. Detailed UV forecast charts, with today's UV radiation in real-time




uv.willyweather.com





The UV index


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## Markw84 (Dec 26, 2021)

Tom said:


> This must be a different scale than what we are using with our Solarmeter 6.5s.
> 
> @Markw84 can you shed some light?


Really don't know. I do know my weather station here always shows a UVI way higher than my solarmeter reads. But that's a moderate priced home weather station. I wouldn't expect the "official" weather stations to give such a high UVI reading if they have state-of-art technology. The less expensive UVI readers do read all UV, including UVA - which is a much greater component of sunlight. Those types, typically read much higher than a solarmeter.


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## Tom (Dec 26, 2021)

Maro2Bear said:


> Our UV index here on a dark, dreary Wintry Maryland day is just less than 3.0
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I just looked up mine on this same site. Willy weather. It says my high UVI today got up to 2.8 and that right now it is 1.8. The highest reading I can get on my Solarmeter 6.5 in full direct sun with the lens pointed right at the sun is a 1.0, and it took a bit of trying to aim it just right to get that. It was mostly 0.8 or 0.9.




I then took the Solarmeter inside and put it under my Arcadia 12% HO bulb and I was able to get up to 5.2.



Just by dumb luck, the timer for my UV tube kicked off while I was sitting there trying to get this pic, and the meter immediately dropped to 0.0.

So Mark, and @Markw84 , do our 6.5 Solarmeters just give a particularly low reading? If yes, have we been exposing our tortoises to too much UV? My highest outdoor UV readings in direct sun mid day in summer are only 7.9-8.0 on my meter. But parts of South Africa are 13-15? That seems like our Solarmeters must be using some sort of different calibration or scale than the UVI readers being used by these sources. Which one is correct? Which one should we go by?


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## Yvonne G (Dec 26, 2021)

Sounds to me like someone who understands these things should contact the makers of the meter and ask to speak with their science guy.


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## Cathie G (Dec 26, 2021)

Well... Ohio came close to breaking a record for the warmest Christmas on record but was one of the top five contenders. I had a pond in the back yard yesterday. If it was cold I can't imagine how deep the snow would have been ? what's the general rule 1 inch of rain to 10 inches of snow? Thank the good Lord we're only at the edge of the flood plane.


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## Maggie3fan (Dec 26, 2021)

Tom said:


> This must be a different scale than what we are using with our Solarmeter 6.5s.
> 
> @Markw84 can you shed some light?


(play on words?)


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## Maro2Bear (Dec 26, 2021)

maggie3fan said:


> (play on words?)



Very enLIGHTening, isn't it.


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## Markw84 (Dec 26, 2021)

I have talked to the guys at Solarmeter several times before. The difference is the algorithm to weight the reading to the erythemal UV, not the whole UV. In sunlight, there is a lot of UVA that is not in the erythemal action spectrum and that will give a much higher reading if there is not a filter to just read the UVB range we are interested in. That's one of the main reasons a solarmeter is much more expensive than other UVI readers you see marketed.

In coming up with the ferguson zones and the data used by Fracis Baines in all her reports, the solarmeter 6.5 was used. That is the standard used for all recommendations. She even just finished her "solstice day" where she asks everyone with a solarmeter 6.5 to take readings from wherever they are in the world on the winter solstice. She has a collection site for all the data and uses that to compare readings from around the world. She does the same thing for our summer soltice in June.

Trust the Solarmeter 6.5 reading. The other readings you will se can be all over the place. I even had them recalibrate my meter at Solarmeter a year ago or so - just to be sure what I'm seeing is correct. It came back matching all the reading I had been recording.


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## Cathie G (Dec 27, 2021)

Ok it's December 27 and 66f at 5:30pm outside. Whhaatt! I'm not crazy about snow and ice but this just isn't right. I live in Ohio.??


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## ZEROPILOT (Dec 27, 2021)

Markw84 said:


> I have talked to the guys at Solarmeter several times before. The difference is the algorithm to weight the reading to the erythemal UV, not the whole UV. In sunlight, there is a lot of UVA that is not in the erythemal action spectrum and that will give a much higher reading if there is not a filter to just read the UVB range we are interested in. That's one of the main reasons a solarmeter is much more expensive than other UVI readers you see marketed.
> 
> In coming up with the ferguson zones and the data used by Fracis Baines in all her reports, the solarmeter 6.5 was used. That is the standard used for all recommendations. She even just finished her "solstice day" where she asks everyone with a solarmeter 6.5 to take readings from wherever they are in the world on the winter solstice. She has a collection site for all the data and uses that to compare readings from around the world. She does the same thing for our summer soltice in June.
> 
> Trust the Solarmeter 6.5 reading. The other readings you will se can be all over the place. I even had them recalibrate my meter at Solarmeter a year ago or so - just to be sure what I'm seeing is correct. It came back matching all the reading I had been recording.


Thank you for your thorough explanations about lighting products!


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