Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 6:58 PM for 12h 20m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 11.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1927, the Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air.
There’s some good agricultural news despite an ongoing Wisconsin drought. Hope Kirwan reports Wisconsin apple, grape growers report ‘beautiful’ crop this fall despite ongoing drought (‘Irrigation systems helped many fruit producers make up for lack of rainfall this summer’):
While the drought caused concern for field crop growers, Wisconsin fruit producers say the dry weather was actually a good thing for many trees and vines.
[Manager of Sunrise Orchards in Gays Mills, Sandy] Jeffers said they had a large enough harvest to be able to sell to other orchards in the area that were more affected by the drought. Thanks to irrigation, their fruit was the usual size. But she said the apples would have been smaller than most consumers want if they did not have constant watering.
She said harvest has been slightly earlier than normal for most varieties. But local customers have also been seeking out their apples and other products earlier than usual.
“They’re ready to move on to the next season,” she said. “It’s a little bit cooler. I’ve had a few phone calls already asking me if the trees have started changing colors yet.”
Bill Roethle, owner of Hillside Apples in Door County, said his apple trees had a great bloom this spring, with pollination lasting much longer than usual at his orchard. He said that means each tree has plenty of apples, and cool weather at night has helped the fruit reach its final stages.
“It looks like the color, the red in the apples, is coming on very well,” he said. “Some years, it just doesn’t come. Some years it comes easy.”
Massive filament eruption on Sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory: